Aaron Boxerman and Jonathan Weisman
Sun, 25 February 2024
Palestinian men work to repair cars damaged, like the building behind them, in a February settler rampage in the West Bank village of Huwara, March 15, 2023
(Samar Hazboun/The New York Times)
JERUSALEM — The Biden administration’s reversal of Trump-era policy on settlements in the occupied West Bank reflects not just its rising frustration with Israel, but the political bind the president finds himself in, just days before the Democratic primary in Michigan, where a large Arab American population is urging voters to register their anger by voting “uncommitted.”
During a trip to Argentina on Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called any new settlements “inconsistent with international law,” a break with policy set under the Trump administration and a return to the decadeslong U.S. position.
The Biden administration is increasingly fed up with the Israeli government’s conduct in the war in the Gaza Strip and beyond, with officials speaking out more publicly on contentious issues, said Nimrod Novik, a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum think tank. As an example, he cited a U.S. decision to slap financial sanctions on four Israelis — three of them settlers — accused of attacking Palestinians in the West Bank at a time when settler violence against Palestinians has increased.
Yet, Novik called Blinken’s remarks “too little, too late,” adding that the administration’s moves “in practice, are disjointed. The message is there, but it’s a tactical statement where the overall strategy is unclear.”
The United States has long been Israel’s most important international ally. Since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 left 1,200 dead in Israel, mostly civilians, Washington has consistently backed Israel’s blistering campaign in Gaza. The Biden administration has also shielded Israel from international censure by blocking cease-fire resolutions at the U.N. Security Council, even as the death toll in Gaza nears 30,000, according to health officials in the enclave.
That stance has increasingly left President Joe Biden in a no-win situation. His recent moves to press the Israeli government to wind down the war in Gaza and enter negotiations toward a Palestinian state have angered some ardent supporters of Israel in the United States. Yet they have come nowhere close to placating Israel’s fiercest critics on the political left and the Arab American community.
Shortly after Oct. 7, Arab Americans and progressive voters were largely standing back as even Jewish Republicans were praising Biden’s pro-Israel response.
Those same Jewish Republicans are now castigating the president. The Republican Jewish Coalition, which had backed the administration after Oct. 7, called the new settlement policy “yet another lowlight to its campaign of undermining Israel.”
The group ticked off other policies the administration has aimed at reining in the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks, including sanctions against West Bank settlers who commit acts of violence and pressuring the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize a Palestinian state.
“The communities at issue, located west of the West Bank security barrier, are not preventing peace,” said Matt Brooks, the group’s longtime CEO. “Palestinian terrorism is.”
But those steps fall far short of what young progressive voters and Arab Americans are demanding: an immediate cease-fire in the war in Gaza and a halt to U.S. military aid to Israel. Those calls are only getting louder as Netanyahu shows no sign of relenting.
“Biden’s sanctions on settler violence and the declaration that settlements are illegal would be inadequate at any time in recent years given how deep Israel’s apartheid has become entrenched,” said Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American who heads the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center in Washington. “But now he’s backing a genocide in Gaza. This is like showing up to a five-alarm fire with a cup of water while giving fuel to the arsonist.”
In fact, the political imperatives for the Israeli prime minister and for the U.S. president are opposite. Biden needs the war to end so he can reassemble the coalition that got him elected in 2020. But Netanyahu wants it to continue until the complete rout of Hamas, to stave off his own political reckoning from an angry electorate — and potentially help his ally, Donald Trump, return to power.
Blinken’s declaration appears to have been triggered by an announcement by Bezalel Smotrich, a senior Israeli minister, that a planning committee would soon discuss moving ahead with over 3,000 new housing units in the settlements. Most would be in Ma’ale Adumim, where three Palestinian gunmen killed one Israeli and wounded several others Thursday.
Smotrich called the new units “an appropriate Zionist response” to the attack.
Biden administration officials have repeatedly condemned settlement expansion in the West Bank — where roughly 500,000 Israelis now live among some 2.7 million Palestinians — as an obstacle to the long-standing U.S. goal of a two-state solution. In recent weeks, Netanyahu has repeatedly said he worked for years to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, which he has long said would endanger Israel’s security.
