Van Jones Calls Abdul El-Sayed’s Total Arms Embargo On Israel ‘Insane’

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews) — CNN commentator Van Jones said this week that Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s call for a complete U.S. arms embargo on Israel, including defensive weapons, is “an insane position.”

Jones made the remarks on the “Ask Haviv Anything” podcast while discussing Democratic views on U.S. military aid to Israel.

He said some Democrats favor conditioning aid, arguing that Israel has “gone too far in Gaza and the West Bank and in Lebanon.” Jones called that “a defensible position if you’re a Democrat.”

“That’s not Abdul’s position,” Jones said.

He also distinguished El-Sayed from those who would end all military aid so Israel would “pay their own way.” Jones said he considers that stance understandable but “indefensible,” because U.S. aid is “not charity” and Israel “is projecting a lot of Western interests in that region.”

El-Sayed’s position goes further, Jones said.

“Abdul’s position is a total and complete arms embargo against the state of Israel, including defensive weapons. That’s an insane position,” Jones said. “That says if Israel wants to pay for interceptors to stop a rocket coming from Iran or coming from Hezbollah or coming from Hamas, an interceptor, we should deny them the right to buy the interceptors to knock down rockets going at Israeli children, women, men, babies.”

Jones said the stance also offended him because former President Barack Obama helped create Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.

“Barack Obama thought that the Israeli people were in such a tough neighborhood, they needed to be able to knock down rockets,” Jones said. “So you’re telling me you’re smarter than Barack Obama, you have better ideas about foreign policy than Barack Obama, and you want to de-plug and defund and take away Israel’s, and half the world’s Jews’ ability to defend themselves.”

El-Sayed, a physician and former Detroit health official, has publicly supported ending U.S. weapons sales to Israel and has drawn progressive support in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. Jones said he knows El-Sayed from CNN and described his Israel and foreign-policy views as not “reasonable reactions to anything.”