{"id":1663,"date":"2026-04-19T18:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/surging-democratic-senate-candidate-in-michigan-tells-cnn-israeli-government-is-just-as-evil-as-hamas\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T18:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:37:00","slug":"surging-democratic-senate-candidate-in-michigan-tells-cnn-israeli-government-is-just-as-evil-as-hamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/surging-democratic-senate-candidate-in-michigan-tells-cnn-israeli-government-is-just-as-evil-as-hamas\/","title":{"rendered":"Surging Democratic Senate Candidate in Michigan Tells CNN Israeli Government Is Just as \u2018Evil\u2019 as Hamas"},"content":{"rendered":"<br><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><video id=\"qv4CvuRR\" poster=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/thumbs\/qv4CvuRR-720.jpg\">\n\t\n<\/video>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Democratic Michigan Senate candidate\u00a0<strong>Abdul El-Sayed<\/strong> told CNN he sees no difference between Israel&#8217;s government and Hamas, because to him both are &#8220;evil.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed shared his thoughts on Israel and the terrorist group running Gaza during an interview with CNN chief congressional correspondent <strong>Manu Raju<\/strong> on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Raju noted El-Sayed \u2014 who was born in Michigan to parents from Egypt \u2014 is locked in a tight battle to win the open Senate seat in his home state. But there is a &#8220;glaring divide&#8221; among voters and candidates over Israel he reported, especially in towns like <a href=\"https:\/\/michiganadvance.com\/2026\/03\/20\/in-dearborn-a-growing-muslim-community-shapes-how-eid-is-celebrated\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dearborn<\/a>, which has one of the highest per capita rates of Muslims in the U.S., and in Oakland County, which has a &#8220;big Jewish voting bloc.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You said the Israeli government is evil, do you think they&#8217;re just as evil as Hamas?&#8221; Raju asked.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,&#8221; El-Sayed answered. &#8220;It&#8217;s not how evil is this one versus that one \u2014 Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Raju then asked him if he believed Israeli Prime Minister <strong>Benjamin Netanyahu<\/strong> was a &#8220;war criminal.&#8221; El-Sayed did not hesitate in telling him &#8220;Absolutely.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you conduct a genocide, you&#8217;re a war criminal,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>His answer comes after Israel and Gaza have become a bigger issue in American politics over the last few years, following the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed approximately 1,200 people; Hamas militants took hundreds of others back to Gaza as hostages, including 12 Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Israel launched the war in Gaza in response, which lasted about two years until <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/just-in-israel-hamas-ceasefire-officially-takes-effect\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the ceasefire deal<\/a> President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> spearheaded was made last fall.<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/progressive-senate-candidate-who-campaigned-with-hasan-piker-surges-to-primary-lead-in-latest-poll\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> jumped to the lead<\/a> in the Democratic Party primary last week \u2014 narrowly overtaking state Sen. <strong>Mallory McMorrow<\/strong> (D-MI) \u2014 according to a new Emerson\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/emersoncollegepolling.com\/michigan-2026-poll-abdul-el-sayed-mallory-mcmorrow-tied-for-lead-in-democratic-senate-primary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">poll<\/a> of likely voters. He had 24% of voters backing him, just ahead of McMorrow&#8217;s 23.6%, while Rep.\u00a0<strong>Haley Stevens<\/strong>\u00a0(D-MI) landed in third with 13.4% of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>The poll came shortly after El-Sayed had popular progressive streamer <strong>Hasan Piker<\/strong> as a special guest at one of his rallies. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/hasan-piker-brands-republican-party-biggest-terrorist-group-on-earth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Piker<\/a> has said America &#8220;deserved&#8221; the 9\/11 attacks and more recently argued Hamas is the &#8220;lesser of two evils&#8221; compared to Israel.<\/p>\n<p>El-Sayed told Raju that it was &#8220;disastrous&#8221; that Stevens had received funding from AIPAC, before saying &#8220;You should be more interested in what&#8217;s happening in Michigan than you are interested in what&#8217;s happening in Tel Aviv.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watch above.<\/p><p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/surging-democratic-senate-candidate-in-michigan-tells-cnn-israeli-government-is-just-as-evil-as-hamas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Surging Democratic Senate Candidate in Michigan Tells CNN Israeli Government Is Just as \u2018Evil\u2019 as Hamas<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<br> politics\r\n<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/surging-democratic-senate-candidate-in-michigan-tells-cnn-israeli-government-is-just-as-evil-as-hamas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link  www.mediaite.com<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic Michigan Senate candidate\u00a0Abdul El-Sayed told CNN he sees no difference between Israel&#8217;s government and Hamas, because to him both are &#8220;evil.&#8221; El-Sayed shared his thoughts on Israel and the terrorist group running Gaza during an interview with CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju on Sunday. Raju noted El-Sayed \u2014 who was born in Michigan to parents from Egypt \u2014&hellip;","protected":false},"author":374,"featured_media":70,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[200],"class_list":["post-1663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}