Defend America — Save the Democratic Party, Defeat Abdul El-Sayed

Abdul el-Sayed eked out a narrow victory over Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Senate Democratic Primary (48.5% to 47.5%).

Haley Stevens, as a past and future politician, accepted the results and said that she would support El-Sayed. That acceptance response is the strict rule in party contests.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who supported Haley Stevens and raised money for her, said he would support el-Sayed. That is his primary obligation as Senate Minority Leader seeking to win a Democratic Senate majority.

Jewish voters have a different set of interests and should respond differently. To protect their interests and values, the top priority is to defeat El-Sayed in the general election – preferably by the largest margin possible.

Abdul El-Sayed is not just a candidate with different policy priorities whom one accepts after the fact. He could have presented as a critic of Israel. That is legitimate even when it is wrong. He made clear that he denies Israel’s right to exist. He does not recognize Israel’s legitimacy as a state because it is a Jewish state. He has no problem with eight countries that define themselves as Islamic or the additional 20 countries in which Islam is the official state religion – although there is outright discrimination against non-Muslims in most of them. To rephrase his views, only the  Jews are not entitled to have a state where they are the majority, exercising sovereignty. This denial unmasks him as an out-and-out antisemite. To confirm who he is, El-Sayed doubled down in his first post-primary interview on CNN alleging that Israel is a “bloodthirsty” state – a blatant evocation of the antisemitic trope that Jews take the blood of non-Jewish children and use them for their Satanic purposes.

El-Sayed also hates America – which with all its flaws is still the greatest democracy in the world. In private tapes he expressed identification with and sorrow at the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – a dictatorial theocrat who fiercely hated America and called it “the Great Satan” (and Israel “the Little Satan”). He led his people in chants of “Death to America (and “Death to Israel”). Khamenei ordered the slaughter of 20-30,000 Iranians in one day for daring to protest against his abusive government.    

El-Sayed chose to campaign with Hasan Piker and endorsed his views. Piker says that America is the worst imperialist power in the world and that it “deserved” to be attacked on 9/11. He identified with Mao Zedong, the greatest mass murderer (in the name of Socialism and equality) of the 20th century. Piker says that Hamas’ terrorist regime is 1,000 times better than Israel. We Jews – as do most Americans – love America which has treated Jews with respect and equality more than any other country in the course of over 2,000 years of exile.

That El-Sayed does not share American values is also expressed in his policies embraced as a Democratic Socialist (although soft pedaled during his campaign) i.e.,to defund the police and to close the prisons.

It is crucial that El-Sayed be defeated so the Democratic Party will understand that being taken over by such extremists is the road to electoral oblivion. The party is tempted by antiestablishment forces to normalize anti-Americanism, antisemitism and anticapitalism but these policies would be disastrous for America. The American majority will reject such a Democratic Party. We can save the party from being taken over by voting against  an extremist like El-Sayed.

If there are 100,000 Jewish voters in Michigan, the goal should be to get 90,000 to vote for Rogers, the Republican candidate. Active fundraising and campaigning to defeat Sayed is also a great mitzvah. Admittedly for the 70% of Jewish voters who vote the Democratic Party religiously, it is no small request to vote for a Republican.But in Michigan this year, there is a rare opportunity to defend the country from  un-American policies and to save the Democratic Party for moderate, patriotic policies and for a foreign policy that aids democracies everywhere.

Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg is an important Jewish thinker and long time community activist who is Senior Scholar in Residence at Hadar Institute of New York and Jerusalem. The views expressed in this piece are personal and do not reflect those of any institutional affiliation.