Arab and Muslim Americans Weren't Happy With Biden Before Gaza War. Now They're Enraged - Opinion - Haaretz.com
In the key swing state of Michigan Arab and Muslim voters have been watching closely – and with growing rage – U.S. President Joe Biden's one-sided support of Israel in a war they say is not being waged just against Hamas, but against Palestinians living in Gaza.
These voters who helped him win in 2020 could now help tip the support against Biden, potentially costing him re-election.
Michigan is home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the country. Some 310,000 residents are of either Middle Eastern or North African descent and many are pledging to form a untied block against Biden unless he changes course. Even the specter of a return of Donald Trump to the White House does not deter them.
It's not just Michigan – across the United States Arab Americans support for Biden has taken a nose dive, from 59 percent in 2020 to 17 percent if elections were held today.
For Arab Americans I have spoken to in Michigan, voting for Trump, as some say they will, is intended to punish Biden more than an _expression_ of support for the former president who has been hostile to the Muslim community and recently said he would expel immigrants who support Hamas.
Some of their community leaders told me they are hearing those in the community saying they might vote for neither Biden nor Trump but instead write in "Free Palestine" or "Ceasefire Now" in the ballot, knowing very well the end result could be a Trump victory.
An Arab-American election worker watches as a voter casts her vote in the U.S. presidential election at a polling station in Dearborn, Michigan November 2, 2004.Credit: Rebecca Cook RC/JDP / REUTERS
For them, only one issue matters. That's Biden's arming and protection of Israel militarily and politically in wake of the brutal October 7 Hamas assault on Israel has allowed it to flatten most of the Gaza Strip, displacing over a million Palestinians and reportedly killing more than 22,000, many of them civilians who are women and children. Furthermore, Vetoing UN resolutions that have called for a ceasefire in the fighting and most recently vetoing even a watered-down resolution seeking aide for Gazans has angered not just those Michigan Arab voters, but many other longtime stalwart Democrats as well.
Arab and Muslim Americans had until now been part of the Democrats' most dependable base, alongside young adults, progressives, and African Americans, many of whom also stand in opposition to Biden's policies in the Israel-Hamas War.
Biden cannot afford to lose this kind of support.
In 2020, Biden won seven states in tight races by three percentage points or less. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were swing states that could have gone to either candidate. In Michigan, Biden won the state by 150,000. Had Biden not received a majority of Arab and Muslim votes, he would have lost Michigan along with its 15 electoral college votes. If he had lost any other swing state, Biden would have lost the election to Donald Trump.
Thousands march through downtown Detroit, Michigan at a pro-Palestinian protest in Detroit, Michigan in October.Credit: Adam J. Dewey / ANADOLU / Anadolu via AFP
An NBC News poll found that Arab American distaste for Biden's stance on Israel and Gaza is also seen among the 60 percent of Independent voters who disapproved of Biden's handling of the conflict in Gaza, while only 51 percent of Democrats approved. A more recent Times/Sienna poll published by the New York Timesreported that 57 percent of voters disapproved of Biden's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And 46 percent trusted Trump to do a better job than Biden's 38 percent.
By comparison, three-quarters of voters between 18 and 29 years old, traditionally a heavily Democratic demographic, disapprove of the way Biden is handling the conflict in Gaza. Among the young voters registered to vote, 49 percent said they would vote for Trump over the 43 percent who would vote for Biden. A few months earlier, In July 2023, young voters favored Biden over Trump by ten percentage points.
Discontent with Biden among Arab and Muslim American voters predated the Gaza war. Unlike his predecessors Biden opted to deprioritize U.S. efforts to broker a broad and lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians when he came into office. His primary concerns were China and the Russia-Ukraine war. In the Middle East, he pushed for Arab-Israeli normalization of ties, almost sealing official Israeli-Saudi relations, over dealing with the Israel-Palestine issue.
Biden did not appoint a special envoy for Middle East peace. He reneged on his campaign promise to reopen the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem and the PLO mission in Washington. Furthermore, he did not reinstate a State Department legal opinion – canceled by then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – declaring Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal.
U.S. President Joe Biden arrives at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, less than two weeks after the Israel-Hamas War began.Credit: KENNY HOLSTON / NYT
Warren David, President of Arab America, the publisher of the most widely circulated Arab-American weekly publication arabamerica.com, told me "I don't see how Biden will get to secure the Arab and Muslim Americans in Michigan or elsewhere." He noted that "Normally, a president who supports Israel gets elected. This president might lose the presidential elections in 2024 because he supported Israel."
A Gallup poll conducted in February of this year confirmed that for the first time, more Democrats sympathize with Palestinians (49 percent) than those who sympathize with Israelis (38 percent). The 49 percentis more than double the 23% who sympathized with Palestinians in 2014.
Among those disaffected are members of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) and millennial voters (born between 1981 and 1986). If we are to combine those voters with Arab- and Muslim-American voters as well as progressives, Biden could lose his reelection bid in several key swing states, which could deprive him of the presidency, especially when he is already lagging in the polls.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian-American in Congress, speaks at an event to call for a cease fire in the hostilities by Israel in Gaza, at the Capitol in Washington last month.Credit: J. Scott Applewhite /AP
An Economist/YouGov poll revealed that 65 percent of Americans favored a humanitarian pause and a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Biden does not yet support a total ceasefire and has called for Hamas to release the 129 hostages from Israel it is holding captive in Gaza. Democrats – including those who have served Biden as a candidate and in his current administration – are divided over Biden's support of Israel's war strategy. Israel says it is in Gaza to destroy Hamas to prevent it from being able to be threat in the future.
During a late November visit to Arizona, Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib urged her supporters during a meeting I attended not to ditch the Democratic party over Biden's support for Israel during the Gaza war. She urged attendees who refuse to vote for Biden to, at the very least, vote down the ticket for congressional, state, and local Democrats.
Several developments could potentially help Biden among these skeptical voters. Chief among them is a complete cessation of Israeli attacks on Gaza and the West Bank and the convening of an immediate peace conference with the two-state solution as the primary item on its agenda.
Even if Biden agrees to these terms, there is little hope that these voters will support his reelection bid next year. The anger among these voters over the deaths, injuries, and near-total destruction of Gaza persists. These voters blame Biden's support of Israel for the latter's destruction of Gaza. In short, it is highly unlikely that Biden would win the support for his reelection bid among these disgruntled Democrats who, in the past, dutifully voted for him.
Bishara A. Bahbah is a contributing columnist for the Arizona Republic. He is a featured columnist with arabamerica.com and former vice president of the U.S. Palestine Council. On Twitter: @BahbahBishara