Biden faces anger from Arab community on his path to re-election | International

Dima Hassan, a Palestinian born in Damascus, had to flee to Syria with her family in 2012 after the war broke out. He settled in the Dearborn area of ​​Michigan, the state with the largest proportion of Arab population in the United States. In September, he acquired US citizenship. Days later, as he was planning to travel to the West Bank for the first time, war broke out in Gaza. The 28-year-old bricklayer now dedicates his…

Dima Hassan, a Palestinian born in Damascus, had to flee to Syria with her family in 2012 after the war broke out. He settled in the Dearborn area of ​​Michigan, the state with the largest proportion of Arab population in the United States. In September, he acquired US citizenship. Days later, as he was planning to travel to the West Bank for the first time, war broke out in Gaza. The 28-year-old bricklayer is now devoting efforts to convincing Michigan residents not to vote for President Joe Biden in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, but to check the “undeclared” box, like a blank ballot.

“It’s very difficult to watch your people die on television, how your people are destroyed. “You think, ‘Am I going to be one of the few people left alive?'” she protested in Hamtramck, one of the outer cities. Dressed in the red, green, white and black of the Palestinian flag during the demonstration, Detroit flourished in the golden age of the automobile industry. In November, he will be able to vote for the first time as an American citizen. It will not treat Palestinians the same as Israelis unless committed to,” he insists.

Voters like Hasan have turned this Tuesday’s primaries in Michigan into a litmus test to see how far Biden’s position on the war in Gaza and his support for Israel – last week the United States vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution calling for a permanent and immediate ceasefire – key Democratic areas. , particularly among young people, the party’s progressive wing, and the Arab American community have affected their support. A survey by the progressive Center for Data for Progress showed in November that 66% of Americans and 70% of Democratic voters under the age of 45 support a permanent ceasefire.

Michigan, with 10 million residents, has 300,000 voters of Maghreb or Middle Eastern origin and another 200,000 Muslims from other regions. Enough, Arab community leaders argue, to make a difference in the key hinge state, which swung to Donald Trump by just 10,000 votes in 2016 and which supported Biden by 150,000 votes in 2020. Without Arab support, which leans overwhelmingly (64%) toward Biden, the Democrat won’t win the state, activists maintain. And without that state, the path to continuing in the White House is very complicated.

It is an asset that campaigns such as “Listen Michigan” (“Hear Michigan”), started by Arab American activists in the Dearborn area, where a good part of that community is concentrated (55% of its residents have roots in Lebanon, Yemen and other Arab countries of the Middle East). According to its founder, community organizer Leila Ilabed — the sister of Rashida Taleb, the only congresswoman of Palestinian descent in the US Capitol — the campaign wants Democratic voters to “no vote” in Michigan rather than support Biden. A protest against US policy in the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict and a demand for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. The minimum target they have set is 10,000, which gave Trump victory eight years ago.

Immediate ceasefire

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“This is the most democratic protest we can do. Let’s vote, and vote. Let as many people vote. But let’s vote ‘no public,’ to send a message to Biden that we are complicit in genocide paid for with our tax money.” Not going to happen,” explains Alabed. “Our protest vote is, humanitarian, to save as many lives as we can. We need a ceasefire now,” she added, moments before the demonstration began in Hamtramck, surrounded by Palestinian flags and posters with slogans such as “end the occupation” or “freedom for Palestine”.

The community organizer assures that hers is not just an Arab-American movement. “Listen to Michigann” has reached over 100,000 people across the state. Jewish voters, young white students, and even some Latinos like Mike Flores take part in the demonstration, who assures that they have come “to support the demand for a cease-fire for the Palestinian people.” Its founders also don’t want Biden to lose in November, they say, but to give him a wake-up call, realize “he needs our votes” in the presidential election and support a ceasefire that would prevent more deaths in the conflict. Along with more than 30,000 Palestinians. dead

“On Tuesday we hope to show that we are in a state where every vote matters, where the margin is very narrow and Biden needs every vote he can get. We want a permanent ceasefire, not a temporary settlement. And if not, Biden risks handing the presidency to Trump and his cronies in November,” explained Abbas Alawieh, a campaign spokesman and former congressional adviser. And he denied that his campaign was favoring a Trump victory in November. “When the war started, we kept quiet because they told us we could hurt Biden. A month later we’re still silent. And we’re still silent in December. But people are dying in Gaza. Children. “If anyone There’s so much concern that Trump might win, let him endorse us so that Biden changes his policy and stops losing votes in Michigan.”

Another parallel campaign defends Biden’s defeat in November as punishment for what they see as unconditional support for Israel. Movement “Biden left” States with significant Arab populations, such as New Jersey, Virginia or Minnesota, tend not to vote Democrat in the November elections. A president can “do the right thing. You can stop this war. You can ask for sanctions against the Israeli government. You can ask them to try you for war crimes. You can declare it a genocide. But he’s not going to do it,” one of the campaign’s leaders, Khalid Turani, is believed to have said in a recent interview.

Given this community unrest — evident in street conversations dominated by signs in Arabic, cafes or restaurants — several senior White House and Biden campaign officials have traveled to Michigan to meet with Arab American leaders. Among them, Julie Chavez, the campaign director, and John Finer, the number two on the National Security Council.

The conversation, as confirmed by some of his participants, was tense. “Until we see a change in policy toward Gaza, where a permanent ceasefire is accepted, we don’t want to talk again,” Abraham Ayesh, a Democratic congressman in the Michigan state legislature, said in a conversation at a Hamtramck coffee shop. on sunday. A meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris was canceled at the last minute.

Biden has not been to Michigan in this last leg of the campaign. Yes, he did so on February 1, when he attended an event with the UAW, one of the main union centers that has already expressed its electoral support. Harris visited the state last week, as part of her tour to defend reproductive rights, but limited herself to participating in a roundtable without a general audience.

In recent weeks, the president has taken a definite turn in his position. He has publicly called the Israeli government’s behavior in Gaza “excessive”. It has imposed sanctions against Jewish settlers who attack Palestinians in the West Bank. It has warned against an invasion of Rafah, the latest city to be attacked in the Strip. And this very Monday he announced that a temporary ceasefire could be in place in less than a week.

The White House assures that Biden is working to get “every vote in Michigan.” A statement from his campaign noted that the president “works closely and proudly with leaders of the Muslim, Arab-American and Palestinian communities” and “has urged Israel to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties in the war”.

Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, warned in an interview with CNN on Sunday that the “undeclared” vote “favors a second term for Trump.” But she also admitted she wasn’t sure what could happen this Tuesday.

Dima Hassan, who will hand out leaflets and visit polling stations on Tuesday, insists: “Don’t let Biden get my vote until there is a permanent ceasefire.”

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