Michigan Arabs and Muslims are deeply split over supporting Harris

DEARBORN, Mich. - Gigi Alalyawi and Jomana Ismail, residents of this heavily Arab American city, say they have no plans to vote this year, given their anger at both presidential candidates. Mika’il Stewart Saadiq, a local imam, in contrast has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris - though he received swift blowback from community members as a result.

And Amer Ghalib, the mayor of nearby Hamtramck, is so unhappy with Harris that he has endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump and appeared at campaign events with him.

Less than two weeks before Election Day, Michigan’s Arab American and Muslim residents are deeply divided about whom to support - if anyone - in this year’s tight presidential contest. The heart of the debate is whether to back Harris, who has not separated herself from President Joe Biden’s staunch support for Israel, which infuriates many Arab Americans and Muslims, but who some believe could be more skeptical of Israel if she were president.

Dearborn residents, like Arabs and Muslims across Michigan, had been far more unified in threatening to withhold their votes from Biden’s reelection bid amid Israel’s scorched-earth campaign in Gaza, which has devastated the Palestinian enclave in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. But since becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris and her aides - far more than Biden ― have conducted extensive outreach to Michigan’s Arabs and Muslims, managing to soften the opposition and win a handful of endorsements as a result.

Polls show Harris and Trump deadlocked in Michigan, which is key to either candidate’s paths to the presidency. Both nominees have visited the state multiple times and made direct overtures to the Arab American and Muslim community.

Despite her gains, Harris has struggled to win broader support in this traditionally Democratic community that is grieving, angry and disillusioned that she will not promise a different course from Biden ― something her aides say would be difficult for a sitting vice president. Adding to her challenge is the recent spread of the war into Lebanon, where more than 2,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced.

Many Dearborn residents have roots in southern Lebanon, where Israel is bombing villages and ordering evacuations as it seeks to root out Hezbollah militants and infrastructure. Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese to flee their homes for more than a year.

Meanwhile, the stream of devastating images from Gaza continues, including a recent video of trapped people burning alive in tents outside a hospital compound. After the 2023 attacks, in which Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and fueled a humanitarian catastrophe.

Dearborn resident Jaafar Mothafer, 31, said that he and his friends have participated in every election since they were old enough to vote and that they recognize the potential dangers of a Trump presidency. The former president has threatened to eviscerate democratic norms and launch mass deportations; in 2016 he promised a ban on visitors from majority-Muslim countries and sought to implement it.

Even so, Mothafer said he and his friends are finding it difficult to support Harris.

“None of us are sure what we’re going to do, I think, until we get into the booth and have to vote,” he said. “But right now, it’s very hard to bring ourselves to vote for her - to even consider voting for her - given everything that’s going on.”

Mothafer said he is looking for any sign that Harris is uneasy with the policies of the administration in which she serves, especially the readiness to send weapons to Israel without conditions. “If she were to come out and be a little bit more explicit about her position, I think it would make a whole lot of people feel more comfortable,” he said.

When Biden was the presumed Democratic nominee, Michigan’s Arab American and Muslim community was far more united. Many residents found Biden disturbingly unsympathetic to Palestinian suffering, producing near-unanimous opposition to his candidacy. They decried his unwillingness to exert pressure on Israel to limit civilian casualties and allow aid into Gaza, even as he eventually criticized some Israeli tactics.

Harris has succeeded at least somewhat in softening the furious opposition that Biden faced. Arab Americans who have endorsed the vice president say she demonstrates far more empathy than he did and shows a greater willingness to hold Israel responsible for the carnage in Gaza.

But others say they are not sold and that Harris remains culpable for the policies of an administration in which she is second-in-command.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who has emerged as a leader of Arab Americans across Michigan, said his city in recent weeks has seen several funerals for family members killed in Lebanon, including one this past week for 12 people. Hammoud, who has decided not to endorse either presidential candidate, added that his own family has been directly affected by the violence in the Middle East.

The mayor’s wife, he said, was unable to attend her grandmother’s funeral in Lebanon last month because the violence there prevented her from visiting. Hammoud’s phone is full of pictures of his father’s village in southern Lebanon, called Kounin, reduced to rubble. He regularly receives texts from residents whose family members have been killed or displaced.

Hammoud acknowledged that some Democrats cannot understand why Arab Americans would do anything other than vote for Harris, given Trump’s history of hostility toward Arabs and Muslims. But he said the destruction in their ancestral home changes the equation.

“For many who are asking why are Arab Americans and Muslims still on the fence - when we see images and videos unfolding, we see parts of our childhood, our families and friends, and we have a personal connection to what’s happening,” Hammoud said. “For many Americans, it’s not that personal.”

Earlier this month, a Dearborn resident named Kamel Ahmad Jawad was killed in Lebanon while seeking to help displaced Lebanese, according to a statement from his family. The Biden administration angered community members by initially referring to Jawad as a noncitizen, only later confirming he was a U.S. citizen. Community members packed Dearborn’s Islamic Center of America for Jawad’s funeral.