Palestinians hope the West Bank will be an integral part of their future independent state, but Israeli settlements have slowly taken over sizable chunks of the territory. Palestinian officials called Blinken’s declaration long overdue and not nearly enough.
“Reversing an illegal act by the previous administration has been overdue for 3 1/2 years,” Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, said in a phone call Saturday. “For the love of God, I don’t understand why Blinken and President Biden sat on their hands on this issue — and many others — for all this time.”
Still, Blinken’s declaration was “better late than never,” Zomlot said, adding that Palestinians expected “real actions” against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank rather than “baby steps.”
But that expectation might be frustrated, at least in the short term, analysts said. Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat, said the Biden administration was unlikely to follow up Blinken’s declaration with “serious costs and consequences.” Alongside regional mediators, U.S. officials have been trying to cinch a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, making a “sustained public war with Netanyahu” unpalatable for Biden, he said in an email.
Although Biden entered office pledging to reverse some of his predecessor’s policies on Israel, many remain intact. A separate Jerusalem consulate that effectively served as the U.S. liaison to the Palestinians was never formally reopened after it was closed by the Trump administration; the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington is still closed; and most financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, is frozen under legislation signed by Trump.
During the first year and a half of Biden’s tenure, U.S. officials defended their cautious approach as an attempt to avoid rocking the fragile, fractious coalition of left, right and center that had temporarily toppled Netanyahu. But that government collapsed in mid-2022, leading to the fifth Israeli elections in four years.
After Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the helm of a far-right coalition stacked with nationalists and settler leaders, settlement expansion exploded. A total of 12,349 housing units in settlements advanced through various stages of the bureaucratic planning process in 2023, compared with the 4,427 units recorded the previous year, according to the Israeli organization Peace Now.
But until the Hamas-led attack Oct. 7 prompted Israel’s four-month military offensive in Gaza, the Biden administration avoided clashing head-on with Israel over contentious issues regarding the Palestinians, preferring to focus on other regional goals, like normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials instead expended their political capital elsewhere, focusing on rivals like Iran and later on normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, said Natan Sachs, who directs the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
“It’s a significant step, given the Trump administration’s approach,” said Sachs, referring to Blinken’s remarks, “though less groundbreaking than the administration’s sanctions on violent settlers.”
“The latter was unprecedented and a real signal of new policy,” he said. “The latest declaration is a symptom of the administration needing to reengage.”
c.2024 The New York Times Company
JERUSALEM — The Biden administration’s reversal of Trump-era policy on settlements in the occupied West Bank reflects not just its rising frustration with Israel, but the political bind the president finds himself in, just days before the Democratic primary in Michigan, where a large Arab American population is urging voters to register their anger by voting “uncommitted.”
During a trip to Argentina on Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called any new settlements “inconsistent with international law,” a break with policy set under the Trump administration and a return to the decadeslong U.S. position.
The Biden administration is increasingly fed up with the Israeli government’s conduct in the war in the Gaza Strip and beyond, with officials speaking out more publicly on contentious issues, said Nimrod Novik, a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum think tank. As an example, he cited a U.S. decision to slap financial sanctions on four Israelis — three of them settlers — accused of attacking Palestinians in the West Bank at a time when settler violence against Palestinians has increased.
Yet, Novik called Blinken’s remarks “too little, too late,” adding that the administration’s moves “in practice, are disjointed. The message is there, but it’s a tactical statement where the overall strategy is unclear.”
The United States has long been Israel’s most important international ally. Since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 left 1,200 dead in Israel, mostly civilians, Washington has consistently backed Israel’s blistering campaign in Gaza. The Biden administration has also shielded Israel from international censure by blocking cease-fire resolutions at the U.N. Security Council, even as the death toll in Gaza nears 30,000, according to health officials in the enclave.
That stance has increasingly left President Joe Biden in a no-win situation. His recent moves to press the Israeli government to wind down the war in Gaza and enter negotiations toward a Palestinian state have angered some ardent supporters of Israel in the United States. Yet they have come nowhere close to placating Israel’s fiercest critics on the political left and the Arab American community.
