Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who narrowly lost the Democratic primary for Senate to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, said on Tuesday that she was followed and harassed over her pro-Israel views.
“Earlier today, I was leaving a science committee hearing, standing up for science to address climate change, when I was once again followed, shouted at and harassed by two rogue paid actors attempting to intimidate,” Stevens stated. “Let me be clear. I have always wanted the wars in the Middle East to end.”
“I believe in a two-state solution that gives Israelis and Palestinians peace, security, dignity and a home,” she said. “People are free to disagree with me, challenge me and protest my positions. That is democracy.”
“But disagreement is not license for intimidation or harassment,” she said. (JNS sought comment from the congressman.)
Stevens was backed by AIPAC against El-Sayed, a former Detroit health director, whom the Republican Jewish Coalition called “the most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America.”
Stevens later endorsed El-Sayed. “What exactly are we accomplishing by continuing to tear each other apart?” she said. “There is too much at stake to spend our energy villainizing people on our own side or like me who are not coming back to Congress.”
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, rabbi of a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Detroit, told JNS that “it is tragic that the obsession with Israel, and hatred of the concept of a Jewish state, is leading so many to abandon basic values of decency and civility.”
“Ultimately, honorable people will see that this kind of behavior is unacceptable and intolerable,” Lopatin told JNS. “Even more importantly, this kind of harassment and abuse will not stop us from fighting for peace and dignity for America, for the Jewish state, for Palestinians and all innocent people in the Middle East and beyond.”
