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increasingly hostile to Jewish Americans and expressing concern that U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has never withdrawn comments she says appeared to rationalize an attempted attack on a Michigan synagogue.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 she would skip the Michigan Democratic Party’s upcoming state convention because she feared being harassed, discussed her concerns Wednesday on “The David Frum Show.”
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From the Daily Wire:
“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.
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.
The comments come as Michigan Democrats remain divided over El-Sayed, a left-wing Senate candidate who defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary and is now the party’s nominee for the Senate seat. At issue is El-Sayed’s response to the March 12 attempted attack on Temple Israel. He initially condemned the attack, saying there was “no room for antisemitism in America,” but in a video released the following day he linked the attempted attack to the deaths of the gunman’s relatives in joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes.
“A week earlier, an airstrike killed his niece and nephew,” El-Sayed said. He then argued that 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 that nearly six months later he has still not publicly withdrawn them. “He still has not withdrawn those statements and said, ‘I misspoke,’ or, ‘I now recognize the harm that I caused by making those statements,” she said. “And it has me concerned that he really stands by them.”
Her concerns have already prompted Nessel to take the unusual step of skipping her own party’s state convention. She 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,” she said. “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.”
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.” Former Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow, another prominent Michigan Democrat, has also acknowledged antisemitism within the party, saying earlier this year that an attendee at the state convention directed an antisemitic slur at her Jewish husband.
God’s covenant with Abraham declared that He would bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse them, and Genesis 12:3 remains a sobering warning for any nation or political party that turns against the Jewish people. Antisemitism is not merely a political disagreement; it is a sin because it is a hatred toward a certain kind of people just because of their ethnicity. When this hatred is tolerated, rationalized, or given a platform in the name of political convenience, it reveals where hearts truly stand. Believers should pray for Michigan’s Jewish community, for Attorney General Nessel as she speaks out at significant personal cost, and for those who must decide whether to stand against antisemitism even when it costs them the support of their own party. Let us pray for truth to prevail, that leaders would recognize the difference between legitimate criticism of national policy and the hatred that targets a people, and that Americans would refuse to give ground to this ancient evil.
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Excerpt from the Daily Wire. Photo Credit: Conlan Houston – https://www.flickr.com/photos/197161005@N08/54881517527/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177428647).
