An Abdul in the Senate? Could be worth a try

With so much anti-Israel agitation and no end in sight, an epidemiologist from Michigan could be just what the doctor ordered to shake this country out of its stupor

A casually dressed Abdul el-Sayed stumps for votes last October among students at Michigan Technological University in the state’s Upper Peninsula. (Conlan Houston)

The results of Michigan’s photo-finish Democratic senatorial primary are in and Dr. Abdul el-Sayed will be that party’s candidate to vie for the Senate seat of a retiring Democrat.

I know. The name. Abdul. It makes people uncomfortable. And I’m not talking only about people who are Jewish. I mean, if a name in a voting both could blow your average MAGA voter straight out of his gourd, it would be Abdul. (Or, perhaps, Hussein….)

If he wins in November, al-Sayed would not become the first US senator of Arab heritage. That distinction goes to a gentleman by the name of Abourezk, who was elected way back in 1973.

That name may have been a dead giveaway to people in the know. (His Senate record certainly appalled the fine people at AIPAC.) But his first name wasn’t Abdul. It was James. A nice American name, one given him at birth in 1931.

Abourezk’s parents were Lebanese Christian immigrants eking out a life in Wood, South Dakota. If you lived in a small (1930 population: 257) Depression-era town on the American prairie, you probably wanted to fit in. No boys named Yusef or Boulos.

El-Sayed, on the other hand, was born in metropolitan Detroit, parts of which are said to be home to the greatest concentration of Arabs in the United States. His roots are in Egypt, from where his Muslim parents immigrated. No sissy American names for their boy. These are proud Arabs and provocatively loud Arabs.

Abdul was a standout student. He delivered his University of Michigan class commencement address, a Phi Beta Kappa key deep in his pocket. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in the middle of medical school, and though he completed his medical studies, he chose to work in public health as an epidemiologist rather than go on to an internship and residency.

An outstanding athlete as well, el-Sayed excelled at lacrosse during high school (captain) and his undergraduate studies, and again while at Oxford (captain). I can hear it now while imagining a game of this very Protestant-ish sport (at least it was when I was a kid): Go, Abdul!

IS THERE SOMETHING TO FEAR in that name?

El-Sayed is no Zionist. He calls Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip a “genocide.” He says the US should end all military aid to Israel (but also to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt). He refers to Israel as an “ethno-state,” telling The New York Times last month: “I don’t believe in ethno-states.” And did I mention that he wants to go to war with AIPAC?

Phew. It’s backlash time in Democratic circles

It’s no secret that extremists on one side beget extremists on the other, for since 2016 and the rise of Donald Trump’s GOP, far-left progressives have been ascendant in the Democratic Party.

Some are disgusted by Trump’s antics. Others hate the way he turns off funds for the sick, elderly and poor just to allow tax breaks for wealthy chums. Yet others are driven to distraction over his predilection for dictators and shamelessly obsequious cabinet members.

But almost all seem to despise him for what seems like a love affair with Israel.

Even though Trump was out of office (and perhaps because Joe Biden was in), October 7 sent these negative attitudes toward Israel into hyperdrive. Dead Jews warranted some tears, yes, but Palestinian cities flattened by US-sourced armaments led to a sustained outburst of sometimes violent anti-Israel sentiment that will take years to end, never mind reverse.

But let’s go farther back, to 2015. There was no Abdul el-Sayed and no Zohran Mamdani. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were not yet blips on anyone’s political screen. In fact, the closest thing to a progressive Muslim in the halls of American power was President Barack (Hussein) Obama. And he wasn’t even a Muslim.

Taking office in 2009, Obama set straight to broiling the brain pans of Republicans by undoing or at least loosening long-respected isms in numerous spheres. One was foreign policy, which, with his 2015 deal aimed at preventing Iran from going nuclear, did just that to the dendrites and synapses in the head of one Benjamin Netanyahu.

Already long referred to on Capitol Hill – only half-jokingly – as the “distinguished senator from Israel,” Netanyahu ghosted Obama and, at the “invitation” of GOP House speaker John Boehner, bad-mouthed the deal directly and loudly to a joint session of Congress, whose members could clearly be seen to divide like the Red Sea.

In this way, Israel’s prime minister gaily threw a colossal wedge into what hitherto had been firm bipartisan political support in Washington, beckoning the likes of Omar, Tlaib, el-Sayed and probably every type of progressive imaginable.

I’D LIKE TO CALL THIS an intervention.

Admittedly, the people gathered unannounced in Israel’s living room are not exactly friends worried about the country’s descent into fascism, dictatorship, militarism and an addiction to American dollars. That’s because it’s hard to find friends of Israel who are willing to admit that things have gone far enough south.

So the college students, perennial anarchists, heartland housewives and Hamas-lovers who fill the streets and op-ed pages with frothy anti-Israel diatribes will have to do.

Someone has to get our attention. Perhaps it will be Sen. Abdul el-Sayed.