Arab Americans feel betrayed by Biden

Protesters in New York blame Biden during a pro-Palestine demonstration demanding a cease-fire in Gaza.
Photo: AP

Among Muslim Americans and Arab Americans, anger over President Biden’s approach to the Israel-Gaza war and the Middle East in general has been building for months, creating a possible threat to his prospects in November. In a New York Times-Siena College poll released last week, Donald Trump led Biden 57-25 among Arab and Muslim voters in five key battleground states; those who said they voted in 2020 reported they had supported Biden 56-35 at the time, writes ‘The Washington Post’.

Ninety-four percent of Michigan Muslims voted “uncommitted” in February’s Democratic primary, according to an exit poll. Now, as the election nears, some Arab American donors and activists are considering not just sitting out the race, but working outright to elect Trump. And in a private meeting this week in Michigan, Trump’s surrogates are going to do their best to bring them into the fold.

Biden has faced criticism for not meeting with Arab community leaders in the first months after the Gaza war broke out, sending his campaign manager and then his deputy national security adviser to Michigan in his place. When Biden invited Muslim leaders to the annual White House iftar celebration last month, they declined and asked instead for a meeting on policy matters. It didn’t go well.

Sam Asaad Hanna, a Syrian American activist based in Texas, told he is working at the grass-roots level to build Arab American support for Trump via voter registration and education programs in several battleground states — many of which Biden won in 2020 with narrow margins.

“What we are seeing now in Gaza and across the region has set it backwards by decades. Everyone is thinking, how can we change this? What can we do?” he said. “That’s why people, including me, are now being more active in support of bringing Trump back to office.”

It’s not at all clear Trump would be better for Arab Americans. During his first term, he implemented multiple policies the community disliked, including arbitrary immigration restrictions from Muslim-majority countries and cutting funding for humanitarian aid for Palestinians. There’s good reason to think Trump would be even more supportive of the Israeli government than Biden. In 2017, The Post compiled a long list of negative and racist things Trump had said about Muslims.

But many activists told that Biden’s policies are so bad, they might as well roll the dice on a second Trump term.

It remains to be seen whether this nascent effort to build ties between the Trump team and Arab American leaders will bear fruit. Those assembling in Michigan represent only one segment of a very diverse Arab American community. Some of these leaders and donors may not be supporting him wholesale but are pragmatically forging relationships with Trump’s inner circle now, in case he wins.

But the fact that this opening even exists for a pro-Trump Arab American movement should be a wake-up call for the Biden team. This administration’s policies and neglect of this community is pushing it into Trump’s waiting arms. Time is running out for them to reverse this trend.

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