JTA –Viewers of Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary debate on Tuesday night could be forgiven for at times forgetting that one candidate comes with the heavy backing of pro-Israel donors.

“The prime minister of Israel has failed,” Representative Haley Stevens said when asked about Iran, saying that both Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump had failed to achieve “long-term peace.”

Later, Stevens added that she supported “aid into Gaza” and reiterated that she believed Netanyahu has been bad for American Jews.

“It is very clear that Mr. Netanyahu has not made us safer, has not brought us closer to peace, and he is a danger to Jews in America and around the world,” she said.

The lines represented sharp criticism of Israel’s leadership for a candidate who, according to federal campaign records, has received more than $10 million in support from donors affiliated with AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby that her progressive opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has excoriated on the campaign trail and during Tuesday’s debate. Regarded as one of Congress’ more reliable pro-Israel Democrats, Stevens made the comments as Democratic voters have largely shed their sympathies for Israel.

El-Sayed, meanwhile, said during the debate that the United States’ foreign policy “has been handed to us” by Israel and AIPAC and called Israel a “rogue state.”

The former Wayne County health director whose grassroots campaign has gained momentum as it has increasingly centered anti-Israel rhetoric, did not hold back in his criticism.

Citing “the impact of AIPAC in our politics” as the reason for the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, El-Sayed asserted that the lobbyist’s goals were “to annex Lebanon or to do genocide in Gaza.” He added that Israel was committing “human rights abuses, genocide and apartheid” and called for the United States to “stop funding the Israeli military unilateral blank checks.”

He also tied voters’ economic woes to Israel. “Ask yourself why it is that we are paying $5 gas, why it is that we can’t get out of this quagmire,” he said. “It’s because for too........

© The Times of Israel