Gavin Newsoms rush to embrace Abdul El-Sayed makes me sick to my stomach

When the dust settled Wednesday morning, Abdul El-Sayed had narrowly won Michigan’s Democratic nomination for the United States Senate.Gavin Newsom did not need much time to think about it.As soon as El-Sayed was declared the winner, Newsom endorsed him.And now, just days later, California’s governor is preparing to head to Michigan for a multiday campaign swing supporting the Democratic ticket.The trip reportedly was planned before the primary.

Fair enough.But Newsom embraced El-Sayed without a word of qualification and with no apparent concern about the radical position his party’s newest Senate nominee has taken toward Jews and toward Israel.El-Sayed has repeatedly refused to affirm that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.Asked directly whether Israel has a right to exist, El-Sayed would not say yes.

Instead, he dismissed the question as a “gotcha game.” He has also said that every definition of a Jewish state involves some form of “illiberal values.”He calls Israel’s conduct in Gaza “genocide” and “apartheid.” He has put the Israeli government on the same moral plane as Hamas and wants American military assistance to Israel ended, including purely defensive weapons like Iron Dome, which protects civilians from terror.People can criticize Benjamin Netanyahu.They can condemn civilian deaths, object to particular military decisions, support humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, and argue for two states.

Israelis have these arguments among themselves every day.El-Sayed says Jews and Palestinians deserve equal rights and dignity.Of course they do.

But Palestinian rights should not require the Jewish people to give up their own country.Israel’s failures no more erase its legitimacy than America’s failures erase ours.El-Sayed’s position is not just opposition to this Israeli government.

It is opposition to Israel remaining a Jewish state.When anyone — let alone a serious candidate for the United States Senate — refu...