Adam Abusalah, a 23-year-old community activist, is outraged and makes this clear as he chats in a restaurant in the heart of Dearborn, Michigan, in the American Midwest. He came with a keffiyeh, the Palestinian black and white scarf. He greets each other in either English, the Palestinian Arabic dialect, or a mixture of both. “I worked on Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. At that time, I was responsible for mobilizing the Arab American electorate for him and getting people To to vote and support him. And now, after helping him get into the White House, I feel like he's helping bomb my family in Palestine… I feel betrayed.” This young Arab American who has spent his entire adult life in who has been involved in politics, swears and vows that he will never support Biden again. “Not even if my ballot was the one that decided the election between him or Donald Trump [el expresidente y candidato favorito republicano] “I would vote for him,” he says.
He's not the only one who says it that way in Dearborn. This industrial city next to Detroit, nicknamed the “Arab capital of the United States” – more than half of its residents, 54.5%, have that origin – was overwhelmingly Democratic three years ago. His support enabled Biden to win in Michigan, a crucial swing state. But since the start of the war in Gaza and the president's resolute support for Israel, many residents have declared themselves against a new mandate for the current occupant of the White House; From here a campaign has begun to ensure that no Arab-American supports his re-election in next year's November elections.
“We want to link his presidency to Gaza. Let it be one of the factors causing his defeat. Let history books and civics classes tell you that Gaza cost Joe Biden the presidency,” said Khalid Turaani, 57, of the Michigan Task Force for Palestine and one of the participants in the #AbandonBiden campaign.
Palestinian flags and inflatable reindeer
Dearborn is a deeply American city. This city of 106,000 has been the center of automobile production in the United States since Ford moved its factories there in the 1960s. At first glance, it resembles so many others where neighborhoods coexist along endless straight avenues. Single-family homes and roadside shopping centers. But here, in these malls, the franchises ubiquitous in the rest of the country sit alongside hookah cafes, Middle Eastern bakeries and travel agencies offering flights to Yemen. The facilities' signs double their messages in English and Arabic. The mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, is of Lebanese origin, as is the police chief, Issa Shahin.
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In downtown Dearborn, Palestinian flags hang in yards and home windows alongside Christmas lights and inflatable reindeer. Mosques decorated with huge American flags alternate with churches. In front of the Modern Hijab Store, which offers Muslim women's clothing in modern colors, a colorful street nativity scene invites you to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
In some main streets, someone has stuck posters with photos of Palestinian children killed in Gaza to streetlights, mimicking the posters with pictures of Israeli hostages held by Hamas that have proliferated in Western capitals since the Oct. 7 attacks.
The Arab community's rejection could be crucial to the outcome of next November's elections. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump in Michigan by just 154,000 votes, or 2.5%. There are 300,000 people of Arab descent registered in this state; A total of 146,000 Arab Americans voted in the election three years ago, nearly 70% of whom supported the Democrat. The blow could be greater if, as #AbandonBiden organizers suggest, other Arab American communities also turn their backs on the president in other key states where they have critical mass, such as Georgia, Virginia or Minnesota.
An Arab American Institute poll released Oct. 31 found that support for Biden among Arab voters fell to 17% from 59% three years ago, a decline of 42 percentage points. Two-thirds of this group of voters have a poor opinion of how Biden has handled the U.S. role in the conflict. This state of opinion exacerbates Biden's problems in the polls, which place him behind Trump in the election campaign. His popularity is around 37%, two points less than in July. And this week, a Siena College poll for The New York Times found that 57% of respondents disapprove of the president's handling of the conflict, while just 33% support it. The most critical are the youngest voters, mostly pro-Palestinians.
Dearborn was hit particularly hard by the war in Gaza. Anyone who doesn't have family on the Strip knows someone who has lost loved ones there. Since the outbreak of the current conflict, fewer people have taken to the streets. Fear of Islamophobia has increased, they claim. They remember the stabbing murder of a Palestinian child in Illinois in October and the shooting of three Palestinian-American students on Thanksgiving Day in Vermont. The mood is dark. In casual conversations in bakeries and restaurants, terms like “Hezbollah,” “war,” or “Palestine” are often used.
It is outrageous that the United States refuses to call for a ceasefire, as did the United Kingdom and Germany, which also allied with Israel. It resents military aid to Israel and it resents Washington's approval of a new arms shipment immediately after vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. The recent motion of censure against the only representative of Palestinian origin in the US Congress, Rashida Tlaib, is described as an attempt to silence pro-Arab voices in public life.
