Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is facing a new controversy after a years-old video involving a member of his family resurfaced and prompted his campaign to publicly distance the candidate from some of the rhetoric.
The footage was recorded on a particularly sensitive anniversary and is now attracting renewed attention as El-Sayed campaigns for one of the most consequential Senate seats in the country.
Eman Abdelhadi, El-Sayed’s half sister and a University of Chicago professor, delivered what organizers called an “October 7th blessing” on Oct. 7, 2024, exactly one year after Hamas terrorists killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel.
“I want to say, Allahu Akbar,” Abdelhadi said at the beginning of the video.
“That phrase means God is greater, and it’s an important phrase in the Muslim tradition,” she continued.
“It’s one that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last year, because it’s a phrase that reminds us that no matter how great the brutality, the oppression, the intensity of what we’re going through, the horizon of justice is just around the corner,” Abdelhadi said.
The video does not specifically mention the Israelis killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, and Abdelhadi appeared in the recording wearing a keffiyeh.
The resurfaced remarks prompted Fox News Digital to seek a response from El-Sayed’s Senate campaign, which stressed that the candidate does not share all of his sister’s political positions.
“Abdul loves his sister and also disagrees with her on a number of political positions and the rhetoric she’s chosen to use, including on foreign policy,” a campaign spokeswoman said.
“But Abdul is the one on the ballot, and his record of public service and his platform is what matters to voters here in Michigan,” the spokeswoman continued.
“His campaign has always been about his love for America and Michigan,” she added.
Abdelhadi continued her 2024 remarks by discussing her religious faith and commitment to what she described as justice.
“There is something greater than even the strongest armies, and, for me, that’s God,” Abdelhadi said.
“Reflecting on that reaffirms my commitment to justice, my commitment not to get caught up in the narratives that colonial powers enforce on us,” she continued.
“I hope you know that we have a lot of work ahead of us and that we need each other to do that work,” Abdelhadi said.
“We have an imperative to not just imagine a better future, but to build one together,” she added.
“I’ll see you on the streets,” Abdelhadi concluded.
The video was published in a collaborative Instagram post involving Abdelhadi and Rabbis4Ceasefire, which described it at the time as an “October 7th blessing from Eman Abdelhadi, Scholar, Writer & Organizer.”
Abdelhadi added context to the post Friday, saying Rabbis4Ceasefire organized and named the event as “a moment of grief for lives lost between 10/7/23 and 10/7/2024” and describing her remarks as her “offering” to the gathering.
The resurfaced footage nevertheless generated criticism from El-Sayed’s political opponents and conservative commentators.
“Jewish Michiganders are proudly putting country over party and rejecting Abdul El-Sayed’s extremism,” Democrats for Mike Rogers wrote on X.
“We must put country over party and elect Mike Rogers,” the group added.
Abdelhadi has also attracted attention for her activism, including an October 2025 arrest after she allegedly spat on an Illinois state trooper during a demonstration outside a suburban Chicago ICE detention center.
Authorities charged her with two felony counts of aggravated battery to a government employee and two misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing a peace officer, Fox News reported.
UNHINGED: Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s sister, Emam Abdelhadi:
“Capitalism is at the root of pretty much all of our social ills and has some way that it plays a lot into all the oppressions that we face.
So for me, I don’t see issues of sexuality or race or gender as…
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 14, 2026
El-Sayed has called both Hamas and the Israeli government “evil” and faced criticism after sending a fundraising email on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks that criticized Israel’s military operations without mentioning Hamas’ initial killings
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