Top Michigan Democrat Refuses To Back Abdul El-Sayed– trendingpoliticsnews.com
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EXCERPT:
Michigan state Rep. Noah Arbit has said he will not endorse Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate.
Arbit, 31, confirmed the decision in an interview with Jewish Insider published on September 30. He cited what he described as El-Sayed’s promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and affiliations with figures on the far left as reasons he would not support the nominee in the general election against his Republican challenger, former Rep. Mike Rogers.
“At the very least,” El-Sayed “aligns himself with people who want to purge the Democratic Party and American life of Zionists and, therefore, most Jews,” Arbit said. “That is unacceptable.”
When asked whether he considered El-Sayed antisemitic, Arbit referred to a speech he delivered on the Michigan House floor the previous week. In that speech he argued that the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish prejudice had narrowed.
In the interview, he argued that the definition of antisemitism as simply hating Jews was limited because hating jews is not a prerequisite to advancing “conspiracy theories.”
He identified the center of El-Sayed’s primary campaign as what he called an antisemitic claim that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was the main obstacle to universal health care, better schools, and better roads in Michigan and nationally. “It’s just a dog whistle. It is a neat, clever argument. You take an unpopular policy and you say this is the reason why you don’t have nice things. It is the demagogue’s oldest trick in the book,” Arbit said.
