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Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has a message for American voters: Israel is not America’s friend, and apparently the best person to explain this is a candidate whose own political baggage keeps generating uncomfortable questions.
But he doesn't tend to answer questions himself. When asked at a town hall meeting whether he denounces Hamas, he did not give an emphatic "yes, I denounce Hamas," but instead said "yes, sure," and then began asking the questioner about his knowledge of the US Constitution [and 'yadda, yadda. squirrel, squirrel'].
In an interview with ABC News (D) on Monday, El-Sayed doubled down on his anti-Israel/anti-Semitic rhetoric, arguing that the Jewish state is not an ally of the United States. His evidence? An analogy involving a freeloading friend who steals money from your children and starts fights with the neighborhood.
“An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally,” he argued, leaving out the uncomfortable issue regarding the October 7, 2023 when Hamas massacred about 1,200 Israeli men, women, children and babies--what people with a functioning cortex would label genocide.
El-Sayed then expanded on his theory of international relations, comparing Israel to a friend who “keeps bumming off [your kids’ money] and then talks about them behind their back and gets them into fights with their other friends.” He evidently doesn't view Israel as a crucial Middle East ally. Perhaps he would like France in that role in the future once the Islamists and communists burn Paris down along with a bunch of other major French cities.
Apparently, decades of strategic cooperation, intelligence sharing, and regional security concerns can all be reduced to the sort of playground dispute normally settled by confiscating someone's lunch money.
“What would you tell your kid?” he asked the reporter. “You’d probably tell them, ‘Maybe that’s not actually your friend.’” Actually, for El Sayed, the Muslim Brotherhood is his friend but he won't admit it.
In an interview with ABC News (D) on Monday, El-Sayed doubled down on his anti-Israel/anti-Semitic rhetoric, arguing that the Jewish state is not an ally of the United States. His evidence? An analogy involving a freeloading friend who steals money from your children and starts fights with the neighborhood.
“An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally,” he argued, leaving out the uncomfortable issue regarding the October 7, 2023 when Hamas massacred about 1,200 Israeli men, women, children and babies--what people with a functioning cortex would label genocide.
El-Sayed then expanded on his theory of international relations, comparing Israel to a friend who “keeps bumming off [your kids’ money] and then talks about them behind their back and gets them into fights with their other friends.” He evidently doesn't view Israel as a crucial Middle East ally. Perhaps he would like France in that role in the future once the Islamists and communists burn Paris down along with a bunch of other major French cities.
Apparently, decades of strategic cooperation, intelligence sharing, and regional security concerns can all be reduced to the sort of playground dispute normally settled by confiscating someone's lunch money.
“What would you tell your kid?” he asked the reporter. “You’d probably tell them, ‘Maybe that’s not actually your friend.’” Actually, for El Sayed, the Muslim Brotherhood is his friend but he won't admit it.
“I think it’s time for us to realize that Israel is actually not our friend,” he concluded. 'Viva la France and burn baby burn,' his brain whispers.
The declaration offers Michigan voters a revealing preview of El-Sayed’s foreign policy priorities. Israel, a longstanding American ally, our best ally, is to be judged according to a schoolyard morality play, while the candidate delivering the lecture presumably expects voters to regard his own political associations and family controversies as matters requiring considerably more nuance.
The timing is also worth noting.
El-Sayed’s comments follow renewed accusations concerning his sister-in-law, Miriam Jukaku, who was reportedly involved in a federal terrorist watchlist lawsuit during the Obama administration. It's unknown as to whether she has a history of burning buildings in Paris or the USA, but she's what the kids call a jihadist.
El-Sayed dismissed the allegations when speaking to Fox News, insisting that she had done nothing wrong and suggesting that Islamophobia explained her designation.
"You've got this system where folks are guilty until proven innocent because they've got different kinds of names, because of the infrastructure that people like [Michigan Republican Senate candidate] Mike Rogers set up,” he said.
That is quite a defense of due process, although voters might reasonably wonder whether El-Sayed applies the same generous presumption of innocence when discussing America's allies. Israel, at least in his telling, appears to have been convicted without much of a trial.
The Democratic nominee has also faced scrutiny over alleged family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Those allegations have added another layer of controversy to a campaign already marked by his increasingly hostile rhetoric toward Israel.
El-Sayed's remarks have not gone unnoticed among American Jewish leaders, some of whom are increasingly concerned about what his political ascent could mean for Jewish communities in Michigan and beyond.
Rabbis and other Jewish leaders have called on the Democratic Party to adopt a list of “nonnegotiable” principles for Jewish safety ahead of the November midterm elections. Their concerns reflect growing unease over whether a party that has historically enjoyed substantial support from Jewish voters is prepared to confront the consequences of its own anti-Israel rhetoric. Lately, of course, the Democratic Party has voiced enough anti-Israel/anti-Semitic rhetoric to make a skinhead blush.
Meanwhile, the Michigan Senate race has left some Democratic voters searching for alternatives. Students who identify as Democrats at the University of Michigan have recently joined the campaign as well, apparently hoping to influence a contest that has become increasingly uncomfortable for voters who support their party but remain unwilling to accept its hostility toward Israel without question.
For El-Sayed, the strategy seems straightforward: portray Israel as the troublesome friend, suggest that American taxpayers are being taken advantage of, and invite voters to reconsider a relationship that has endured across multiple administrations.
Whether Michigan voters find that argument persuasive remains to be seen. But El-Sayed has made one thing clear: if elected to the Senate, he intends to bring a rather different understanding of America's alliances to Washington, one in which a longtime democratic partner is cast as the neighborhood bully and the candidate making the accusation expects to be taken seriously as a judge of international character.
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