Michigan Democrats Push To Label War On Gaza A Genocide As Party Moves Closer To Their Position

Michigan Advance

November 19, 2025

Before a crowd of burgeoning student activists and college Democrats, U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at an event on Tuesday took a question about one of his primary opponents and what made them different.

More specifically, the question was about what made him different compared to Michigan Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak. In the basement of Wilson Hall at Michigan State University, he keyed in on one issue: Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

For some candidates across the nation running for public office big and small, the question could have been debasing, but El-Sayed has been talking about the strife of the Palestinian people since he started his bid for the 2026 contest. McMorrow has only recently said that she believed what was happening in Gaza was a genocide, and some have questioned whether that stance was genuine.

Either way, from the halls of power in Washington, D.C. to the state Legislature and the campaign trail, some Michigan Democrats have made the Palestinian people and their current plight in Gaza cornerstones of their current political work, and other Democrats appear to be taking notes.

“I think there’s a particular kind of shock and horror that folks should have about the idea that our political system can’t countenance the murder of 20,000 kids by our own tax dollars, and call it what it is,” Abdul told the Michigan Advance after the event. “And at the same time, I’m grateful that we seem to be at least headed in the direction where we can turn the page. I’m not running for Senate to obfuscate things. I’m not running for Senate to lie to myself or the people that I represent about what’s happening in the world and what’s being done with their tax dollars. I’m running for U.S. Senate to clarify what’s happening and to try to do something about it.”

Last week, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) introduced a House resolution officially recognizing the situation in Gaza and the actions of the Israeli government as a genocide. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, was joined by 20 other members of Congress in introducing House Resolution 876 of 2025.

The resolution, if passed, would put on record that the U.S. House of Representatives believes that the Israeli government committed genocidal acts, but would also call on the government of the United States to take immediate, concrete actions to fulfill its binding legal obligations to the United Nations’ Genocide Convention. Effectively doing so could push the nation and its allies to prevent further atrocities and punish Israel for the crime of genocide.

That is a tall order for the Republican-controlled lower chamber of Congress, in which many of its rank-and-file members have issued unequivocal support for Israel.

Still, Tlaib remained undeterred and said that the genocide has not ended despite the promises of multiple cease-fire deals over the last two years, and that the war and genocidal actions of Israel will not end until the U.S. acts accordingly.

“Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ was announced, Israeli forces haven’t stopped killing Palestinians,” said Congresswoman Tlaib. “Impunity only enables more atrocity. As our government continues to send a blank check for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, Palestinian children’s smiles are extinguished by bombs and bullets that say ‘Made in the U.S.A’.”

Tlaib said that to end this horror, “we must reject genocide denial and follow our binding legal obligations under the Genocide Convention to take immediate action to pursue justice and accountability to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.”

In Lansing last week, Tlaib’s colleagues in the state Legislature also introduced a similar resolution, calling on Michigan’s congressional delegation to specifically block arms sales to Israel, immediately rush aid to Gaza and restore the revoked visas of Palestinians.

Michigan House Resolution 223 of 2025 faces a steep, near insurmountable climb to reach a vote on the Republican-controlled House floor. After being introduced on Nov. 13, the resolution was immediately scuttled to the House Government Operations Committee, the place in Lansing where bills and measures go to die.

Either way, the legislative Democrats behind the move – state Reps. Erin Byrnes of Dearborn, Alabas Farhat of Dearborn and Dylan Wegela of Garden City – said that for more than two years, the world has watched the horrors unfold in real time, which Byrnes called a “livestreamed genocide.”

“Even after repeated ceasefire deals, Israel continues their escalation of their campaign to eliminate the Palestinian people,” Byrnes added. “What makes that possible is American-supplied weapons.”

Farhat said that polling shows that most Americans want their government to stop fueling the suffering in Gaza and take actionable steps to end the war, steps that the U.S. government has been unable or unwilling to take.

“Polling has clearly shown that most Americans want our government to stop fueling the suffering in Gaza and to take real steps toward ending this war,” Farhat said. “For many families in my district, this is not abstract, people are losing loved ones in Gaza and in South Lebanon, and they’re watching it happen with their own taxpayer dollars. Imagine knowing that your hard earned money is being used to kill your relatives.”

Farhat said the new resolution reflects his community’s moral and democratic mandate to stop funding weapons that are killing civilians, adding that it rang true of all communities in Michigan, as well.

“Our communities want peace, accountability, and policy that values human life and this resolution moves us in that direction,” he said.

Wegela said that instead of using taxpayer dollars to improve the lives of their constituents, the federal government was funding a genocide on the other part of the world.

“It is our moral obligation to oppose funding the mass murder of civilians,” Wegela said. “This resolution follows growing evidence collected by humanitarian groups, scholars, and international agencies that Israel’s blockade, bombing campaigns, and deliberate targeting of civilians meet the legal definition of genocide. It outlines that it is against U.S. law to supply weapons to Israel, and demands our so-called leaders in Washington assert their power to stop the killing.”

Meanwhile, both McMorrow and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, who is a candidate for governor in 2026, have both come out in support of labeling the actions of the Israeli government as a genocide.

Gilchrist made the pronouncement in Dearborn, the heart of the Arab community in Michigan, at a national conference for Muslim and Arab Americans.

McMorrow made her comments at a campaign stop on one of her town hall-style brewery tours, where she was confronted with a question on Gaza. McMorrow said, by its definition, that a genocide had unfolded against the Palestinians living in Isreal. She also said she would not be accepting money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States.

The state senator, however, tempered those comments with an acknowledgment of the disturbing loss of life on both sides of the conflict, including the inciting Oct. 7, 2023 inflection point when Hamas terrorists attacked multiple settlements in southern Israel, including a music festival, murdering more than 1,000 civilians and taking hundreds of hostages. Still she called for the war to end immediately.

McMorrow’s stance took some heat when it was reported that she had privately produced an AIPAC position paper that at least one pro-Israel donor said was “outstanding,” a claim that she has denied.

The shift in McMorrow and Gilchrist joining the long-held positions of Tlaib and El-Sayed shows that more Democrats were waking up to the changing winds of opinion on the war, arming Israel, and Palestinian self-determination.

U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham, who is also in the race, is notably a strong supporter of Israel and has taken approximately $5 million from AIPAC during the course of her career in politics.

At the event on Tuesday, as he answered the question from MSU students, El-Sayed said what made him different from McMorrow was the fact that he has long held the position, whereas McMorrow, he said, appeared to be shaky in her stance.

Following the event, El-Sayed told the Advance that he was happy to hear more people were joining him and Tlaib and that he supports her resolution. On McMorrow and other candidates arriving at the issue now, El-Sayed said Gaza has become a “moral Rorschach test on values.”

“I’d rather live in a world where this never happened, and I’m trying to build a world where this never happens again,” El-Sayed said. “I’ll be gratified if we can get there.”

McMorrow’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.

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