Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed says Israel is as evil as Hamas
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Abdul El-Sayed, the Muslim Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, insisted Sunday that Israel is “as bad as the terrorist organization Hamas.”
“You said the Israeli government is bad, do you think they are as bad as Hamas?” CNN’s Manu Raju asked El-Sayed about “Domestic Politics.”
“Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you a pretty bad person,” El-Sayed replied. “This isn’t so bad versus Hamas: Bad, Israeli government: Bad. We can say both.”
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Abdul El-Saed attended the Detroit Association of Black Organizations (DABO) Christmas Party 2025 at the Bridge Center in Detroit, Michigan on December 16, 2025. (Monica Morgan/Getty Images)
El-Sayed added that he “absolutely” considers Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal for his actions during Israel’s war with Hamas.
“When you commit genocide, you become a war criminal,” El-Sayed said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment.
El-Sayed, who is currently running in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat in the 2026 midterm elections, has faced controversy in recent weeks as some of his old comments have resurfaced.
In July 2025, El-Sayed suggested at a town hall that political leaders needed to do a better job of “understanding” the motivation behind terrorists.
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Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has previously suggested efforts should be made to “understand” terrorist motivations. (Evan Cobb of The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“I also think we need to wonder why these events are happening. [what] It “pushes someone to commit such a heinous act,” El-Sayed said. “I need to be a student of people’s pain. For example, I did this in medicine. I try to do this in politics. For example, what happens when people suffer?”
He also faced backlash for campaigning with Hasan Piker, a far-left Twitch streamer who has made his share of incendiary comments over the years. Among these was Piker’s claim that Hamas was “a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state of Israel.”
He doubled down on the comparison during an episode of “Pod Save America.”
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Abdul El Sayed (left) advocated unity with Hasan Piker on the right. (Evan Cobb for the Washington Post via Getty Images; Dia Dipasupil/FilmMagic)
“I also said I was a harm reduction voter,” Piker said. “I’m a lesser bad voter, and so I always vote for Hamas over Israel because I look at it not as a completely foreign power that also has a political party, but as a paramilitary organization that has a political office of orphaned children whose parents were murdered by an apartheid state that has dominated the lives of Palestinians for 80 years, which has committed a genocide at this point.”
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El-Sayed defended establishing a relationship with Piker.