Shortly after Oct. 7, Arab Americans and progressive voters were largely standing back as even Jewish Republicans were praising Biden’s pro-Israel response.
Those same Jewish Republicans are now castigating the president. The Republican Jewish Coalition, which had backed the administration after Oct. 7, called the new settlement policy “yet another lowlight to its campaign of undermining Israel.”
The group ticked off other policies the administration has aimed at reining in the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks, including sanctions against West Bank settlers who commit acts of violence and pressuring the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize a Palestinian state.
“The communities at issue, located west of the West Bank security barrier, are not preventing peace,” said Matt Brooks, the group’s longtime CEO. “Palestinian terrorism is.”
But those steps fall far short of what young progressive voters and Arab Americans are demanding: an immediate cease-fire in the war in Gaza and a halt to U.S. military aid to Israel. Those calls are only getting louder as Netanyahu shows no sign of relenting.
“Biden’s sanctions on settler violence and the declaration that settlements are illegal would be inadequate at any time in recent years given how deep Israel’s apartheid has become entrenched,” said Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American who heads the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center in Washington. “But now he’s backing a genocide in Gaza. This is like showing up to a five-alarm fire with a cup of water while giving fuel to the arsonist.”
In fact, the political imperatives for the Israeli prime minister and for the U.S. president are opposite. Biden needs the war to end so he can reassemble the coalition that got him elected in 2020. But Netanyahu wants it to continue until the complete rout of Hamas, to stave off his own political reckoning from an angry electorate — and potentially help his ally, Donald Trump, return to power.
Blinken’s declaration appears to have been triggered by an announcement by Bezalel Smotrich, a senior Israeli minister, that a planning committee would soon discuss moving ahead with over 3,000 new housing units in the settlements. Most would be in Ma’ale Adumim, where three Palestinian gunmen killed one Israeli and wounded several others Thursday.
Smotrich called the new units “an appropriate Zionist response” to the attack.
Biden administration officials have repeatedly condemned settlement expansion in the West Bank — where roughly 500,000 Israelis now live among some 2.7 million Palestinians — as an obstacle to the long-standing U.S. goal of a two-state solution. In recent weeks, Netanyahu has repeatedly said he worked for years to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, which he has long said would endanger Israel’s security.
Palestinians hope the West Bank will be an integral part of their future independent state, but Israeli settlements have slowly taken over sizable chunks of the territory. Palestinian officials called Blinken’s declaration long overdue and not nearly enough.
“Reversing an illegal act by the previous administration has been overdue for 3 1/2 years,” Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, said in a phone call Saturday. “For the love of God, I don’t understand why Blinken and President Biden sat on their hands on this issue — and many others — for all this time.”
Still, Blinken’s declaration was “better late than never,” Zomlot said, adding that Palestinians expected “real actions” against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank rather than “baby steps.”
But that expectation might be frustrated, at least in the short term, analysts said. Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat, said the Biden administration was unlikely to follow up Blinken’s declaration with “serious costs and consequences.” Alongside regional mediators, U.S. officials have been trying to cinch a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, making a “sustained public war with Netanyahu” unpalatable for Biden, he said in an email.
Although Biden entered office pledging to reverse some of his predecessor’s policies on Israel, many remain intact. A separate Jerusalem consulate that effectively served as the U.S. liaison to the Palestinians was never formally reopened after it was closed by the Trump administration; the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington is still closed; and most financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, is frozen under legislation signed by Trump.
During the first year and a half of Biden’s tenure, U.S. officials defended their cautious approach as an attempt to avoid rocking the fragile, fractious coalition of left, right and center that had temporarily toppled Netanyahu. But that government collapsed in mid-2022, leading to the fifth Israeli elections in four years.
After Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the helm of a far-right coalition stacked with nationalists and settler leaders, settlement expansion exploded. A total of 12,349 housing units in settlements advanced through various stages of the bureaucratic planning process in 2023, compared with the 4,427 units recorded the previous year, according to the Israeli organization Peace Now.
