For his re-election, Joe Biden needs the votes of Arab voters in Michigan in the fall. But many of them are appalled by Biden’s Middle East policy. Four protest voters tell their story.
Actually, the Arab electorate has little weight in the USA. The diaspora makes up around one percent of the American population. But things are different in individual suburbs of Detroit in the swing state of Michigan, for example in Dearborn. Ford built a large car factory here a hundred years ago. The plant also provided well-paying employment to many Middle Eastern immigrants. Today the mayor, the police chief and the district judge have Arab roots.
The clothing stores sell hijabs, the supermarkets sell Yemeni honey and the bakeries sell Lebanese sweets. Arabic characters are emblazoned on almost all shops.
When the Democratic primary took place here in February, only a minority of 40 percent of participants in Dearborn voted for President Joe Biden. Almost 60 percent checked the “uncommitted” (neutral) box in protest against American support for Israel in the Gaza war. Across Michigan, 13 percent, or a total of 101,436 voters, did so. This small group could decide whether you win or lose in the important swing state in November. Even more so since Biden is currently trailing Trump in the polls in Michigan. Four years ago he won here by just 2.8 percentage points – around 154,000 votes.
How can President Biden win back these protest voters by November? Four of them provide information about why they did not vote for Biden and what they want from his Israel policy.
Terry Ahwal and her childhood trauma
In February, Terry Ahwal also cast a protest vote against the president for whom she had campaigned four years ago. The Christian Palestinian woman lives northeast of Dearborn in a wealthier, typically American single-family home community. But according to Arabic tradition, she welcomes her guests with all kinds of fresh fruits, cakes and pastries. The 68-year-old recounts her traumatic childhood experiences during the Six-Day War in 1967 and afterwards under the Israeli occupation in Ramallah: soldiers dragged her father – a simple carpenter – out of the house and beat him. Her cousin was doused with gasoline and burned alive. As a ten-year-old girl, she herself observed the shooting of a local activist by Israeli agents.
The memories bring tears to Ahwal’s eyes. She now recognizes the humiliation and violence that she personally experienced back then in the Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip: “Everything is just amplified.”
Ahwal condemns the Hamas massacre on October 7th. This form of resistance is bad for the Palestinians: “You don’t kill to win your freedom.” But she accuses Biden of double standards. If Israelis kill Palestinians, this is permissible. Conversely, it is a crime. “Would you choose a person who doesn’t consider you an equal?”
For the decades-long Democrat, one thing is certain: Biden will definitely not get her vote in November. After the primary election in Michigan, the president intensified his criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip. He calls for a ceasefire and a long-term two-state solution. But this is not enough to change their minds, says Ahwal. Biden is still sending weapons and wants more money for Israel from Congress. «I’m even more disappointed than before. I am angry.”
Ahwal no longer believes in a two-state solution anyway. Out of concern for their rebellious daughter, her parents sent her to live with her uncle in Detroit in 1972 when she was 15 years old. She became involved in Palestinian organizations and the Democratic Party from a young age. In 1992 she campaigned for Bill Clinton. A year later, she received an invitation to the White House for the signing of the Oslo Accords by Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. But their great hopes were quickly dashed. Israel simply continued its settlement construction: “We gave them 78 percent of the original Palestine. And now this still isn’t enough?”
Ahwal today dreams of a one-state solution: “Let us all live together with equal rights. If you want a democracy, let’s have a democracy.”
However, with her position she could help Donald Trump win in the fall. He probably places little value on democracy in the Holy Land. The Palestinians’ situation would hardly get any better. During his first term, Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and did not consider West Bank settlements illegal under international law. However, Ahwal sees the responsibility as Biden’s: “If he wants to lose the election because Israel seems more important to him, that’s his problem. That’s how many of us feel.”
Andy Lewin, the Jewish sympathizer
Andy Levin feels something different. His Jewish ancestors came from Europe. Nevertheless, the former congressman is also one of the driving forces behind the “uncommitted” campaign in Michigan. But the left-wing democrat sees it as purely a means to an end. Biden absolutely has to win the election: “Democracy is at stake,” says the 63-year-old in a Starbucks in the Detroit suburbs. “But I don’t see any way he can win Michigan without changing course in the Gaza war.” And for him there is no mathematical alternative as to how Biden could win re-election without a victory in Michigan.
