Michigan AG says she fears candidate El-Sayed is rationalizing terrorism, Jewish voters are torn

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, says in an interview that she fears the state’s Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, is rationalizing terrorism and that the party is ostracizing Jews.

After a terrorist attempted an attack earlier this year against a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan — Nessel’s hometown — El-Sayed linked the attack to the conflict in Lebanon and said, “Hurt people hurt people.”

“A lot of us perceived that as sort of making excuses for someone that sought to murder over 100 pre-K schoolchildren and that’s the kind of mentality that bothers me a lot,” Nessel tells The Atlantic’s David Frum.

Nessel noted that El-Sayed had met with Jewish leaders, but had not walked back the comments and “it has me concerned that he really stands by them.”

“I don’t think we should ever be making those kinds of excuses and in a way propping up people who seek to commit these crimes,” Nessel says. “It possibly encourages other people to do the same. They want to be a hero too.”

Nessel says she has spoken to El-Sayed about the comments and holds out hope that he will retract the statements, but that he has exhibited “a real dearth of historical knowledge, political knowledge and religious knowledge” about Jews and Israel.

Nessel tells Frum that Jews in Michigan are torn in El-Sayed’s race against Republican Mike Rogers, which could determine control of the Senate.

“We absolutely don’t want Mike Rogers to win. We absolutely want a Democratic majority in the Senate,” she says. “But is Abdul going to spend six years railing against Israel irrespective of who the government is there?”

She says the concern is that the rhetoric is stoking antisemitism, and that she regularly receives antisemitic death threats from both the left and right.

Nessel has previously said she will not attend Michigan’s upcoming party nominating convention due to antisemitism.

She tells Frum that, for many Democrats, there are “good Jews” who are anti-Zionist, and “bad Jews” who believe in their connection to Israel. She adds that she believes the Republican Party is also unwelcome to Jews and she will not vote for Rogers.

“We have been an essential part of the fabric of the Democratic Party for a very, very long time. I would ask the leadership and members of this party to consider that before they do or say things that will force us to leave,” Nessel says. “I was Jewish before I was ever a member of the Democratic Party, and if I have to, I’ll be Jewish afterwards too.”