Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday he sees no difference between Israel’s government and the Hamas terrorist organization, because to him both are “evil."
El-Sayed, who was born in Michigan to parents from Egypt, is locked in a tight battle to win the open Senate seat in his home state.
“You said the Israeli government is evil, do you think they’re just as evil as Hamas?" Raju asked.
“Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil," El-Sayed answered. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one - Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both."
Raju then asked him if he believed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a “war criminal." El-Sayed did not hesitate in telling him “Absolutely."
“When you conduct a genocide, you’re a war criminal," he charged.
There is a glaring divide among voters and candidates in Michigan over Israel, especially in towns like Dearborn, which has one of the highest per capita rates of Muslims in the US, and in Oakland County, which has a big Jewish voting bloc.
El-Sayed jumped to the lead in the Democratic Party primary last week, narrowly overtaking state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-MI), according to a new Emerson poll of likely voters. He had 24% of voters backing him, just ahead of McMorrow’s 23.6%, while Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) landed in third with 13.4% of the vote.
The poll came shortly after El-Sayed had popular progressive streamer Hasan Piker as a special guest at one of his rallies. Piker has said America “deserved" the 9/11 attacks and more recently argued Hamas is the “lesser of two evils" compared to Israel.