Scott Galloway Disputes Abdul El-Sayed's Gaza Genocide Claim Using Death Tolls

Raging Moderates co-host Scott Galloway challenged Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed's description of Israel's war in Gaza as a genocide, arguing on an episode released Tuesday that the share of Gazans killed does not compare to the Holocaust, Rwanda or Cambodia.

El-Sayed, a physician and former Detroit health director, leads Republican Mike Rogers in recent polling of a race that could decide Senate control.

Asked by Galloway whether the Israeli government is committing genocide, El-Sayed said, "I do. And I've been clear about why. Genocide is both outcome and intent. And when you have foreign ministers declaring intent and then the outcome is tens of thousands of children who have been killed, I would call that a genocide."

Scott Galloway's Case Against the Word 'Genocide'

Galloway, who is Jewish, said the comparison to history's recognized genocides did not hold. "As a Jew, I find it entirely unfair and not accurate to describe what's happening in Israel as a genocide," he said. "Going from 15 million to 9 million in Europe of Jews was a genocide, 40%. Wiping at 70% of the Tutsi population, that was a genocide. The third of the Cambodian population, that was a genocide."

"3% of the Gazan population has been killed and typically a genocide doesn't involve shipping in polio vaccines or 2500 calories a day or dropping leaflets or leaving voicemails telling civilians to vacate an area where they have been purposely embedded in military targets," Galloway continued. He asked El-Sayed: "Do you understand why Jews such as myself find your description of what's happening in Israel and in Gaza as a genocide as disqualifying?"

(Galloway's Holocaust figure was too low and his Cambodia figure too high. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed close to six million of Europe's roughly 9.5 million pre-war Jews — about 63 percent, not 40 percent. Yale's Cambodian Genocide Program puts the Khmer Rouge death toll at about 1.7 million, 21 percent of the population, not a third.)

Galloway also argued the term carries consequences beyond the debate. "When you use the word genocide, one, I think there's absolutely no factual support for that term that qualifies for that term," he said. "And two, it creates a level of hostility towards Jews in this city where the diaspora feels vulnerable." He called the deaths of Palestinian children "collateral damage along the lines of every other historical war," laid "at the feet of a terrorist organization."

Abdul El-Sayed Points to Intent and Israeli Groups

El-Sayed did not retreat. He said the term was coined after the Holocaust precisely so it could be used before a catastrophe reaches that scale. "But the whole point of creating that word isn't that you have to wait until the crime is that big again to be able to use it, otherwise it loses its power," he said. He added: "Calling something a genocide does not justify a genocide."

El-Sayed also pointed to Israeli human-rights groups that have used the term: in July 2025, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and 86 percent of the International Association of Genocide Scholars later backed a resolution reaching the same conclusion — a finding Israel's Foreign Ministry and some scholars in the group rejected.

What the Death-Toll Numbers Show

Galloway's 3 percent figure roughly tracks the official count. Gaza's Health Ministry reported 73,914 people killed since October 7, 2023, as of Monday, about 3.4 percent of the roughly 2.2 million pre-war population.

Independent estimates run higher. A population-representative survey in The Lancet Global Health estimated 75,200 violent deaths between October 7, 2023 and January 5, 2025 — about 3.4 percent of the pre-conflict population — plus 16,300 non-violent deaths, pushing the combined share above 4 percent for that period. Some researchers say sampling flaws may have inflated the estimate. By contrast, Human Rights Watch estimated at least 500,000 Tutsi, 77 percent of their 1991 population, were killed in Rwanda in 1994.

The percentages are context, not a verdict; genocide is defined by intent, not death-toll share, and that question remains open. South Africa's genocide case against Israel is pending at the International Court of Justice, which has set further deadlines for written pleadings; Israel denies the accusation and contests the court's jurisdiction.

Jessica Tarlov Presses on the Pledge and Jewish Voters

Tarlov pressed El-Sayed, saying "Your comments do not discuss October 7th, and they do not involve calling out Hamas" and noting "there are a lot of Jews in Michigan, and we speak to them all the time, who desperately want to vote for you." She cited a pledge from rabbis and Jewish leaders asking for "the bare minimum, Jewish safety, Jewish sovereignty in Israel," which El-Sayed declined to sign. He countered, "We can condemn what Hamas did on October 7th, and we can condemn a genocide that took place thereafter, and we can do those in two different terms," adding, "But to tell me that I cannot condemn a genocide, unless I also condemn the actions of October 7th, somebody else would pick that up and say, 'Yeah, but then what about the systematic occupation and apartheid perpetrated?' And we could play that game forever."

What It Means for the Michigan Senate Race

The debate lands in a contest Democrats need to win the chamber. PolitiKool's polling average shows El-Sayed at 47.2 percent to Rogers' 44.1 percent, while an Emerson College poll found a tighter race, 48 percent to 46 percent.

El-Sayed said the disagreement should not overshadow the coalition he is building. "Sometimes those coalitions are real uncomfortable," he said. Galloway closed the segment without conceding the point: "It really does come down to the word for me. I just don't think that's an accurate representation of the word." He added that the show would have El-Sayed back to discuss health care, where he said he finds the nominee's views "illuminating and really productive."