A video of Eman Abdelhadi, half-sister of Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, describing a scene in her novel that celebrates a violent uprising against Israel is circulating widely, adding pressure on El-Sayed less than three weeks before the election.
The clip, published by the watchdog group Canary Mission and shared by pro-Israel philanthropist Adam Milstein, shows Abdelhadi discussing her 2022 novel Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072, which she co-wrote with M.E. O’Brien.
In the video, Abdelhadi describes a chapter told by a character named Hassan, who recounts taking part in what the book calls the “Final Intifada” and the “liberation of Palestine.” She describes the scene as “a mass insurrection” involving guerrilla operations, “bombing the borders” with Molotov cocktails and “blowing up military outposts.” Hassan calls the day the Gaza border “fell” the “most beautiful day of my life.”
The novel is written as a series of fictional oral histories set decades after the collapse of capitalism and nation-states. Reviewers have noted that its Palestine chapter depicts an uprising that ends Israeli control and sparks revolts elsewhere. Abdelhadi has said that writing the section was especially meaningful to her as a Palestinian.
The book was published more than a year before Hamas terrorists broke through the Gaza border fence on October 7, 2023, murdering roughly 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. Critics say the novel’s imagery of a border breach as a moment of joy reads very differently in light of that massacre.
Canary Mission said the book romanticizes violence and reflects a broader movement that promotes the mass killing of Jews.
