When it comes to oppo-research defense, better late than never does not apply. In fact, as we will see, 'late' actually means 'never' when attempting to memory-hole embarrassing and/or revealing material.
Shorter version: The Internet is forever, man.
When Abdul El-Sayed first launched his Democrat primary run, one would have thought that his more, er, problematic allies would take care to scrub their digital tracks to prevent oppo-research damage. As we have seen, however, neither El-Sayed nor his allies apparently thought that radical Marxist and Islamist rhetoric would be a problem, at least in the primary contest.
And, as it turned out ... they were right.
Now, however, the entire Michigan electorate will choose the state's next U.S. Senator, and suddenly the Marxist and Islamist rhetoric may alienate enough voters for Mike Rogers to flip the seat. Belatedly – very belatedly – the imam in a mosque El-Sayed attends has scrubbed his sermons from YouTube and other platforms, the Free Beacon reports today. Gone from the archives are Abdelhamid Algizawi's exhortations to support Hamas, as well as to vote for you know who:
Left-wing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed's imam scrubbed videos of his sermons from YouTube, including one in which he gave an "absentee funeral prayer" hailing the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a "heroic martyr" and another in which he urged his congregants to vote for El-Sayed.
The Muslim Community Association (MCA) of Ann Arbor's YouTube channel featured dozens of recordings of Imam Abdelhamid Algizawi's sermons as recently as Tuesday but now shows only the message, "This channel doesn't have any content." A video of Algizawi's Aug. 2, 2024, sermon eulogizing Haniyeh, which was also accessible on Tuesday, is now "unavailable" and set to "private." So is a sermon Algizawi delivered in the wake of El-Sayed's primary victory, which the imam described as a "very big victory for Muslims" and "for the Islamic nation." ...
"He is a symbol of jihad, a symbol of struggle, a symbol of patriotism, and a symbol of devotion," Algizawi said of Haniyeh. "No one loves him except someone who loves God and his Messenger, and no one hates him except an enemy of Islam. He is a righteous man, one of the righteous. … He wanted to liberate Palestine, his land and his homeland. He sought nothing more than that. Yet despite this, the unjust and wicked killed him. … We ask Almighty God to grant him a place in Paradise. O God, place him among the martyrs and the righteous."
Ismail Haniyeh was a terrorist with the blood of thousands of civilians on his hands. The Israelis had refrained from targeting Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, before October 7 as part of their efforts to work with the US on negotiations on various cease-fires that Hamas routinely violated. After October 7 and the massacres of 1200 Jews, the Israelis were happy to "martyr" both Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, the architects of those atrocities. Algizawi eulogized terrorists, while El-Sayed continued to associate with his Hamas-supporting imam.
Not all of Algizawi's sermons have met the Great Degaussing of 2026. The imam's 2022 attack on LGBTQ issues remains up and available, thanks perhaps to its archive at the Sacramento mosque where Algizawi delivered it as a guest speaker:
In other sermons, Algizawi railed against homosexuality, calling it a "fashion" and saying Muslims must reject it because it "cannot bring stability to life" and is "against human nature."
"Also, Muslims cannot compromise their religion," Algizawi said in 2022. "We cannot say, 'Hey, because I am a Muslim, I'm American, we are living in America, we have…' No, we cannot compromise our religion."
One has to wonder how that survived the scrub. Do El-Sayed and Algizawi think that the potential window for damage to his campaign over Islamist homophobia has closed after the primary? If so, they may be correct, as the far-Left progressives will attempt to close ranks in opposition to Rogers – and Donald Trump, who is their main bete noire even though he may be the most liberal Republican when it comes to LGB issues.
The problem for El-Sayed and Algizawi is that various entities have had months to download and archive all this material. That includes Rogers' campaign, the various PACs supporting it, MEMRI, as well as the Free Beacon. The upside? Not one mainstream media outlet is reporting on El-Sayed's connections to Algizawi's mosque and its support for Hamas, long a designated terrorist group. A Bing news search on "El-Sayed Algizawi" returns five links, four of which are the Free Beacon and one from World Israel News. A search on "El-Sayed mosque" returns this gem from today's Detroit Free Press:
Abdul El-Sayed battles politics, Islamophobia in run for U.S. Senate
It's paywalled, but the shaded lead paragraph instructs Americans how to pronounce El-Sayed's full first name with proper Arabic vocalization. Hard-hitting, it probably ain't. If El-Sayed's imam is praising terrorists at the same time he's endorsing a candidate for the U.S. Senate, one would think that a newspaper might make that the lead rather than "Islamophobia" or rolling the R in 'Abdulrahman.'
It will be up to Rogers and his supporting PACs to inform voters of El-Sayed's connections, and not just with Algizawi either. El-Sayed had Hasan Piker out on the campaign trail as his surrogate, and this week, Piker's telling people that America is worse than al-Qaeda. Stay tuned for more from Rogers on both, but don't expect to hear about Piker's terrorist support from the Protection Racket Media, either, let alone note how many terror supporters surround El-Sayed.
