Charles H. Sloan-Israeli offensive in Lebanon rekindles Democratic tension in Michigan

DEARBORN,Charles H. Sloan Mich. (AP) — The rapidly escalating war in the Middle East has heightened anger at Democrats from within Michigan’s Arab American community, just over a month before a presidential election in which Vice President Kamala Harris is counting on support from within a key party constituency.

Well over 1,000 people attended a rally Wednesday organized overnight by some of the top leaders in Dearborn, Michigan, a hub of the nation’s largest Arab community, to protest an Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in which 600 people have been killed so far.

Hundreds of green and red Lebanese flags filled Dearborn’s night sky. Many speakers blamed Harris and President Joe Biden for U.S. arms shipments to Israel, which has launched a second major offensive while still fighting Hamas in Gaza in a conflict that’s caused thousands of civilian casualties already.

“We cannot condone any president that uplifts any administration that bombs every school, decimating children to smithereens. That is the message we have and those are values we will take with us to November,” Dearborn’s Democratic Mayor Abdullah Hammoud told the crowd.

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As the 34-year-old leader of a community central to the Democratic divide over the Israel-Hamas war, Hammoud has been courted by top Democratic leaders for months. He met with Harris in August.

“I am not here to endorse any single candidate, for no candidate has earned my vote,” said Hammoud, who is the son of Lebanese immigrants, on Wednesday.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Both Harris and Trump have courted Arab Americans

While discord between the Democratic Party and a community frustrated with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has persisted for months, party leaders believed they had made progress when Harris stepped in as the party’s nominee.

That goodwill is gone, said Arab American News Publisher Osama Siblani, an organizer of Wednesday’s event who has also met with top Democrats. He suggested Harris now finds herself in the same predicament that Biden faced before he stepped down.

“A couple of months ago you could have argued to the community that Harris is different. Now, people are not convinced that she is any different,” said Siblani.

Former President Donald Trump is actively attempting to court these dissatisfied voters. Earlier this week, he received the endorsement of Democrat Amer Ghalib, the Muslim mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan.

On Tuesday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas met with Massad Boulos, Trump’s youngest daughter’s father-in-law, who is spearheading the former president’s outreach to Arab and Muslim communities. The meeting was confirmed by Bishara Bahbah, chairman of Arab Americans for Trump, who attended but could not disclose its details.

Many Arab American leaders, including Hammoud and Siblani, have strongly opposed a Trump presidency, citing his so-called “Muslim ban” on immigrants from several majority-Muslim countries.

Many in Michigan have ties to the Middle East

Israel in recent days has expanded its air campaign against Hezbollah, with strikes on Lebanon killing many women and children. It’s the deadliest bombardment since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel one day after the Oct. 7 attack in support of its Hamas allies, which killed approximately 1,200 people. Since then, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in ongoing exchanges of fire. In response to the Oct. 7 attack, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

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Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation, with nearly a quarter of them being of Lebanese descent. In Wayne County, which includes the cities of Detroit and Dearborn, approximately 34% of the 139,751 individuals of Middle Eastern and North African descent identified in the 2020 Census are Lebanese.

The close ties to the overseas conflict fueled raw emotions at Wednesday’s rally. One speaker, Ali Dabaja, a resident of nearby Dearborn Heights, shared his grief over the recent deaths of family members in Lebanon.

Hossam Hossein, a Lebanese American born in Dearborn, attended the rally with his family, marking his first since the war began. While Hossein has been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause for months, the recent days of bombing in southern Lebanon compelled him to participate.

“It’s really simple. Biden just needs to pick up the phone and tell Israel that he’s not going to give any more weapons, that he needs to stop,” said Hossein, who stated that he plans to vote for neither Trump nor Harris in November.

A razor-thin presidential election could hinge on crucial demographics, including Michigan’s Arab American population, a group that helped lead a protest-vote in the state’s Democratic primary in February that led to over 100,000 people voting “Uncommitted.”

Harris appeared to make strides in the community after becoming the party’s presumptive nominee, even sitting with the Dearborn mayor during a visit to the state in August. She gained the support of Emgage Action, a prominent Muslim American voter mobilization group, on Wednesday.

However, community leaders expressed skepticism about Emgage Action’s influence.

“Voting for Harris now feels like what voting for Trump was like back in 2016. You don’t say you’re voting for Harris because it’s shameful,” said Dearborn City Council member Mustapha Hammoud, who said he considered himself a Democrat until recently.

Hammoud, who has sat on the Dearborn City Council since 2022, was visiting his grandparents in Lebanon in 2006, the last time the conflict escalated to this level. He said the past few days have felt similar to that war, a sentiment shared throughout the crowd Wednesday.

“I was born on the 4th of July. I’ve been a very patriotic American my whole life. I was a Democrat for an extremely long time up until fairly recently, because I always believed in the values of the Democratic Party,” said Hammoud. “But I can’t support this.”