Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed declared Monday that Israel should not be considered an ally of the United States, accusing the Jewish state of accepting American financial assistance while drawing Washington into military conflicts.
In an interview with ABC News, El-Sayed criticized the US-Israel relationship and questioned whether American support for Israel serves Washington's interests.
“An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn't be fighting is not an ally," he charged.
El-Sayed compared the relationship between the two countries to a friendship in which one person repeatedly takes advantage of another.
“If your kid has a friend who keeps bumming off their money, talks about them behind their back, and gets them into fights with other friends, what would you tell your kid? You’d probably tell them maybe it’s not actually your friend," he added.
The remarks are the latest in a series of statements by El-Sayed criticizing Israel and its military operations.
El-Sayed secured the Democratic nomination for Michigan's Senate race in August, narrowly defeating Representative Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel Democrat.
His positions on Israel have repeatedly drawn scrutiny throughout the campaign.
In a recent interview with MS NOW, El-Sayed described Israeli military operations as "bloodthirsty" and accused Israel's leadership of committing genocide.
During a separate interview with journalist Jim Acosta, he acknowledged that Hamas had committed war crimes but continued to make allegations against the Israeli government.
El-Sayed has also opposed unconditional American military assistance to Israel and has repeatedly declined to provide a direct answer when asked whether Israel has a right to exist.
In an interview before the election, he characterized Israel's leadership as "as evil as Hamas."
El-Sayed also faced criticism earlier this year over his response to an attack on Temple Israel, a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, near Detroit.
In March, Ayman Ghazali, a naturalized American citizen originally from Lebanon, drove a vehicle carrying explosives into the synagogue, according to authorities. The attack caused a fire, and Ghazali died at the scene.
Reports indicated that several members of Ghazali's family had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon approximately one week before the incident.
El-Sayed condemned both the synagogue attack and antisemitism. However, he also described the circumstances by saying that “violence is a cycle" and that “hurt people hurt people."
Those remarks prompted criticism, and in late August, El-Sayed apologized to the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus.