OPINION:
In his recent op-ed, “Mamdani’s rhetoric echoes the old language of dehumanization” (Web, Aug. 3), writer Gerard Leval warns against “the demonizing of the other: the refusal to see another human being as a fellow human.”
Calling dehumanization the “common element” in such acts of evil as the Holocaust and enslavement of Africans, Mr. Leval calls out New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for the man’s obsessive attacks on Israel and his labeling of some American-Jewish supporters of Israel as “monsters.”
The same criticism applies to Abdul El-Sayed, who last week narrowly defeated moderate Rep. Haley Stevens to become the Democrats’ U.S. Senate nominee from Michigan.
For instance, Mr. El-Sayed appeared to justify the March 12 attempted car-bombing of Temple Israel, a suburban Detroit synagogue, while a preschool there was in session. After calling the attack “heinous,” Mr. El-Sayed added that “hurt people do hurt people,” implying that because the would-be car bomber’s brother, a Hezbollah commander, was killed in Lebanon while attacking Israelis, his attempt to kill 110 children and 55 teachers and staff in a Jewish house of worship in America was understandable revenge.
Mr. El-Sayed has also said that Democrats who support Israel are motivated solely by money.
Mr. El-Sayed is campaigning with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Mr. Piker, who infamously said “America deserved 9/11,” has denied that Hamas terrorists raped and sexually tortured Israeli women, men and children during and after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Mr. Piker has mocked survivors’ accounts as “hallucinating rape” and “rape fantasies.”
He has also said that “even if there was [sic] multiple rapes that took place on Oct. 7, this does not change anything for me in this dynamic.” This is an insult to brave Israelis like Amit Soussana, Ilana Gritzewsky, Romi Gonen, Arbel Yehud, Dafna Elyakim and Tali Binner, who survived horrific sexual violence by Palestinian terrorists.
STEPHEN A. SILVER
San Francisco, California
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