With so much anti-Israel agitation and no end in sight, an epidemiologist from Michigan could be just what the doctor ordered to shake this country out of its stupor

A casually dressed Abdul el-Sayed stumps for votes last October among students at Michigan Technological University in the state’s Upper Peninsula. (Conlan Houston)

The results of Michigan’s photo-finish Democratic senatorial primary are in and Dr. Abdul el-Sayed will be that party’s candidate to vie for the Senate seat of a retiring Democrat.

I know. The name. Abdul. It makes people uncomfortable. And I’m not talking only about people who are Jewish. I mean, if a name in a voting both could blow your average MAGA voter straight out of his gourd, it would be Abdul. (Or, perhaps, Hussein….)

If he wins in November, al-Sayed would not become the first US senator of Arab heritage. That distinction goes to a gentleman by the name of Abourezk, who was elected way back in 1973.

That name may have been a dead giveaway to people in the know. (His Senate record certainly appalled the fine people at AIPAC.) But his first name wasn’t Abdul. It was James. A nice American name, one given him at birth in 1931.

Abourezk’s parents were Lebanese Christian immigrants eking out a life in Wood, South Dakota. If you lived in a small (1930 population: 257) Depression-era town on the American prairie, you probably wanted to........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)