El-Sayed finally apologizes for lamenting death of terrorists family in response to Michigan synagogue attack
WASHINGTON — Michigan Senate hopeful Dr.Abdul El-Sayed finally apologized to Jewish Democrats for his response to the Michigan synagogue earlier this year — when he highlighted that the terrorist’s family members were killed in Israeli strikes.El-Sayed expressed regret for his remark that “hurt people hurt people” after a madman rammed a truck with fireworks and gasoline into the daycare at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich.
— a reference to the attacker’s family being killed in Lebanon.“I made a mistake,” El-Sayed conceded at a Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus event on Saturday.
“I should have issued a statement, of course condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop.”The Michigan Democrat said that he felt an apology was necessary over his response to the Temple Israel attack because his comments were “misconstrued.”“My comments may have been misconstrued to justify something I did not mean to justify,” later El-Sayed told reporters.“To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry.
That was not my intention.”On March 12, Ayman Mohamed Ghazali, who was originally from Lebanon, rammed a truck into a reform temple where some 100 children were present for preschool, before killing himself following a shootout with security.None of the congregants were hurt, though one security officer was injured.“I shudder to think through the emotions of the parents whose children were in the synagogue,” El-Sayed said in a video after the attack, calling it “heinous.” “To my Jewish sisters and brothers, I want to reaffirm my commitment to your rights to worship, to learn, and to celebrate your faith.”“Anti-semitism has no place in our communities, ever.Full stop,” he added, before explaining that a lesson he learned while studying epidemiology was that “hurt people hurt people.”“Ayman Ghazali lost family, including two children, in an airstrike in Lebanon last week.
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