Michigan Muslims' support for Biden rapidly falling over his stance on Israel

Washington: Due to his stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict, U.S. President Joe Biden is rapidly losing the support of Muslim voters in Michigan.

In Michigan in 2020, thousands of American Muslims voted for Biden to defeat Trump.

A Palestinian American immigration lawyer, Hammoud, said that she is unclear whether to vote for Biden again in 2024 or not due to his stand on the Palestinian issue.

She’s watched the Biden administration offer unwavering support to Israel with no red lines for the Jewish country and no calls for a ceasefire, even as thousands of civilians in Gaza have been killed.

“He’s (Biden) has put us in a very difficult situation,” Hammoud told CNN. “It has become almost impossible for me, morally, to vote for someone that’s taken the stances that he’s taken in the past few weeks.”

Arab and Muslim Americans may constitute a small percentage of the voters but they have outsize influence in battleground states like Michigan where the Muslims' rejection of Biden can cost him re-election as they feel hurt and betrayed by his administration.

Michigan has more than 200,000 Muslim American voters -- 146,000 of whom turned out to vote in 2020 -- according to an analysis by Emgage Action, an organisation that seeks to up the Muslim political power. Biden won Michigan -- a state that narrowly went to Donald Trump in 2016 -- by 155,000 votes.

“It just proves that Biden administration needs the Muslim votes to win,” said Nada Al-Hanooti, the Michigan executive director of Emgage Action.

The stakes are particularly high in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb where more than half of the population is of Middle Eastern or North African descent. In nearly a dozen interviews, Democrats there who voted for, campaigned for and donated to Biden’s political campaign say they can’t imagine voting for him now, even if he were to support the community’s primary request: an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the reports said.

The GOP has campaigned on policies, such as denying aid to Gaza and reinstating Trump’s travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries, which they believe would be even worse for people in the Palestinian territories and the Middle East.

Many Muslim and Arab Americans who supported Biden say they can’t imagine doing it again or asking their friends and family to back him.

“There is not a question in my mind that our President is in trouble in Michigan,” said Abbas Alawieh, a Democratic strategist who previously worked in the congressional office of Republic Rashida Tlaib, who represents Dearborn.

“The political ramifications of this are as deep as the pain people are experiencing, and that is bone-deep.”

The Muslim American voter power in Michigan is visible at a local level. In 2018, Tlaib, a Palestinian American was the first of his community to be elected to Congress; she is now a vocal critic of Israel and the US administration’s response to the conflict in Gaza.

The House voted Wednesday to block a resolution to censure Tlaib over her comments supporting Palestinians and condemning Israel’s actions.

In 2021, former state Republic Abdullah Hammoud became the first Arab and Muslim American elected as the mayor of Dearborn. Hammoud, who has also been critical of the Biden administration’s response, said he rejects the premise of the question of how Muslim and Arab Americans will vote in 2024.

“We’re not here to prostitute ourselves to the lowest bidder in order for us to be recognised for our humanity,” he said. For many Arab Americans, Biden’s strong support for Israel isn’t a surprise given his history.

In the last few weeks, Biden’s image has also dipped in the Arab community.

With inputs from IANS