Kamala Harris campaigns in Dearborn during the 2020 election. REBECCA COOK (Portal)
Although Arab Americans have always been politically active in Michigan since the early 20th century, when the first settled there, “the type and breadth of political activity we're seeing now in Dearborn is something new,” says Sally Howell, a professor in History and Arabic-American Studies from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. “It is new because the community has never gone through a political crisis like this and so many lawmakers like Rashida Tlaib or Abdullah Hammoud have represented it. The people's political gains over decades of hard work at the local or state level seemed to have secured them a place at the table, but the attack on Gaza and American support have shown how few Arab-American voices there are on any issue are so fundamental to their lives and their values.”
At the same time, Howell adds, “There is an unprecedented attack on freedom of expression against those who criticize Israeli aggression, the media is not reporting neutrally on what is happening on the ground in Israel and Gaza, and there is anti-Arab racism” and Islamophobia ( parallel to anti-Semitism) are increasing rapidly. “These realities motivate all sorts of new forms of political protest and solidarity.” Although they are very diverse – newcomers and people who have settled for a century; Democrats and Republicans; come from Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen – when it comes to Palestine, the expert claims, “the community speaks with one voice”.
The Arabs' dissatisfaction with the president threatens to spread to other Democratic candidates. Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, Michigan's Senate candidate next year, “has expressed concern to her allies that she may not be able to win her campaign” if Biden remains the party's presidential nominee, the Washington Post reported this week. “It’s not just Joe Biden. We will not elect anyone who has shown disinterest in the lives of Palestinians. For everyone who hasn't spoken yet. If you fear the Jewish lobby enough not to speak out about injustice, don’t rely on us,” says Adam Abusalah, the young activist.
For its part, the White House claims it is putting pressure on Israel to moderate its tactics. He asserts that no country has “done as much to alleviate the suffering of the people of Gaza as the United States,” as National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said earlier this month. Aware of the unrest among Arab voters, the presidential office has organized meetings and discussions with community leaders. The contacts did not bring the positions closer together.
“We will not vote for Biden”
Osama Siblani, 68, came to the United States from Lebanon in 1976, fleeing the civil war in his country. He was always interested in politics. He founded and co-chaired the American Arab Political Action Committee (AAPAC) advocacy group, accompanied Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat at the signing of the Oslo Accords, and founded the Arab community's largest newspaper in the United States, The Arab American News, with a weekly circulation of 35,000 copies. In a speech in his office, he put it bluntly: “We will not vote for Biden.”
Siblani – who proposes to hand over the blank presidential ballot next November – assures that the Biden campaign promised in 2020 to hand over a government portfolio to an Arab-American. But “we have neither a government department nor a number two… He won thanks to our votes.” But I assure you: In the next election, we Arab Americans will not vote for him.” He claims that the rejection is irrefutable: “For our To win back the vote,” he says, “Biden himself must become Jesus and resurrect the 20,000 dead Palestinians.”
Not everyone in Dearborn shares these critical opinions. At the University of Michigan-Dearborn, international relations student Vincent Intrieri says the issue has created a deep divide among students. He himself took part in two pro-Gaza demonstrations and claims he will not do so again because he is tired of Hamas' whitewashing of some students. “You may be right, but when you attack children and women, that is terrorism. And if you practice terrorism, you will cause it to tarnish your entire community… Hamas is a terrorist group and you cannot excuse their actions.” Intrieri expressed skepticism about Biden and suggestions not to vote for him. “It is true that Biden has not taken very strong action, but it is also true that his hands are tied.”
Adam Abusalah, on the other hand, has no doubts. The vote against Biden, the young activist emphasizes, “is a short-term harm, but a long-term advantage.” If Trump wins, we will suffer for four years. But people will realize that to win an election, they have to win over the Arab American community in Michigan.”
The justice front
The pressure from this community also extends to the justice sector. In his office in downtown Detroit, attorney Nabih Ayad has framed newspaper clippings of his most famous cases. When the invasion of Iraq began in 2003, he sued the US government. In 2017, he appealed the travel veto to the United States that then-President Trump had imposed on citizens of countries he called “shitholes,” most of which were Arab. Since the start of the war, he has focused his efforts on getting the Biden administration to facilitate the evacuation of Palestinian Americans remaining in Gaza, claiming that those citizens are being discriminated against compared to efforts to free Israeli-American hostages .
“We have fifty volunteer lawyers. We have filed lawsuits in 22 states. The idea is to apply pressure. And (the government) has finally started making a list. But they can do much more: Israel should be their most loyal ally. You can call them and ask them to stop the bombing and ask them to find a way for the Palestinian Americans to escape,” Ayad explains.
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