Michigan Rebukes Biden on Gaza Genocide with Arab and Muslim American “Uncommitted” Vote
Juan Cole 02/28/2024
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Michigan rebuked President Joe Biden on Tuesday for his unstinting support of the extremist Israeli government’s total war against Gaza. A movement for voting “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary in that state has been led by Arab American and Muslim American activists in Wayne County and the city of Dearborn. According to Elena Moore at NPR, tens of thousands voted “uncommitted.” If 15% do so, they would get a delegate at the Chicago convention this summer. In any case, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are pledging to go to the Chicago conference to make their voices heard.
The effort was not only joined by Americans of MENA (Middle East and North African) heritage but by youth voters and some members of other minorities.
NPR notes, “As of 2020, there were over 200,000 registered voters in Michigan who identified as Muslim, and over 300,000 Michiganders identify as Middle Eastern or North African, according to data from the U.S. Census.”
Democracy Now! Video: “”Moral Failure”: Democrats Urge Biden to Change Gaza Policy”
Biden’s campaign thought it would be a good idea to put him on Late Night with Seth Meyers, apparently to appeal to the youth vote. Meyers, however, does less well with the youth audience (the “key demographic”) than any of the three late night shows that precede his, helmed by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
It was not a pretty picture. Biden thought it would be a good idea to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian refugees from Rafah in preparation for yet another Israel ground operation, planned apparently for April after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Biden’s main concern with the slaughter of innocents in Gaza seemed to be that it would cost Israel support in Europe and around the world, not that 12,450 children have had their lives snuffed out by what Biden admits has been indiscriminate Israeli bombing. There was no emotion in the man, no drop of the milk of human kindness. He bought the false narrative that this destruction of most of the buildings in Gaza, including schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, community centers, and residential apartment buildings was necessary because Hamas was using civilians as a shield. The rate of death among innocent noncombatants in Gaza has exceeded that of any war fought in this century. The Israeli war plan is that of amoral monsters, which is not surprising given that the corrupt Netanyahu brought full blown fascists into his government.
If a terrorist group was operating in Tel Aviv, would anyone in the US or Europe think the logical response was to destroy Tel Aviv?
Then he again delivered himself of his announcement that he is a Zionist and that without Israel, no Jew in the world would be safe.
There are so many things wrong with this wretched sentiment. First of all, the 6.3 million Jews in the United States ought to be assured of their safety by the President of the United States, not by a foreign country. Second, Israel’s militant policies detract from everyone’s safety, including that of Jews.
But third, if it is true that the world’s 15.7 million Jews need a state to safeguard them, then surely the world’s 14.3 million Palestinians deserve a state to keep them safe. But they don’t have one. Of the 14.3 million, some 6 million in the occupied territories and Lebanon have no citizenship at all — they are stateless, without the right to have rights. Even those with citizenship rights in Israel and Jordan are second-class citizens.
Biden has given billions of dollars to Israel on his theory that it is necessary to the security of Jews, including apparently American Jews. But he has done no more than pay useless lip service to the achievement of a Palestinian state. His State Department’s main project in the Middle East has been to entice Saudi Arabia to join Jared Kushner’s “Abraham Accords,” which completely marginalizes the Palestinians.
In fact, when the Israeli parliament voted last week to never, ever allow a Palestinian state, Biden was completely silent on it.
In its Middle East policy, the Biden administration has been Trump 2.0, from the continuation of the economic and financial blockade on Iran to the “Abraham” scam.
You understand how MENA Americans find it difficult to vote for this. The argument that Trump is worse is true and most of them would admit it. But voting is an intimate, personal, act wrought up in a person’s identity, and you can’t expect people who view someone as a genocidaire to vote for that individual– in their eyes they’d be complicit.
There is an argument that Biden has been an unexpectedly effective domestic president, with good economic performance and advances in green energy. That is also true. But if you’ve lived the Gaza genocide with video on social media for nearly 5 months, it throws those things into the shade. A man who would permit that butchery just isn’t a good man.
Some are already blaming MENA Americans for a potential Biden loss and a return of Trump to the White House. That is ridiculous. Over a third of Americans don’t even bother to vote in presidential elections. In 2020, the World Population Review notes, “the number of eligible voters in the US was over 231 million people. Of these, approximately 168 million registered to vote, and 154 million actually cast a vote in the 2020 presidential election.”
So instead of blaming 4 million Muslim Americans, maybe Democrats should try to get some of those 63 million unregistered Americans registered and bring them, and the 14 million non-voting registered voters to the polls with policies that someone might be enthusiastic about rather than policies that make you want to throw up every morning when you see the news.