Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Democratic Party unity Wednesday following the midterm elections. Holding the caucus together in the 120th Congress may prove harder than the speech implied, given a running personal feud between Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan.

The two Democrats traded insults across the 2026 cycle over U.S. military assistance to Israel, Medicare for All and the ideological direction of the party. Both will sit in the same Democratic caucus next year, and neither has signaled any intention of letting the matter rest.

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From Fox News:

“You put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message,” El-Sayed, D-Mich., reportedly told progressive donors during a private Zoom call, arguing that challenging moderate Democrats in primary elections would send a message to the party’s establishment.

A longtime Democratic Senate staffer told Fox News Digital that they would “not be surprised” if tensions emerged between the two lawmakers but expressed confidence that their loyalty to the Democratic Party would outweigh their personal disagreements.

“Rep. Haley Stevens simply held Abdul El-Sayed accountable for his views on Israel and fixation with Jewish money. El-Sayed is going after a woman and banning her from campaign events for having an opinion,” Fetterman told Jewish Insider.

The dispute has been building since the primary. During a televised debate, El-Sayed confirmed that his “ogre on a pike” image referred to Fetterman, accusing the Pennsylvania senator of having “abandoned his elected values” through his support for U.S. military assistance to Israel. El-Sayed returned to the argument on the trail, saying Congress should not fund foreign defense systems such as Israel’s Iron Dome while American schools operate on strained budgets.

Fetterman answered in kind, calling El-Sayed the “Pontiac Platner,” an apparent reference to Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat who dropped out of his Senate race this season under the weight of multiple scandals. The Pennsylvania senator also accused El-Sayed of seeking to become “head of our emerging pro-Hamas wing here in the party,” and later told Jewish Insider that his rival had “the worst case of little man syndrome I’ve ever seen.” Campaign appearances alongside left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who previously said “America deserved 9/11,” further fueled the dispute; Fetterman publicly condemned the remarks.

The grudge also has an electoral base. El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary by less than one percentage point, and days before the general election, reports surfaced that his campaign had barred Stevens from attending its final events. Neither Schumer’s office nor either senator’s office provided comment on the feud, and the source report does not describe what, if anything, the minority leader has done privately to settle it.

This is not a personality clash. It is a fight over whether support for Israel remains permissible inside the Democratic Party. El-Sayed’s promise to make an example of one moderate is a governing threat dressed up as a campaign joke, and Fetterman’s willingness to name a “pro-Hamas wing” describes a party base being pulled toward a position most churchgoing Americans reject. A unity appeal that asks both men to sing from the same hymnal is not neutrality; it is a decision about which wing gets protected, and silence is how the more aggressive wing gets its way.

Scripture is blunt about how nations treat Israel: God told Abram, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). Pray that senators in both parties would weigh that promise rather than party discipline when they vote on military assistance to Israel. Pray for Fetterman to hold his ground, for El-Sayed to reconsider the company he keeps and the threats he makes, and for Schumer to prize principle over a show of unity. Pray also that primary challengers who target Israel’s defenders would fail to find the donors and the votes they are counting on.

How are you praying about this issue? Share your prayers and scriptures in the comments below.

(Excerpt from Fox News. Photo Credit: Jewish Democratic Council of America – JDCA 2024 Leadership Summit – John Fetterman, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150946366).