A shocking new ad supporting Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed blames Israel for rising grocery prices, triggering allegations of antisemitism.
The spot shows a couple in a grocery store grumbling over the prices of eggs and bananas — and claiming that US aid to Israel is the reason they can’t afford the staples.
“Honey, you’re going to have to put those eggs back,” the woman says. “They like eggs, but we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”
“Don’t we give Israel $4 billion a year anyway?” the man asks.
“Yeah, and now we’re giving them another $26 billion,” she explains. “It’s like $161 per person. Apparently it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza.”
The spot was released by Rebellion PAC, created by “The Young Turks” co-founder Cenk Uygur, and blames the war in Iran for high gas prices before accusing Rogers of being too supportive of Israel.
“Mike Rogers is for they/them,” a narrator says in reference to Israel, twisting a famous pro-Trump ad from the 2024 election cycle. “Abdul El-Sayed is for you.”
The ad has triggered an outcry across the political spectrum, led by the Anti-Defamation League.
“You want to know what desperate looks like?” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X Sunday. “Blaming the price of bananas on Israel. Consider this PAC ad just another example of scapegoating the Jewish state. At least we can thank them for a case study in antisemitism.”
“The scapegoating of Jews in this campaign ad designed to benefit Abdul El-Sayed was much better in the original 1938 German version,” added Joel Petlin, superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District in Orange County, NY.
Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, described the ad as “dumb and bigoted at scale.”
“It’s innumerate and morally obtuse and if anything remotely like it was aimed at Muslims [Uygur] and his ilk would (defensibly) be outraged. But this s–t is fine when aimed at the you know who.”
“Unless Abdul El-Sayed immediately demands that this campaign ad be taken down and unequivocally condemns it and its creators, he will be exposed as a vile, dangerous, and divisive antisemite,” declared tech futurist Jamie Metzl.
“Any (of my fellow) Democrats who condemn the disgusting Ramaswamy ad in Ohio but do not condemn this deserve our unflinching contempt.”
“This type of fearmongering about Israel is wrong,” added Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who ran against El-Sayed in the Democratic primary. “It is not a winning strategy for any state. It does nothing to help Michigan Democrats win up and down the ballot in eight days.”
Uygur, one of the most outspoken US-based critics of Israel, shared the spot on social media last week.
“If you think this ad is antisemitic, you’ve lost your mind and you don’t know it,” he told The Post Monday when asked about the backlash. “It’s saying we’re giving too much money to a foreign nation — and they’re misusing it.”
“There’s nothing more normal than that. But when someone criticizes the government of Israel, and you hear ‘They hate all Jews,’ get clinical help.”
El-Sayed’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