The approximately 300,000 residents of Arab origin in Michigan, who make up around 3 percent of the population, are only one problem. The other thing is the young voters. The university towns in Michigan are on fire: “There is a lot more of 1968 in 2024 than we realize.” The Vietnam War divided Democrats at the time. At the party conference in Chicago there were bloody clashes between security forces and opponents of the war. The Republican Richard Nixon then won the presidential election. Levin fears history could repeat itself.
The American government is already violating its own laws, says Levin. No country should receive military aid from Washington that hinders the delivery of humanitarian aid. In addition, the use of 2,000-pound bombs, the high number of civilian casualties, the destruction of entire residential areas and practically the entire infrastructure in the Gaza Strip are unacceptable. “I say this as a Jew.” His people can only hope for a peaceful homeland if they also recognize the rights of the Palestinians. He is based on a firm conviction that ultimately all sides want a common peace: “Otherwise I would be a racist.”
However, unlike Ahwal, Levin still believes in the two-state solution. “Let the Jews have their little homeland after all the trauma they had to go through.” He is also optimistic that Biden is moving in the right direction. “We just have to keep pushing.”
But the president is far from meeting Levin’s demands. This includes a permanent ceasefire, but also a stop to the supply of “offensive weapons” to Israel and the calling of an extraordinary peace summit to resolve the Middle East conflict.
Nasser Beydoun, restaurateur and politician
Levin’s optimism, however, appears to be less widespread among Arab activists in Detroit. Businessman and Democrat Nasser Beydoun wants to run for a seat in the US Senate. Biden’s intensified criticism of Israel is just window dressing, he says in one of his four restaurants in Dearborn. The 59-year-old is convinced that the President or Congress will never attach conditions to military aid to Israel.
Beydoun comes from a Shiite family from southern Lebanon and grew up in the capital Beirut for the first four years of his life. His grandfather was a member of the Lebanese parliament, two uncles and an aunt supported the Palestinian liberation movement. In 1969 his parents emigrated with him to the USA. Like many other immigrants, his father found a job at a car factory in Detroit.
The restaurateur doesn’t believe that the president can still win back the hearts of American Arabs. “The pain Biden has caused is incurable.” In his eyes, Israel is not waging war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but rather against the entire Palestinian people. “As bad as Donald Trump was, unlike Biden, he did not support genocide.” The president could stop him with a phone call, but he didn’t.
Lexis Zeidan calls for the one-state solution
Beydoun’s campaign manager Lexis Zeidan is a Christian Palestinian and one of the organizers of the “uncommitted” campaign against Biden. She doesn’t yet want to say who she will vote for in November. But the fear of Trump should not be exploited against her movement, says the 31-year-old. “It’s like someone telling me to prefer the war criminal Biden over Trump.”
Zeidan has never actually seen her country of origin. Her grandparents were expelled from Jaffa by the Israelis in 1948 and her parents grew up in Jordan. When she was 19, Zeidan saw a notice at Michigan State University offering Jewish students a “birthright trip” to Israel. This moment turned her into an activist: “I understood that these students could go on a free trip to Israel to discover the country, while the Palestinians have no right to return.”
For Zeidan, the current conflict does not begin on October 7th with the Hamas massacre. It begins in 1948 with the founding of the Israeli state and widespread expulsions of Arabs. “Hamas did not invade a country and displace 750,000 people.” Consequently, it essentially denies Israel the right to exist. A two-state solution with a fragmented Palestine in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is not practical. In addition, the land “morally” belongs to the original population – Palestinian Jews, Christians and Muslims. There is therefore only one option: “The one-state solution is an absolute requirement.”
It is a radical demand that Biden cannot enforce even if he wanted to. Nevertheless, Zeidan vows that their protest movement will continue until its goals are achieved. She and her colleagues are now also active in other member states. Last Tuesday, the primary elections took place in Wisconsin, also an important swing state, which Biden only won by a very thin margin of 0.6 percent in 2020, or a total of around 20,000 votes.
Anyone in Wisconsin who wanted to cast a protest vote against the president could check “uninstructed.” They did everything they could to get people to choose this option, explains Zeidan. Around 8 percent – over 48,000 voters – ultimately expressed their displeasure with the Gaza war in this way. They too could make the difference between victory and defeat in November. Now it’s up to Biden to change the minds of these disappointed citizens, says Zeidan. “He has to decide.”