“People are questioning whether they should vote at all because of this moral quandary they’re having: ‘If I vote for whichever candidate and the genocide continues using our tax dollars, am I guilty in assisting that and in killing our family and friends?’” Hammoud said.

Israel strongly denies its actions in Gaza amount to a genocide, saying it has tried to avoid killing civilians, despite a number of mistakes, and that Hamas is guilty of starting the conflict and then embedding its fighters amid innocent Gazans.

A victory in Michigan is desperately important to both Harris and Trump, as is clear from their travel schedules. Harris visited the state last week three times, on at least two occasions directly addressing the Arab American and Muslim community’s anger over the suffering in the Middle East.

“I know this year has been very difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon. It is devastating,” Harris said at a campaign event in Oakland County on Friday, shortly after Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza. She said Sinwar’s death “can and must be a turning point” to end the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.

Michigan has one of the nation’s largest Arab American and Muslim populations, with about 300,000 people who claim ancestry from the Middle East or North Africa. Local lawmakers say about 80 percent of this population traditionally leans Democratic, a trend that is almost certain to be upended this year.

And while Biden won Michigan in 2020, Hillary Clinton narrowly lost it - a fact that is not lost on nervous Democrats.

Trump’s campaign has sought to capitalize on Harris’s vulnerability among Arab Americans, and surveys suggest his efforts may be yielding results. An Arab News-YouGov poll released this week found that 45 percent of Arab American voters nationwide support Trump and 43 support Harris, within the survey’s margin of error.

Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, has also sought to take advantage of the situation, targeting Dearborn and the Arab American community with a strong antiwar message. Stein is polling at about 1 percent nationally and 4 percent among Arab Americans, but in a race this tight such margins could matter.

Harris has sought to minimize her losses with a delicate message. Allies have sent clear signals that while she cannot challenge Biden’s foreign policy when he is in office, as president she would probably take a more skeptical approach to Israel. Harris’s team would probably conduct a full analysis of U.S.-Israel policy to determine what is working and what is not, according to several people familiar with her thinking.

One Harris ally, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said that as president she would probably be more open to enforcing laws against Israel that prohibit countries from receiving U.S. aid if they block humanitarian assistance or otherwise violate international law. Biden officials have publicly accused Israel of blocking aid and have privately concluded it has at times bombed indiscriminately.

But Harris also said in a recent interview that she could not think of anything she would have done differently from Biden over the last four years.

“She’s in a bind, because she can only communicate with body language at this point,” the Harris ally said. “Personally, I have zero doubt Kamala Harris will be different from Joe Biden on this.”

A Harris spokesperson said she would not address “hypothetical policy questions.”

“The Vice President has made clear she will always ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself from Iran and Iran-backed terrorists,” Morgan Finkelstein, Harris national security spokeswoman, said in a statement. “The Vice President has also been clear: it’s time to end the war and bring the hostages home, more must be done to facilitate humanitarian assistance, and international humanitarian law must be upheld.”

Trump has long disparaged the Arab American and Muslim communities, dating back to his first presidential run in 2016. More recently, he has made conflicting statements on the war in Gaza. Trump has decried U.S. involvement in the Middle East, but in recent comments to reporters, he said Biden was trying to restrain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “should be doing the opposite.”

Trump has met one-on-one with Ghalib, the Hamtramck mayor of Yemeni descent who has endorsed him, and his campaign opened an office in the Michigan suburb, where Ghalib spoke on Friday during Trump’s visit. Ghalib has embraced hardline conservative proposals in the past, including a ban on pride flags last year.

“I’m very proud to lead this community, and we will stand on the right side of history this time,” Ghalib said. “We had a history of disconnect and miscommunication with the Republican Party. Now we are here to end that disconnect.” At the same time, Trump recently called some people coming from Yemen “terrorists.”

Harris has received endorsements from some Michigan Arab lawmakers, including Deputy Wayne County Executive Assad Turfe and the Muslim advocacy group Emgage. But those who have endorsed her have often endured fierce blowback.

Imam Saadiq, who practices in Detroit, was part of a movement earlier this year encouraging Democrats to select “uncommitted” instead of Biden in the state’s primary, as a way of expressing displeasure over the president’s Gaza policy. But Saadiq said his experience as a Black man growing up in Detroit, coupled with Harris’s more empathetic language about Gaza, compelled him to endorse her.

Saadiq recently signed a letter along with 24 other imams, many from battleground states, urging Muslims to support Harris. The imams argued that as vice president, Harris does not bear responsibility for the administration’s policy, and they cited her calls for a Palestinian state and for Israel to adhere to international humanitarian law.

That followed a letter from dozens of other imams and religious scholars that, in contrast, asked people not to vote for either candidate. Saadiq said that he contacted two imams from Michigan to sign onto the letter of support, but they did not respond.

“It’s difficult, but I’m not going to ruin this election,” Saadiq said. “Me personally, I’m going to do everything I can to vote the right way.”

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Marianne Levine contributed to this report.