Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on his anti-Israel rhetoric on Monday, claiming that Israel is not the US’s friend in an interview with ABC News.
“An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally,” he answered after being asked if he considered Israel to be an American ally.
El-Sayed compared 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.”
'Time to realize Israel is actually not our friend,' El-Sayed says
“What would you tell your kid?” he asked the reporter. “You’d probably tell them, ‘Maybe that’s not actually your friend.’”
“I think it’s time for us to realize that Israel is actually not our friend,” he concluded.
The democrat’s comments come following the latest accusations that his sister-in-law, Miriam Jukaku, was involved in a federal terrorist watchlist lawsuit during the Obama administration.
El-Sayed brushed off the claims, telling Fox that she had done nothing wrong and alluding to Islamophobia as the cause for 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.
The candidate also came under scrutiny earlier this month for his family's purported ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
American Jews push back
Rabbis and other Jewish leaders have called on the Democratic Party to agree to a list of “nonnegotiable” principles for Jewish safety as concerns that El-Sayed’s anti-Israel stance would put Jews at risk increase ahead of the November midterm elections.
Frustrated with their options in the Michigan Senate race, students who identify as Democrats from the University of Michigan have recently joined the campaign as well.
Alex Carson and Maya Zanger-Shamir contributed to this report.