U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania proved this week that an advocate for Israel can confront an Israel-basher, shake him up and still stand firm and unyielding. Or stand tall, as John Wayne or Ronald Reagan might word it.
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed must be scared of Fetterman if he were compelled to threaten him with violence, and Fetterman stood his ground. Both are Democrats.
“If I win…well y’all came at me so now I get to come at you, and you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that,” El-Sayed said during a zoom call with donors. Then he added:
“Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.”
El-Sayed’s words were reported in Politico on Monday after reporter Liz Crampton obtained an audio of the Zoom call, which led to extensive condemnation of El-Sayed.
Fetterman did not flinch with El-Sayed, as he did not flinch when he attacked Israel-basher Graham Platner, who quit the Maine Senate race in disgrace a few weeks after he was nominated in the Democratic primary. The campaign imploded after a former girlfriend accused him of rape.
Perhaps I am oversimplifying the case.
El-Sayed could have been “speaking metaphorically,” as a campaign spokesperson said the candidate was doing in regard to his plans to bolster a primary opponent against Fetterman, who is up for re-election in 2028.
At first glance, maybe he was not even talking specifically about Fetterman. Fetterman’s name and “ogre on a pike” were noted in separate sentences. El-Sayed did clarify in a debate Monday night that he was referring to Fetterman, not his immediate rival in the Michigan Senate primary, Haley Stevens, who jabbed, “Well, thank you, for clarifying that you didn’t call me an ogre.”
El-Sayed’s philosophical fellow travelers have accused Israel of genocide and have. blamed all Jews for Israeli attacks in Gaza. If they did not blame all Jews, why did some of their number kill or assault Jews in New York, Boulder and Melbourne?
“Violent, vulgar threats have no place in a democratic electoral contest,” U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan told Politico. “With political violence on the rise, we need to be doing everything we can to lower the temperature – not raise it. It’s the American people who suffer most when we degrade the political process this way.”
I have long had mixed feelings about Fetterman as my senator. His hulking appearance and choice of slummy clothes have him resembling a retired wrestler who struck his head in one too many falls. I have never heard him speak on the Senate floor or question witnesses at a hearing, and I would not be surprised if he never did.
When conflicts in the Maine Senate race reached a head, I came to respect him. I appreciated how he publicly supported Israel and attacked Platner for his distorted approach to criticizing Israel and then standing up to El-Sayed. This takes much personal courage because one never knows when a violent maniac will take it in his head to harm him.
Fetterman is not even Jewish, and yet he put himself on the line for an ethnic/religious group that was marginalized in a bizarre manner like no other group was ever marginalized. Nobody else at his level has ever responded to this kind of abuse with such integrity, at least not recently.
He rates more than respect. He cannot be left out there acting alone. His approach must be replicated worldwide – not only with fellow members of Congress but rabbis, Jewish organizations big and small and everyone in the Jewish community. This “Free Palestine” movement can be beaten, but it will take effort and coordination to overcome it. One senator cannot do it alone.
El-Sayed is an accomplished, articulate and intelligent man as recounted in a New York Times profile, so he should have known better than to invoke the prospect of violence. Even if he was “speaking metaphorically,” that is dangerous language.
He told the Times he was taunted by Islamophobia when he lived in two municipalities with large Jewish communities – Kendall, Florida, and Bloomfield, Michigan. Is his “ogre on a pike” phrase part of some kind of vengeance drive?
When a public figure like El-Sayed employs words that are at best confusing, something is wrong when he must explain them. Real or metaphorical?
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.