Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told a group of Jewish voters at a Detroit synagogue in 2018 that he views the Israeli military "the same way" that he views Hamas, according to video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The left-wing Democrat, speaking at the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in Detroit, offered those thoughts during his failed 2018 gubernatorial campaign when asked about a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
El-Sayed responded with a lengthy sermon about his "values" and "standing up for truth and international law" on "both sides" of the Middle East debate.
"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 the time, Hamas had for decades been behind terror attacks against Israelis, including many deadly suicide bombings and other murders that targeted children and teens.
El-Sayed told the congregants eight years ago that, as he was running for governor, there would be "very little" he could do about the Israel-Palestinian issue. But now he is running for Senate and is reportedly angling for a spot on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The 2018 video emerges as El-Sayed faces scrutiny over his family's purported ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that spawned Hamas in Gaza in the 1980s. Eman Abdelhadi, El-Sayed's half-sister with whom he has been close, has stated that their mother and relatives in Egypt have "long been" members of the organization. Abdelhadi has stated that Palestinians have "a right to violent resistance," and she rebuked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), a staunch El-Sayed ally, as a "disappointment" after he condemned the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
El-Sayed, who ran heavily against the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC in the Democratic primary, has sought to win back historically Democratic Jewish voters who soured on the candidate over his hostility towards Israel.
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D., Mich.) has withheld an endorsement from El-Sayed over his remarks about Israel and his affiliation with Hasan Piker, the socialist influencer who said that "America deserved 9/11" and that Israel is "much worse" than Hamas. State senator Jeremy Moss, a Jewish Democrat, withheld his endorsement from El-Sayed in August after the candidate refused to condemn Piker over the influencer's antisemitic remarks.
State representative Noah Arbit (D.) said he will not back El-Sayed because it is "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 has a lengthy track record of equating Israel with America's adversaries.
At last week's debate against Republican Mike Rogers, El-Sayed sidestepped a question about whether Israel or Iran is a greater threat to America.
"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."
El-Sayed's remarks are in contrast with those of another Michigan Democrat. Pete Buttigieg, considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, told Fox News in response to El-Sayed's remarks that "Iran is our enemy, Israel is not, they're an ally."
El-Sayed, who has declined to say whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, has tried to repair his rocky relationship with Jewish Democrats. He met with Jewish leaders in August and apologized for his remarks after a Hezbollah-inspired attack on Temple Israel outside Detroit on March 12. The assailant, Ayman Ghazali, attacked the synagogue in retaliation for Israel's killing of his brothers, both of whom were members of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. At the time, El-Sayed stated of the attacker, "Hurt people hurt people."
"I made a mistake" with that remark, El-Sayed told members of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus in August. "I should have issued a statement, of course condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop."
El-Sayed also faced heat at last week's debate for failing to issue a statement on the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks. He said he did not want to take advantage of the anniversary for political purposes.
But El-Sayed issued a statement on the second anniversary of the attack that equated Hamas and Israel. He also sent out a fundraising email that referenced the attack but only mentioned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an aggressor, with no mention of Hamas.
El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Update 2:42 p.m.: A previous version of this piece stated that Rep. Hillary Scholten is Jewish. She is not.
