Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, apologized on Aug. 29 for his response to the March 12 attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich.
The attacker, who rammed the synagogue with a car and shot at it, reportedly lost relatives in Israeli strikes in Lebanon. The IDF said that two of his brothers, who were killed in the strikes, were members of Hezbollah, which is a US-designated terrorist organization.
El-Sayed decried the attack at the time and said that “violence is a cycle” and that “hurt people hurt people,” CNN reported.
“My comments might have been misconstrued to be justifying something I did not intend to justify,” El-Sayed told reporters, according to the outlet.
“To anybody who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”
“We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright,” he said, according to CNN. “What I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened, but it wasn’t the time for context, and you don’t ever want to trample somebody’s pain.”
CNN reported that “notably absent from El-Sayed’s remarks onstage Saturday was an attack on one of his most frequent targets during the primary: AIPAC” and that “he pointed to more than $60 million spent against him during that race, but did not mention the group responsible for that spending by name.”
El-Sayed’s Republican opponents, Mike Rogers, stated that “after relying on his long-held anti-Semitic beliefs to win the primary, Abdul El-Sayed is trying to con Michiganders into thinking his beliefs have changed.”
“Let me be clear: they have not. Abdul has had six months to apologize for his incredibly horrific remarks regarding the Temple Israel attack.
“Instead, he chose to surround himself with terrorist sympathizers and some of the most notable anti-Semites in the country. It’s too little, too late, Abdul. Michiganders see you for exactly who you are: A con man.”