But until the Hamas-led attack Oct. 7 prompted Israel’s four-month military offensive in Gaza, the Biden administration avoided clashing head-on with Israel over contentious issues regarding the Palestinians, preferring to focus on other regional goals, like normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials instead expended their political capital elsewhere, focusing on rivals like Iran and later on normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, said Natan Sachs, who directs the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
“It’s a significant step, given the Trump administration’s approach,” said Sachs, referring to Blinken’s remarks, “though less groundbreaking than the administration’s sanctions on violent settlers.”
“The latter was unprecedented and a real signal of new policy,” he said. “The latest declaration is a symptom of the administration needing to reengage.”
c.2024 The New York Times Company
Watching the watchdogs: Biden, US media and Arab-American political power
US media attacks on the Arab and Muslim American communities have only motivated them further to flex political muscle.
Rami G Khouri
Published On 25 Feb 2024
Arab- and Muslim-Americans and some 60 percent of all Americans have wanted for months for US President Joe Biden to pressure Israel into accepting an immediate ceasefire in the war on Gaza. The White House has all but ignored them.
So Arab- and Muslim-Americans decided to flex their political muscle by using their electoral power in critical swing states in this year’s presidential election. In December, community leaders from nine potential swing states met in Dearborn, Michigan under the slogan “Abandon Biden, ceasefire now”. They vowed not to vote for Biden in the November presidential polls unless he changes his policies that enable Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza, rob Palestinians of decent life conditions, and largely ignore the views of significant minority communities in the United States.
The campaign quickly attracted support in Michigan and other states with large Arab-American communities, along with criticism from Biden supporters who feared that the campaign to pressure the president might inadvertently guarantee a Donald Trump victory.
Arab- and Muslim-Americans intensified their campaign in February, when demeaning articles in the mainstream press helped mobilised even more community members.
On February 2, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an op-ed by Steven Stalinsky, titled Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital, which alleged “Imams and politicians in the Michigan city side with Hamas against Israel and Iran against the US.” The article tarred the entire community as dangerous extremists.
On the same day, a New York Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman metaphorically compared Middle Eastern countries and political actors to animals in the jungle, including trap-door spiders and wasps.
Whatever these – and other offensive articles and cartoons – aimed to achieve, they inadvertently propelled Arab-American engagements in high-stakes electoral politics. The city of Dearborn, Michigan, singled out by name and smeared in the WSJ article, became ground zero for this effort.
The Michigan community reached out to mobilise nationally with other marginalised communities that the White House has often ignored – notably African-Americans, Hispanics, progressive Jews, labourers, women, university students, and others. They joined hands because they share concerns about foreign policy as well as the White House’s domestic priorities and its opportunistic and self-serving citizen engagement.
The activists demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the implementation of existing legal restrictions on the unconditional aid and arms the US has provided Israel for decades. They are fed up with being ignored by a White House that takes their votes for granted, as well as by the Democratic Party they have helped boost through voter-registration drives since the mid-1980s. They are also incredibly frustrated with mainstream, often racist, media that misrepresent, demean, and ignore them.
I asked Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud this week why his town joins hands with other disgruntled American communities to impact national politics and foreign policy at the highest level. He said: “This is all about trust and respect between officials and citizens. We must end the discrepancy we see today between elected officials and the values of citizens. There are no possible justifications or qualifiers for genocide or killing babies and civilians on such a large scale. None at all.”
In our conversation and his public statements, Hammoud spelled out how US foreign policy and media coverage directly impact ordinary citizens.
“It’s personal for us, as some of our families have experienced Israeli occupation or wars, or volunteered in refugee camps,” he said. “When foreign policy decisions directly impact the wellbeing of Dearborn residents, it is irresponsible to walk away from difficult policy conversations that can lead to saving the lives of innocent men, women, and children.”
Hammoud was clear on his community’s demands: “We want action, not words”.
But so far, Arab- and Muslim-Americans have received mostly words. Worried about the “Abandon Biden” campaign, the president’s campaign staff approached local leaders to meet, but they refused. They insisted they wanted to talk with policymakers at the White House. And it worked.
