El-Sayed apologizes for ‘hurt people hurt people’ comment after Michigan synagogue attack

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed apologized Aug. 29 to anyone hurt by comments he made following a March attack on a Detroit-area synagogue, including his remark that “hurt people hurt people.”

Speaking to reporters at the Michigan Democratic Party convention in Lansing, El-Sayed said, “My comments may have been misconstrued to justify something I did not mean to justify. But to anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”

“We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright,” El-Sayed added. “What I was trying to do was offer context for why it happened, but it wasn’t the time for context. And you don’t ever want to trample somebody’s pain.”

In March, Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon, rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, about 27 miles northwest of Detroit, before exchanging gunfire with security personnel, who shot and killed him. The FBI said at the time it was investigating the incident as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.” 

Several members of Ghazali’s family, including his young niece and nephew, had reportedly been killed days earlier by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon amid the Iran war. Israel’s military said on X that it had killed one of Ghazali’s brothers, whom it identified as a “Hezbollah terrorist.”

El-Sayed issued a video shortly after the attack in which he condemned both the violence and antisemitism. He said there “is never a justification for attacking innocent people or houses of worship.”

“Hurt people hurt people. Violence is a cycle,” El-Sayed added. “Ayman Ghazali lost two family, including two children, in an airstrike in Lebanon last week. They were innocent people, and then in an evil act of displaced rage, he tried to take it out on innocent children who had nothing to do with the loss of the innocent children he lost, except that they share a faith.”’

He added that “violence always begets violence. Only peace can extinguish that because hurt people hurt people.”

Critics, including some Jewish Democrats and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, accused El-Sayed of appearing to excuse the attack by linking it to Israeli military action. 

El-Sayed has also faced criticism over his association with Hasan Piker, a progressive commentator who has millions of followers across Twitch and other streaming platforms. Seeking to distance himself from the Los Angeles-based streamer, El-Sayed said Aug. 26 that he had “no plans” to campaign with Piker again, despite appearing alongside him repeatedly during the Democratic primary. 

At the Lansing convention, El-Sayed dismissed a reporter’s question about Piker, saying, “If you want to make this race about a streamer in California, I just think you’re missing the boat.”

He said the race should focus on “affordability” and “Donald Trump’s disastrous policies in Michigan.” El-Sayed also urged the Democratic Party — which has faced months of division between its establishment and progressive wings — to “come together” ahead of his November contest against Republican nominee Mike Rogers.