Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, apologized Saturday to the state’s Democratic Jewish Caucus for comments he made after an attack on a synagogue in March, which he linked to Israel’s actions in the Middle East. “My comments may have been misinterpreted to justify something I was not intended to justify,” El-Sayed told reporters after addressing the caucus at a party convention in Lansing. “To anyone who feels my comments could have been hurtful, I am truly sorry. That was not my intention.” El-Sayed’s apology was his latest attempt to unify Democrats after a bitter primary in which he defeated U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens. He is eager to overcome a series of controversies related to accusations of antisemitism, including his association with controversial commentator Hasan Piker. He faces Republican candidate Mike Rogers in a race that will help determine control of the Senate. In March, a man attacked the Temple Israel synagogue in a Detroit suburb, ramming his car into the building and opening fire on a security guard before killing himself. The man, Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon the previous week. In a video response at the time, El-Sayed condemned the attack, adding that “people hurt people,” referring to what happened to Ghazali’s family. Critics accused El-Sayed of justifying Ghazali’s actions. “What I was trying to do was offer context for why it happened, but it wasn’t the time to do it,” El-Sayed said Saturday, “and you never want to trample on someone’s pain.”