Biden quickly sent to Michigan several of his staffers, including Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser; Tom Perez, senior adviser to the president and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; and Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
But after the meetings, nothing changed yet again. The Arab- and Muslim-American community received more nice words, and no action.
So as Biden maintained the flow of arms and money for Israel’s assault on Gaza, community leaders, including US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, decided to raise the stakes. They launched the “Listen to Michigan” campaign that asks “people of conscience” to list themselves as “uncommitted” in the presidential primary on Tuesday, February 27. This signals to Biden and the party that they must listen to citizens’ concerns, and earn their votes, or else risk losing in state and presidential elections.
The community leaders and activists dare to do this because they enjoy unprecedented leverage from the size and distribution of Arab- and Muslim-American voters in swing states like Michigan, where elections are tightly contested. Michigan is home to more than 300,000 Arab-Americans. Trump won the state by less than 11,000 votes in 2016, and Biden in 2020 by 154,000 votes, including many cast by Arab-Americans. Biden also won by 10,500 votes in Arizona, which is home to 60,000 Arab Americans, and by 11,800 votes in Georgia, where 57,000 Arab-Americans live.
Veteran Arab-American activist James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, told me that this burst of action builds on 40 years of community capacity-building across the country. It captures Arab-Americans’ mindset that “is moving from paralysis and despair in the early 1980s to today’s feeling that we can control our destiny.”
The other partners in the informal coalition to change US policy add clout. Michigan’s large United Autoworkers Union has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, recalling how it had also opposed apartheid in South Africa. The African Methodist Episcopal Church has also demanded an immediate ceasefire and called the attacks on Gaza “mass genocide”.
Progressive groups, such as US Senator Bernie Sanders’s Our Revolution, have also joined the “Listen to Michigan” campaign.
Mayor Hammoud told me that coalitions of minority communities have always worked together on shared causes at the local level. But, he added, “I’ve never seen a paradigm shift on the Palestine issue like we see today, with up to 80 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of youth supporting the ceasefire we call for.”
One Arab-American who advised the White House in recent years also told me the newfound political leverage of the community “is unexpected, unfamiliar, and unprecedented.”
Indeed it is, and Tuesday’s Michigan primary should reveal precisely how impactful it might be – and if it can temper American war-making abroad by acknowledging its citizens at home who take seriously that their governance system is anchored in “the consent of the governed”.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance
US media attacks on the Arab and Muslim American communities have only motivated them further to flex political muscle.
Rami G Khouri
Published On 25 Feb 2024
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march during a February 1 visit by US President Joe Biden to Warren, Michigan, the United States
[AP/Paul Sancya]
Arab- and Muslim-Americans and some 60 percent of all Americans have wanted for months for US President Joe Biden to pressure Israel into accepting an immediate ceasefire in the war on Gaza. The White House has all but ignored them.
So Arab- and Muslim-Americans decided to flex their political muscle by using their electoral power in critical swing states in this year’s presidential election. In December, community leaders from nine potential swing states met in Dearborn, Michigan under the slogan “Abandon Biden, ceasefire now”. They vowed not to vote for Biden in the November presidential polls unless he changes his policies that enable Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza, rob Palestinians of decent life conditions, and largely ignore the views of significant minority communities in the United States.
The campaign quickly attracted support in Michigan and other states with large Arab-American communities, along with criticism from Biden supporters who feared that the campaign to pressure the president might inadvertently guarantee a Donald Trump victory.
Arab- and Muslim-Americans intensified their campaign in February, when demeaning articles in the mainstream press helped mobilised even more community members.
On February 2, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an op-ed by Steven Stalinsky, titled Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital, which alleged “Imams and politicians in the Michigan city side with Hamas against Israel and Iran against the US.” The article tarred the entire community as dangerous extremists.
On the same day, a New York Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman metaphorically compared Middle Eastern countries and political actors to animals in the jungle, including trap-door spiders and wasps.
Whatever these – and other offensive articles and cartoons – aimed to achieve, they inadvertently propelled Arab-American engagements in high-stakes electoral politics. The city of Dearborn, Michigan, singled out by name and smeared in the WSJ article, became ground zero for this effort.
