A particularly heated exchange over Israel, Iran, and US policy in the Middle East erupted during the Michigan Senate debate between Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Republican candidate Mike Rogers.
One of the sharpest moments came when moderator Rick Albin returned to a question El-Sayed had previously been asked: Which country poses a greater threat to the United States, Israel or Iran?
El-Sayed again refused to choose between the two.
“And again, Rick, I’m just going to say that that’s a ridiculous hypothetical,” he said. “Our ostensible ally in Israel has lobbied us to go to war with Iran. We have watched as Iran has responded by bombing all kinds of countries in the Middle East and then choking off the world’s energy supply.”
“I don’t want to be pushed into war by Israel, and I don’t want to be in a war with Iran,” he added.
When Albin pressed him again – “Israel or Iran?” – El-Sayed replied: “That’s, again, a ridiculous question. I think both of them have proven dangerous in their own way. One, at risk of attacking us. One, getting us into wars we have no business fighting.”
El-Sayed went further, saying he doesn’t consider a country an ally if it pulls the United States into wars it shouldn’t be fighting.
“I don’t consider an ally a country that takes us to wars we don’t need to fight,” he said.
El-Sayed says he would not arm Israel after Iranian attack
Asked if he would arm Israel after an Iranian attack, El-Sayed says no
Earlier in the debate, El-Sayed was asked directly whether, if Israel were attacked the following day by Iran or another state actor, he would vote to provide the defensive weapons necessary to protect the Israeli people.
Rather than initially answering yes or no, El-Sayed said he wanted American tax dollars spent at home.
“I’ve been absolutely clear. I want our tax dollars spent here to provide schools here. And by here, I mean Michigan, not Florida,” he said. “I want to make sure we’ve got good schools here and health care here. I want to make sure that we are taking care of people here. That is my priority.”
He then accused Israel of pushing the United States into the current war with Iran.
“But let’s be honest about what happened here. Israel has pushed us to go to war in Iran,” El-Sayed said. “Israel had clear war aims. They wanted us to go to war with them. And their war aims were, what, the annexation of southern Lebanon? Ask yourself, are we safer because of that war?”
When Albin pressed him again and asked whether he would provide defensive weapons to Israel if it were attacked, El-Sayed gave a direct answer.
“I don’t want our tax dollars buying weapons for other countries. I don’t know what’s so hard about that. That’s a no.”
Rogers immediately responded: “I’ll answer the question. Absolutely. He won’t.”
El-Sayed says Iran war can end through diplomacy
The Middle East clash began earlier when El-Sayed was asked whether the war with Iran could end if the Strait of Hormuz were not fully open and Iran still had the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
“I might be old-fashioned, but I believe in diplomacy,” El-Sayed said, arguing that the Obama administration had negotiated an arrangement that prevented nuclear proliferation before President Donald Trump withdrew from it.
He called the current war “completely unnecessary” and said Trump had “jumped into this war for God knows what reason.”
When Albin demanded a yes-or-no answer on whether the war could end without the strait being open and while Iran retained the ability to produce a nuclear weapon, El-Sayed said: “Yes, and we do that at the edge of diplomacy rather than war that’s raising our gas prices and our grocery rates.”
Rogers, by contrast, said the war could not end if Iran still had a nuclear weapons capability, while arguing that available information showed its nuclear program had been set back by roughly 20 years.
Clash over Hamas and October 7
Rogers repeatedly accused El-Sayed during the debate of failing to clearly condemn Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed pushed back on those accusations at several points, telling Rogers not to “make stuff up.”
The exchange became especially heated when Rogers invoked the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre.
“This is why you should get absolutely angry,” Rogers said, accusing El-Sayed of failing to acknowledge “the pain, the terrorism, the rape, the murders.”
El-Sayed answered: “I’ve condemned that.”
He then accused Rogers of turning the issue into political theater.
“I didn’t turn it into political theater like you just did,” El-Sayed said. “I’m not somebody who tries to make political theater out of other people’s pain.”
Rogers presented a sharply different position on Israel throughout the debate. He said he “staunchly” supports Israel’s right to exist, “the right to exist for the Jewish state, and the right to defend itself in a very difficult neighborhood.”
Asked whether there was any action Israel could take that would cause him to withdraw support for US military assistance, Rogers said: “If they’re talking about using nuclear weapons, they would definitely lose my support. I’ve never heard him say that, though.”
The debate, held at the WOOD-TV studios in Grand Rapids and broadcast nationally on NewsNation, became so contentious that Albin remarked after one commercial break that in 30 years of moderating debates, he had never seen an argument continue through the break.
