The left-wing candidate for Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, campaigned this week with a man running for the University of Michigan's board of regents who shared since-deleted X posts that celebrated late Hezbollah leaders as "martyr[s]" and called on the Iranian regime to "show no laxity" against Israel.
Amir Makled, a candidate for regent who introduced El-Sayed during a Senate campaign rally with pro-terrorist influencer Hasan Piker on Tuesday night, reposted a message from a Hezbollah fan account that called the terrorist group's slain former leader Hassan Nasrallah a "martyr" and mourned the death of Nasrallah's security chief, Abu al-Khalil, in an Israeli airstrike.
The Hezbollah fan account's post, which included an emoji of a broken heart, laments that "'Abu Ali Khalil,' the former aide to Hezbollah's Secretary-General Martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was martyred in an 'Israeli' strike in Tehran."
"May His Ascension rise High," the post, from last June, adds.
Makled reposted another post calling Khalil "a martyr on the road to Jerusalem" and referring to Nasrallah by the honorific "Sayed," which translates to "Master."
"Give our greetings to the Sayed," says the post. "A martyr on the road to Jerusalem, the armor of the Sayed. May god have mercy on your soul ya Abu Ali."
On the day Israel began its operation against the Islamic Republic last June, Makled retweeted a post from @IRIran_Military, a regime fan account, that called for Iran to "show no laxity in sacred war against the enemy."
"Never be the one to invite someone to fight (do not be the aggressor in war)," says the post, "but if someone calls you to battle, answer the call (and show no laxity in sacred war against the enemy), for the one who invites to fight is a tyrant—and a tyrant is always defeated."
In a deleted post from last July, Makled retweeted a meme that referred to Syrian president Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa as "Jewlani"—a play on his nickname "al-Julani"—and claimed he was controlled by Israel.
Makled has also reposted—and deleted—posts from podcaster and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens, including one in which Owens called Israelis "demons."
"These are not our friends or allies," Owens wrote. "These are demons and they are our enemies. They lie, steal, cheat, murder and blackmail."
Last June, he reposted another comment from Owens in which she claimed Israel had a "bloodlust like no other" and was "demonic."
Neither El-Sayed nor Makled responded to requests for comment.
Makled is seeking to unseat longtime regent Jordan Acker as the Democratic nominee for a seat on the University of Michigan board at the state party’s convention on April 19. The university's board of regents consists of eight members elected to serve eight-year terms by the entire state, and the winner of the nomination for Acker's seat will face the Michigan Republican Party's nominee on Election Day.
Anti-Israel activists have been fighting to oust Acker, a supporter of Israel whose home was the target of anti-Semitic vandalism in 2024. Makled is best known in the university community for representing Michigan students who faced criminal charges after participating in the university's illegal anti-Israel encampment in spring 2024.
The Tuesday night campaign event—where El-Sayed spoke alongside Piker, who has said that "America deserved 9/11" and that it "doesn't matter if rape happened on October 7"—came after a Washington Free Beacon report on a private campaign call the Senate candidate held one day after the death of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. El-Sayed said he wanted to avoid making a statement on Khamenei's assassination because many voters in Dearborn, Mich., were "sad."
El-Sayed has expressed radical views on other U.S. military engagements. He drew an equivalence between 9/11 and the U.S. response in since-deleted posts on X and in a 2021 op-ed, arguing that both were "perpetrated ignorantly" and driven by "tribalistic grievance," the Free Beacon reported in December. He also boasted in his 2020 memoir that, as a college athlete, he refused to face the American flag during the national anthem over his opposition to the Iraq war.
