‘We warned you,’ Arab Americans in Michigan tell Kamala Harris | 2024 US Election News

Dearborn, Michigan – When Fox News called Pennsylvania early Wednesday about Donald Trump, all but confirming that he will be the next president of the United States, a handful of Arab activists remained at a party in Dearborn, Michigan.

“Genocide is bad policy,” said one attendee at the event, where Palestinian and Lebanese flags hung outside the doors.

And as the reality of another Trump presidency sparked anger and sadness among many Democratic commentators, there was a sense of indifference, if not vindication, at the Arab American gathering.

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has ignored calls from the community to reconsider the United States’ unconditional support for Israel. The vice president also continued to defend what she calls “Israel’s right to self-defense” despite brutal atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon.

Activist Adam Abusala said one of the reasons Harris lost was her decision to side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the expense of alienating the Democratic base – Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as youth and progressives.

“It’s not our fault. They cannot denigrate our community,” Abusala said.

“We’ve been warning Democrats for over a year now, and Democrats continue to downplay what’s happening.”

He added that Harris’ main message to the Arab community was a warning about the dangers of a Trump presidency – a tactic that didn’t work as voters in the area were focused on the ongoing war in the Middle East, which affected many of them personally. .

Dearborn shift

In the Arab-majority suburb of Dearborn, anger over the U.S.-backed Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon was palpable at the ballot box.

Harris lost the city to Trump by more than 2,600 votes. President Joe Biden led Trump by more than 17,400 votes, more than the 20,000 votes that helped the former Republican president take back Michigan.

Candidate Jill Stein, who centered her platform on opposition to the war, also performed relatively well in the city, increasing Green Party support from 207 votes in 2020 to more than 7,600 this year.

Hussein Dabaje, a Lebanese-American political consultant in the Detroit area, noted that Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, had a significant lead over Harris in Dearborn, receiving more than 9,600 votes than the vice president.

“The Arab community has said that we are against genocide. We supported candidates who supported the community and opposed candidates who opposed the community,” Dabaji told Al Jazeera.

It is unclear what a Trump presidency will mean for Arab Americans and Muslims, as well as for the country as a whole.

“I hope it’s something good. I hope the country will unite. I hope the Democrats will come to their senses,” Dabaje said.

Although the former president has a long history of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant statements and policies, he promised to bring “peace” to the region.

Trump has also softened his antagonistic tone toward Arabs and Muslims while courting their communities in Michigan.

During his rallies, he brought Arab and Muslim officials and imams onto the stage and called them “great men.”

Trump also visited Dearborn and listened first-hand to demands to end the war—something Harris was unable to do.

“It doesn’t end here”

Ali Alfarjalla, a 32-year-old Iraqi-American real estate agent in Dearborn, said that for all his faults, Trump represents a change from the Biden-Harris administration, which unwaveringly supported Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.

He stressed that the election is not the end of political engagement, saying the community will pressure Trump to deliver on his promise to bring peace to the region.

“The matter does not end here,” Alfarhalla told Al Jazeera.

“We must work harder to make our concerns heard – to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip, stop the invasion of South Lebanon and allow Palestine to have its own state. We hope so. This is our number one priority for this community.”

He also said Harris supporters’ plea to the public about the “lesser of two evils” backfired because many voters saw no worse evil than an administration providing bombs that kill their families and destroy their hometowns.

While both major candidates support Israel, the Harris campaign made a series of unforced errors that further alienated the community in Michigan and beyond, Arab American advocates told Al Jazeera.

At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, Harris’ campaign rejected demands to allow a Palestinian speaker to speak.

The Democratic nominee also rejected a request for a meeting by the Nonaligned Movement, which was founded during the Democratic primary to pressure Biden over his unconditional support for Israel.

Unlike Trump, Harris did not visit Dearborn, the de facto seat of Arab-American political and financial power, during his campaign.

Instead, Harris met last month with carefully selected Arab and Muslim “leaders” in Flint, about an hour north of Detroit.

Moreover, Harris campaigned alongside Liz Cheney in Michigan and welcomed the support of her father, former President Dick Cheney, the architect of the so-called “War on Terror” that devastated the Middle East.

Numerous Arab American activists have cited Harris’ support for Cheney, highlighting her apparent disdain for their communities.

“We’ve got Harris endorsed by neocons like Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney, and she’s openly campaigning with them and talking about how great they are,” Dearborn Councilman Mustapha Hammoud told Al Jazeera on Tuesday night. when the results came out.

“You know what? I don’t think people are ready to vote for George W. Bush, so you won’t see people voting for Harris either.”

“I smile and laugh about it”

Speaking last week under a Harris campaign banner, former President Bill Clinton said Hamas was “forcing” Israel to kill Palestinian civilians and suggested that Zionism predates Islam.

The campaign’s performance has led some supporters to question whether the Democratic nominee has abandoned the Arab community.

“Vice President Harris has shown time and time again that she doesn’t really want our vote,” Leila Elabed, leader of the No Commitment Movement, told Al Jazeera last week.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud also noted that the Harris campaign has been hesitant to directly engage Arab Americans.

“They don’t want criticism to happen. They don’t want to knock on doors where they think negotiations will drag on and there may not be votes,” the mayor told Al Jazeera before the elections.

On the political front, Harris made no specific promises to the community—even within the acceptable realm of mainstream policy—such as reopening the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C., or renewing funding for the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).

By contrast, in 2020, Biden released platforms for Arab and Muslim Americans, promising domestic and foreign policy steps that the community had sought—many of which remained unfulfilled.

As a result, many Arab Americans say they have already survived four years of Trump, while many of their relatives in Palestine and Lebanon have not survived the Biden-Harris presidency.

They say they will continue to push for change no matter who is in power.

In response to a question about some liberal social media users attacking Arab Americans and blaming them for Harris’ defeat, Alfarhallah said many people in the community have lived through war and hardship so they don’t care what others say.

“I smile and laugh about it,” he said.