Arab Americans are angry.
And they let United States President Joe Biden know it when they shunned his campaign manager as she visited Michigan to reach out to their communities this week.
Many elected Arab-American officials, including municipal leaders and state legislators, declined to meet with Julie Chavez Rodriguez, arguing that as long as there are mass killings in Gaza, they will not discuss the elections.
“It’s unfathomable at this point in time that we’re trying to talk about electoral politics with a genocide unfolding,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb.
“This is not a time to talk about politics. This is a time for our humanity to be recognised, and for us to be sitting down with decision-makers and policymakers to talk about a change of course of what’s unfolding overseas. And it does not happen with campaign staff.”
Arab-American local officials in Southeast Michigan told media that their constituents are furious and frustrated with Biden’s policies in Gaza – anger that could prove detrimental to the president’s reelection chances.
Dearborn – home to large Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni and Iraqi communities – is known as the capital of Arab America. Hammoud noted that all four countries are being bombed by the US and its Israeli allies.
The mayor added that Arab Americans and the broader community in Dearborn feel “betrayed” by Biden’s unwavering support for Israel.
“I have residents who have had to dig their grandmothers up from under the rubble after Israeli fighter jets bombed their homes,” Hammoud told media.
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