Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told Jewish voters at a Detroit synagogue in 2018 that he viewed the Israeli military “the same way” he viewed Hamas. The comments appear in video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
El-Sayed, a left wing Democrat, spoke at the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue during his unsuccessful 2018 campaign for governor. A question about a two state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict prompted the remarks.
El-Sayed answered with an extended discussion of his “values” and the importance of “standing up for truth and international law” on “both sides” of the debate. He then directly compared his approach to Hamas with his criticism of the Israeli military.
“I’ve always said I’ll condemn Hamas and what they do in the same way that I’ll condemn some of the human rights abuses that we see on the part of the IDF,” El-Sayed said.
At that time, Hamas had already spent decades carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis. Those attacks included deadly suicide bombings and other murders targeting children and teenagers.
El-Sayed told the congregation eight years ago that a Michigan governor could do “very little” about the Israeli Palestinian issue. He is now seeking a Senate seat and is reportedly angling for a position on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The video surfaced while El-Sayed faces scrutiny concerning his family’s purported connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization that spawned Hamas in Gaza during the 1980s. His half sister, Eman Abdelhadi, has said their mother and relatives in Egypt have “long been” members of the organization.
Abdelhadi, with whom El-Sayed has been close, has also stated that Palestinians have “a right to violent resistance.” She called Sen. Bernie Sanders, a staunch El-Sayed ally, a “disappointment” after he condemned the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
El-Sayed campaigned heavily against the pro Israel advocacy organization AIPAC during the Democratic primary. He has since sought to regain support from historically Democratic Jewish voters who soured on his candidacy because of his hostility toward Israel.
Rep. Hillary Scholten has withheld her endorsement because of El-Sayed’s Israel remarks and his affiliation with socialist influencer Hasan Piker. Piker has said that “America deserved 9/11” and that Israel is “much worse” than Hamas.
State senator Jeremy Moss, a Jewish Democrat, also withheld his endorsement in August. Moss acted after El-Sayed refused to condemn Piker over the influencer’s antisemitic remarks.
State representative Noah Arbit offered a particularly blunt assessment of the campaign. Arbit said it was “very clear that the fulcrum of Abdul’s campaign was an antisemitic conspiracy about AIPAC being the No. 1 obstacle toward universal healthcare, better schools and better roads in Michigan and in America.”
El-Sayed’s record also includes comparisons between Israel and American adversaries. During last week’s debate with Republican Mike Rogers, El-Sayed avoided directly answering whether Israel or Iran presented the greater threat to the United States.
“I think both of them have proven dangerous in their own way,” El-Sayed said. “One at risk of attacking us. One getting us into wars we have no business fighting.”
Pete Buttigieg, another Michigan Democrat and a potential 2028 presidential candidate, rejected that framing during an appearance on Fox News. “Iran is our enemy, Israel is not, they’re an ally,” Buttigieg said.
El-Sayed has declined to say whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. In August, he met with Jewish leaders and apologized for his response to a Hezbollah inspired attack on Temple Israel outside Detroit on March 12.
The attacker, Ayman Ghazali, targeted the synagogue in retaliation for Israel’s killing of his brothers, who were Hezbollah members in southern Lebanon. El-Sayed initially said of Ghazali, “Hurt people hurt people.”
“I made a mistake” with that comment, El-Sayed told members of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus. “I should have issued a statement, of course condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop.”
El-Sayed also faced criticism during last week’s debate for not issuing a statement on the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks. He said he did not want to exploit the anniversary for political purposes.
On the second anniversary, however, El-Sayed released a statement equating Hamas and Israel. He also sent a fundraising email that referenced the attack but identified only Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an aggressor, without mentioning Hamas.
El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.