In February 2024, while Israel was fighting a war against Hamas, one of the terrorist group’s leaders, Ismail Haniyeh, saw his infant niece hospitalized in Israel for urgent medical care.
This was not an isolated incident. Over the years, several of Haniyeh’s family members received treatment in Israeli hospitals, including his granddaughter Amal in 2013. Even Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Oct. 7 massacre, owed his life to Israeli surgeons who removed a brain tumor during his imprisonment.
Hamas leaders fully understood that Israeli hospitals save lives regardless of religion, ethnicity or nationality.
Yet in a Nov. 5 interview on MS NOW, Michigan senator-elect Dr. Abdul El-Sayed once again pushed the narrative that Israel deliberately targets and kills Palestinian children. He went on to repeat these same falsehoods on CNN.
Haniyeh was not alone. Over the years, thousands of children from Gaza have been treated in Israeli medical centers. To ignore this reality by accusing Israel of indiscriminate cruelty and to keep repeating the lie of the deliberate murder of Palestinian children by Israel is not just misleading but a blatant falsehood.
In the same interview, as he often has, El-Sayed branded Israel an “apartheid state.”
In his worldview, Jews are only acceptable when they remain a defenseless, persecuted minority.
Consider how Israel actually functions: In its parliamentary democracy, the president assigns the mandate to form a government based on recommendations from Knesset members. Following recent elections, coalition negotiations featured recommendations from Arab-Israeli parties, including the Joint List and Ra’am.
Yes, Mr. El-Sayed: In the Israel you label an “apartheid state,” Arab citizens vote, hold office and serve as key powerbrokers in the Knesset.
On election night, MKs from the Joint List were seen singing “Biladi, Biladi”—the Palestinian national anthem—at their campaign headquarters. Some Arab MKs have even expressed support for Hamas, attempting to frame it as a charity organization. Yet, they remain active, voting members of the Israeli parliament.
Arab citizens in Israel serve not only in the Knesset, but also as judges, prosecutors and high-ranking police officers. While military service is not mandatory for Arab citizens, those who wish to serve in the IDF can do so. Justice George Karra, an Arab jurist, served on the Supreme Court of Israel from 2017 to 2022.
Calling such a society an “apartheid state” is not a legitimate critique. It is a deliberate lie.
If one wants to talk about true exclusion in the region, look at the entrance to Palestinian-controlled cities in Judea and Samaria. Massive red warning signs prohibit Israeli Jews from entering under legal penalty and physical danger, while Arab citizens of Israel move freely across the country. If any systemic restriction of movement exists based on identity, it is directed against Jews.
El-Sayed often insists that he does not hate Jews, only Israel—a familiar refrain used by modern antisemites. He patronizingly points out that he has Jewish friends and has even attended a bar mitzvah. (It’s a wonder he didn’t add that he watches the TV sitcoms “Seinfeld” and “Friends.”)
But here is the reality: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. When someone systematically vilifies Israel’s existence and denies its right to survive, they attack the collective Jewish community. El-Sayed’s position is not merely anti-Zionist; it is inherently antisemitic.
At its core, El-Sayed’s ideology rejects the concept of Jewish self-determination and the Jews’ right to a state of their own. In his worldview, Jews are only acceptable when they remain a defenseless, persecuted minority.
This is why, when Israel defends itself against barbaric terror organizations—enemies that burned entire families alive, systematically raped and murdered women, and took infants and the elderly hostage—El-Sayed reflexively screams “genocide.” In his eyes, Jews simply do not possess the right to self-defense.
This politician is not a champion of human rights. He is an antisemite and a liar.
