Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed insinuated that Iran was our real friend in the Middle East and that Israel was not a true ally in an interview with ABC news published on Oct. 20, 2026. Yes, you read that correctly. ABC offered little pushback.
ABC’s Linsey Davis posed the question to El-Sayed first:
“So, you don’t consider Israel to be an American ally?”
El-Sayed responded:
“An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally.”
He continued:
“If your kid has a friend who keeps bumming off their money and then talks about them behind their back and then gets them into fights with other friends, what would you tell your kid to do with that friend… I think it’s time for us to realize that like Israel is not actually our friend.”
US Senate candidate for michigan Abdul El-Sayed meets voters in Michigan, Oct. 22, 2025, Conlan Houston, retrieved via Wikimedia Commons
Let’s break down El Sayed’s flawed analogy.
If we keep with his statement that Israel is getting the U.S. into fights with other so-called friends, then by that logic Abdul El-Sayed is calling Iran a friend of the United States. This is a perverse misrepresentation of the United States’ relationship with the clerical, radical regime in Tehran that regularly chants “Death to America.” Iran is not our friend.
To her credit, Davis asked El-Sayed why exactly he refused to directly condemn Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) last month when asked about it at a Town Hall, to which he answered:
“I condemn the attacks on democracy that Iran has done, but we engage with actors in a world where you kind of have to figure out how to make peace with people you disagree with.”
But Iran did not merely attack democracy. It has murdered hundreds of Americans, taken Americans hostage, and directed its proxy organizations to attack American interests across the Middle East and beyond. That’s not to mention, of course, the numerous times Iran was implicated in assassination plots against American officials, including President Donald Trump, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and former Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook.
On the other hand, let’s look at what El-Sayed considers Israel “bumming off” the United States.
Israel and the United States technically began their strategic alliance in 1965, signing a secret memorandum of understanding (MoU), but the two countries again signed another MoU in 1981, and another in 1983, the latter of which established the Joint Political-Military Group (JPMH) and Joint Security Assistance Planning Group (JSAP). These agreements cemented Israel as an ally of the United States. Though 1981’s MoU was designed under a Cold War framework, 1983’s MoU, in establishing the JPMH and JSAP, laid the framework for modern Israeli-U.S. military cooperation, including joint naval and air exercises, research and development, and cooperation between the U.S. Secretary of Defense and Israeli Defense Minister.
In 1987, Congress officially designated Israel as a major non-NATO ally, allowing for Israeli defense primes to compete with NATO countries for U.S. contracts. By the end of President Ronald Reagan’s term, the United States and Israel had begun joint co-development on the Arrow Anti-Tactical Ballistic Missile. That same system is still deployed today, with its newer variant, the Arrow-3, adding exoatmospheric interception capabilities against ballistic missiles.
It is also U.S. law that Israel must maintain qualitative military edge in the Middle East. This is defined as requiring Israel to always be able to defeat any realistic conventional threat in the Middle East, whether from a state or non-state actor, or coalition.
Along with the Arrow system, the U.S. has invested $1.1 billion in joint development with Israel on the David’s Sling air defense system and $1.4 billion through fiscal year 2016 on the Iron Dome air defense system. The United States also mans a Raytheon X-band radar system that is deployed in Israel. Then there’s the Israeli-developed Trophy Active Protection System (APS) for armored vehicles, which the U.S. has equipped its M1 Abrams tanks with since 2019. As of 2026, European nations began turning to Israel for the system as well. The Trophy APS can intercept anti-tank missiles before they hit the tank, dispersing a small interceptor against threats like rocket-propelled grenades and Kornet missiles.
Arrow 3 System, The New Republic, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Of course, there are plenty of other military developmental benefits as well. Israeli-developed technologies helped the United States counter Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq. Israeli tunnel-neutralization strategies employed against Hamas were utilized to protect the U.S.-Mexico border from drug and human trafficking subterranean threats. The Israeli-developed LITENING targeting pod, produced in conjunction with Northrop Gruman, helps defend American F-16s against drones.
Then there are additional operational benefits. The U.S. Naval Special Forces regularly utilize Israeli ports, bombing ranges, and medical facilities to carry out joint exercises. Intelligence sharing from Israel has defended U.S. troops from attack, including the 2021 Iranian attack on the al-Tanf military base in Syria housing U.S. troops.
The United States also stores munitions, missiles, artillery, and other military technologies in Israel for regional use. Israel also reportedly shared intelligence on cell phone numbers used by former IRGC Quds Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qassem Soleimani that the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) tracked prior to his elimination in 2019.
On El-Sayed’s claim that Israel dragged the United States into war, this is simply untrue as well. Preventing Iran from developing a nuclear bomb has been longstanding U.S. foreign policy, and recent military actions, both unilaterally and bilaterally with Israel, have been the continuation of efforts toward this prevention. Even the most recent operations in February 2026 were described by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as actions to prevent Iran to develop nuclear weapons behind an impenetrable curtain of ballistic missile deterrence.
El-Sayed’s claims are wrong, pure political drivel, and clearly do not stand up to scrutiny. Israel’s longstanding strategic partnership with the United States has delivered tangible benefits in missile defense, military technology, intelligence sharing, and regional security. Meanwhile, the totalitarian Iranian regime has spent decades targeting and killing American civilians and military personnel, supporting terrorist organizations, and targeting U.S. interests. El-Sayed pretending that Tehran is a friend and Jerusalem an adversary does not negate those facts. With friends like that, as the saying goes, who needs enemies?
ABC’s decision to amplify those comments in isolation is problematic. A major news outlet must criticize and scrutinize a candidate’s claim about American allies and enemies, not provide a platform for rhetoric that resembles propagandic statements from Iran itself.