Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens, a lifelong Democrat, was prepared to go along to get along up to two days before last week’s midterm elections. Stevens had lost Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, yet she loyally committed to supporting his candidacy.
Then came the “Banana Libel” TV commercial, and she broke ranks.
The ad, produced by an outside PAC supporting the anti-Zionist El-Sayed, showed a couple in a grocery store returning eggs and bananas to the shelves because, as one character put it, “we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.” It slanderously held U.S. aid to Israel responsible for rising supermarket prices and war deaths of innocents. It closed by casting El-Sayed’s Republican opponent as aligned with Israeli leaders, while El-Sayed was “for you.”
The messaging was so blatantly antisemitic—reviving the ancient trope that Jews and their state are responsible for ordinary people’s economic pain—that Stevens, who is not Jewish, demanded that El-Sayed disavow it. She also called on him to reject his own earlier stump rhetoric that similarly linked U.S. aid to Israel with Michigan’s cost-of-living problems.
El-Sayed perfunctorily refused, dismissing the demand as a “condemn game” and a distraction. He noted that the ad was not produced by his campaign and said he did not agree with its contents; still, he would not disavow it or apologize for the underlying argument he had advanced himself.
Stevens’s Democratic colleagues, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, immediately piled on, accusing her of betrayal. Yet for those who place Jewish peoplehood and American values above party loyalty, Stevens is a courageous hero. She stood alone as a patriot and will pay a high price for her bravery, as patriots sometimes do.
The shame is that so few American Jews have had the guts to stand up and rebuke the Democratic Party, of which some 70% of U.S. Jews are members, as Stevens did. Of course, the Jews are not alone. A majority of voters in last week’s election also ignored the dire threat of anti-American candidates both to the safety of Jews and the preservation of our nation’s fundamental political and economic principles.
Let’s make no mistake. While Jews are most directly attacked by antisemites such as El-Sayed and his ilk, a greater danger looms in the disdain expressed by these rising politicians for our country and its values, which allow all of us, including minorities like Jews, to survive and thrive. El-Sayed will be joined by dozens of Democratic Socialists of America members elected to offices nationwide, as well as seven new anti-Israel additions to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jews are irrevocably associated with Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and with the Star of David on Israel’s flag. El-Sayed opposes Israel and supports those who traffic in antisemitic tropes, such as far-left streamer Hasan Piker. He, like others in this faction, such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has disparaged and refused to defend Jewish communities as they face rising hostility.
His campaign’s TV ad did not invent its argument, but rather dramatized one El-Sayed had made throughout the campaign. Despite the fact that aid to Israel makes up a very tiny—one-twentieth of 1%—portion of the U.S. annual budget, El-Sayed implies that Michiganders cannot afford schools, healthcare or childcare because of Israel. This libel alone deserves the outrage and activism of American Jews.
Antisemitism is fundamentally an anti-American value that should be condemned by every patriotic American. To single out the Jewish state for blame over grocery prices while ignoring far larger drivers of inflation, domestic spending and global markets is not serious policy debate. It is hateful scapegoating. Stevens recognized this and refused to stay silent.
Moreover, contrary to El-Sayed’s campaign ad, anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism deny the immense benefit that the U.S.-Israel relationship brings to Americans. The annual military investment the United States makes in Israel delivers immense strategic returns—through intelligence-sharing, joint technology development and a reliable democratic ally in a volatile region.
The two nations’ political and military cooperation advances U.S. security and prosperity, especially since Israel spends 90% of U.S. aid with American military suppliers. Aid to Israel also spares the United States from putting American boots on the ground, such as Washington funds in Germany and Japan at costs that dwarf the paltry amount of aid to Israel. In short, opposing a close U.S.-Israel relationship compromises American security by weakening a key partner against shared Middle East adversaries.
Finally, to oppose Zionism—the self-determination of an indigenous people in their ancestral homeland—is itself anti-American. This opposition rejects the same principles of national self-determination that undergird our own founding.
The next election is the big one, just a heartbeat away. That means speaking up on behalf of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. It means standing up for American security, prosperity and national values that are increasingly under attack from within. Above all, it means initiating painful conversations with Democratic faithful who put party above peoplehood and country.
Stevens showed that party loyalty has limits when core principles are at stake. Her colleagues’ immediate scorn revealed how deeply the progressive wing has normalized antisemitic tropes under the guise of foreign-policy critique. Voters who ignored the pattern did so at the risk of elevating candidates who view America’s alliances and foundational principles as obstacles rather than assets. The greater threat is not merely to Jews; it is to the American experiment that has allowed all of us, including minorities, to thrive.
Haley Stevens, the non-Jewish Democrat who refused to look away, has set a high standard. May the rest of us patriots—Jewish and non-Jewish alike—follow her example. Come the next election cycle, the cost of silence will be even more painful.
Originally published on Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).
