Abdul El-Sayed’s Push to Reconcile with Jewish Democrats Amid Controversy

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed spent the weekend of the state party convention meeting individually with Jewish Democratic leaders and offering a public apology for remarks made after the March 2024 attack on the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township. The apology followed criticism that his comments—“violence is a cycle” and “hurt people hurt people”—might have been read as justifying the attack.

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The Temple Israel attack, in which a vehicle laden with explosives was driven into the synagogue, resulted in the death of the assailant, Ayman Ghazali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon who had lost family in an Israeli airstrike a week earlier. The incident intensified scrutiny of El-Sayed’s stance on Israel-related issues. During the primary, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and allied groups spent more than $60 million on ads opposing El-Sayed; later reports noted roughly $30 million of AIPAC-linked spending in the general-election race.

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State Attorney General Dana Nessel, who skipped the convention citing fears of harassment, had previously been a vocal critic of El-Sayed’s response to the synagogue attack.

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Representative Debbie Dingell dismissed the focus on streamer Hasan Piker, declaring, “This election is about what’s going to happen when we elect Abdul to the United States Senate. I am done, so don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker. It’s not what November is about.”

(The) Atlantic

• Over $60 million in AIPAC-linked advertising targeted El-Sayed in the primary.

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• About $30 million of similar spending appeared in the subsequent Senate race.

Politico

• El-Sayed defeated moderate Rep. Haley Stevens in the primary, a contest in which Stevens also faced tens of millions in AIPAC-related ads.

San Jose Mercury News

• The Michigan seat is open after Sen. Gary Peters’ retirement; Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to flip the chamber.

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• “I don’t ever want my comments to hurt anybody’s feelings. It’s important to me that people understand that I take seriously the pain of all communities in this state,” — Abdul El-Sayed

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• “We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright. What I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened, but it wasn’t the time for context. And you don’t ever want to trample somebody’s pain,” — Abdul El-Sayed

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• “That was the first time that I’ve heard him say it in that explicit way,” — Daniel Rivkin, University of Michigan communications staffer

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The Senate race heads to the November ballot, with the outcome poised to affect the broader fight for control of the U.S. Senate.

San Jose Mercury News