Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, said he is “deeply committed to the safety of the Jewish community” after apologizing for past comments linking a terrorist attack on a synagogue earlier this year to a greater cycle of violence.
“I felt the need to apologize, and apologize clearly and directly, for the pain that I might have caused,” El-Sayed said on the latest episode of the On NOTUS podcast. “We can disagree agreeably that my commitment to Palestinian self-determination does not come at the cost of Jewish safety, and where my words obfuscated that, I needed to correct that.”
Earlier this year, a man crashed a car into a synagogue in a Detroit suburb and began shooting, injuring a security guard, before being killed in a shoot-out. The attacker was identified as a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon who had lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike in his native country a week before.
In a video condemning the attack, El-Sayed said that “hurt people hurt people” and that “violence is a cycle.”
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El-Sayed told NOTUS that he apologized for that statement, as it may have unintentionally seemed like he was justifying the attack.
“I wanted to make sure that folks understood that the attempt to offer a broader context in a moment so close to an attack like that was ill-timed, it was ill-suited for for the broader goal I had, which is to say when a community is attacked, it’s wrong,” El-Sayed said. “There’s plenty of opportunity to talk about how things are interconnected, but not in the acute moment of pain.”
El-Sayed’s apology comes as he is trying to unite the party behind his campaign amid criticism for his association with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker.
“The reason I issued the apology wasn’t to score political points,” El-Sayed said. “The reason I issued an apology is because I don’t want to cause people pain.”
In an interview published in August with The Atlantic, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she was “concerned” that El-Sayed still stood by his comments on the synagogue attack.
“What does that mean for American Jews moving forward if you can rationalize what’s happening in a war in the Middle East on attacks on your own people here in the state of Michigan?” Nessel said.
El-Sayed told NOTUS that he has not talked to Nessel since his apology, but is looking forward to speaking with her.
Democrats, such as Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, have criticized El-Sayed over his views on the Israeli government, but El-Sayed said there is room for disagreement within the party.
“The Democratic Party, as we always say, is a big tent,” El-Sayed said. “I respect my fellow Democrats who deeply disagree with me on this issue, and it is on us to make that argument to voters, and voters are gonna decide who they want to nominate and who they want to elect accordingly.”
El-Sayed was targeted with millions in outside spending from the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee in his primary campaign against Rep. Haley Stevens, and said he expects more of the same in the general election against Republican nominee Mike Rogers.
“Mike Rogers is going to bring huge amounts of outside money, largely funded by exactly the same people who funded the outside spending against me in the primary,” El-Sayed said. “He is going to try to make this race about everything except for the fact that you can’t afford your groceries, you can’t afford your home, you’re worried about whether or not your kids are gonna get priced out of extracurricular activities like sports.”
Rogers has ramped up efforts to win over Jewish Democrats in the state, seizing on El-Sayed’s relationship with Piker and El-Sayed’s views on the Israeli government. El-Sayed, meanwhile, has been attacking Rogers regarding his relationship with President Donald Trump.
“I think Michiganders understand that [Rogers] is not a leader,” El-Sayed said. “He’s been a beta his whole life. He’s a guy who shows up to laugh extra loud at the alphas’ jokes. And that’s what he does with Donald Trump, right?”
On NOTUS is a weekly podcast where NOTUS reporters talk to lawmakers about their work in Washington and what motivates them. You can download or listen here.
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