The Michigan community reached out to mobilise nationally with other marginalised communities that the White House has often ignored – notably African-Americans, Hispanics, progressive Jews, labourers, women, university students, and others. They joined hands because they share concerns about foreign policy as well as the White House’s domestic priorities and its opportunistic and self-serving citizen engagement.
The activists demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the implementation of existing legal restrictions on the unconditional aid and arms the US has provided Israel for decades. They are fed up with being ignored by a White House that takes their votes for granted, as well as by the Democratic Party they have helped boost through voter-registration drives since the mid-1980s. They are also incredibly frustrated with mainstream, often racist, media that misrepresent, demean, and ignore them.
I asked Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud this week why his town joins hands with other disgruntled American communities to impact national politics and foreign policy at the highest level. He said: “This is all about trust and respect between officials and citizens. We must end the discrepancy we see today between elected officials and the values of citizens. There are no possible justifications or qualifiers for genocide or killing babies and civilians on such a large scale. None at all.”
In our conversation and his public statements, Hammoud spelled out how US foreign policy and media coverage directly impact ordinary citizens.
“It’s personal for us, as some of our families have experienced Israeli occupation or wars, or volunteered in refugee camps,” he said. “When foreign policy decisions directly impact the wellbeing of Dearborn residents, it is irresponsible to walk away from difficult policy conversations that can lead to saving the lives of innocent men, women, and children.”
Hammoud was clear on his community’s demands: “We want action, not words”.
But so far, Arab- and Muslim-Americans have received mostly words. Worried about the “Abandon Biden” campaign, the president’s campaign staff approached local leaders to meet, but they refused. They insisted they wanted to talk with policymakers at the White House. And it worked.
Biden quickly sent to Michigan several of his staffers, including Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser; Tom Perez, senior adviser to the president and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; and Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
But after the meetings, nothing changed yet again. The Arab- and Muslim-American community received more nice words, and no action.
So as Biden maintained the flow of arms and money for Israel’s assault on Gaza, community leaders, including US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, decided to raise the stakes. They launched the “Listen to Michigan” campaign that asks “people of conscience” to list themselves as “uncommitted” in the presidential primary on Tuesday, February 27. This signals to Biden and the party that they must listen to citizens’ concerns, and earn their votes, or else risk losing in state and presidential elections.
The community leaders and activists dare to do this because they enjoy unprecedented leverage from the size and distribution of Arab- and Muslim-American voters in swing states like Michigan, where elections are tightly contested. Michigan is home to more than 300,000 Arab-Americans. Trump won the state by less than 11,000 votes in 2016, and Biden in 2020 by 154,000 votes, including many cast by Arab-Americans. Biden also won by 10,500 votes in Arizona, which is home to 60,000 Arab Americans, and by 11,800 votes in Georgia, where 57,000 Arab-Americans live.
Veteran Arab-American activist James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, told me that this burst of action builds on 40 years of community capacity-building across the country. It captures Arab-Americans’ mindset that “is moving from paralysis and despair in the early 1980s to today’s feeling that we can control our destiny.”
The other partners in the informal coalition to change US policy add clout. Michigan’s large United Autoworkers Union has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, recalling how it had also opposed apartheid in South Africa. The African Methodist Episcopal Church has also demanded an immediate ceasefire and called the attacks on Gaza “mass genocide”.
Progressive groups, such as US Senator Bernie Sanders’s Our Revolution, have also joined the “Listen to Michigan” campaign.
Mayor Hammoud told me that coalitions of minority communities have always worked together on shared causes at the local level. But, he added, “I’ve never seen a paradigm shift on the Palestine issue like we see today, with up to 80 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of youth supporting the ceasefire we call for.”
One Arab-American who advised the White House in recent years also told me the newfound political leverage of the community “is unexpected, unfamiliar, and unprecedented.”
Indeed it is, and Tuesday’s Michigan primary should reveal precisely how impactful it might be – and if it can temper American war-making abroad by acknowledging its citizens at home who take seriously that their governance system is anchored in “the consent of the governed”.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance
.
Rami G Khouri
Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut
Rami G Khouri is a Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East.
Rami G Khouri
Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut
Rami G Khouri is a Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East.
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