Democratic AG Warns El-Sayed Is Making ‘Excuses’ For Domestic Terrorism

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is escalating her criticism of the Democratic Party’s handling of antisemitism, warning that the party has become increasingly hostile to Jewish Americans and expressing concern that U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has never withdrawn comments she says appeared to rationalize an attempted attack on a Michigan synagogue.

Nessel, a Jewish Democrat who previously announced that she would skip the Michigan Democratic Party’s upcoming state convention because she feared being harassed, discussed her concerns Wednesday on The Atlantic’s “The David Frum Show.”

“I began to perceive an enormous amount of antisemitism within the Democratic Party,” Nessel told host David Frum, saying the problem had intensified following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Nessel said she has faced antisemitic death threats since taking office, but that the nature of the hostility changed after October 7.

“I would say mentally unstable people on the far Right that were threatening me or other Jews, but now it became really a both-sides situation,” she said.

The comments come as Michigan Democrats remain divided over El-Sayed, a left-wing Senate candidate who defeated Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the Democratic primary and is now the party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate seat.

Nessel specifically pointed to El-Sayed’s response to the March 12 attempted attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, a synagogue with a large preschool where approximately 140 children were present.

El-Sayed initially condemned the attack, saying there was “no room for antisemitism in America.” But in a video released the following day, he went further, linking the attempted attack to the deaths of the gunman’s relatives in joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes.

“A week earlier, an airstrike killed [the gunman’s] niece and nephew,” El-Sayed said. “Imagine if that had never happened. Imagine there was no war in Iran. Imagine if there were no airstrikes in Lebanon.”

He then said Americans could “and must” condemn both the attack on Temple Israel and U.S. military action overseas. Nessel said she believes that framing amounted to an unacceptable attempt to contextualize or excuse domestic terrorism.

“I don’t think we should ever be making those kinds of excuses,” Nessel said. “And in a way, propping up people who maybe seek to commit those crimes.”

Nessel said she believes El-Sayed privately regrets the remarks after meetings with Jewish elected officials and members of Michigan’s Jewish Democratic caucus. But she said that, nearly six months later, he has still not publicly withdrawn the comments. “He still has not withdrawn those statements and said, ‘I misspoke,’ or, ‘I now recognize the harm that I caused by making those statements,’” Nessel said. “And it has me concerned that he really stands by them.”

Nessel said she has increasingly encountered what she views as a fundamental misunderstanding of Judaism, Israel, and the relationship between Jews around the world and the Jewish state.

“I think that’s really caused a rise in, again, they would call it anti-Zionism, but I call it antisemitism,” she said.

Her concerns have already prompted Nessel to take the unusual step of skipping her own party’s state convention. Nessel announced last month that she would not attend the August 29 Michigan Democratic Party convention in Lansing because she believed she would be heckled or booed.

“I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome,” Nessel said at the time. “I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage.”

She said she believed that would happen because “it’s been happening to me.”

El-Sayed has embraced prominent anti-Israel activists during his campaign, including appearing with leftist streamer Hasan Piker. Former Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow, another prominent Michigan Democrat, has also acknowledged antisemitism within the party. McMorrow said earlier this year that an attendee at the Michigan Democratic Party’s onvention directed an antisemitic slur at her Jewish husband while he was walking with their young daughter.

El-Sayed has rejected the notion that criticism of his Israel policies is evidence of antisemitism, arguing that antisemitism and Islamophobia are both manifestations of what he called “the scourge of white supremacy.” Nessel’s warning comes less than three days before Michigan Democrats are scheduled to gather in Lansing, where Nessel herself will be absent because she fears the reaction of fellow Democrats.

“I still — I leave hope for the fact that Abdul will have heard what many of us have said about why we’re very upset about those remarks,” Nessel said. “And that he will seek to, I don’t want to say clarify, but at least to withdraw those earlier remarks.”

“He still hasn’t done it,” she added. “But I hope that we’ll hear more from him about this soon.”