Michiganders voting “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary are sending a message Biden needs to hear
This is how we win in 2024!
Let’s be clear: The focus of the “Listen to Michigan” campaign where activists are urging Michiganders to vote “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary is neither about defeating President Biden in the primary nor in November. It’s about sending a message to Biden --per the organizers--that “funding and supporting war and occupation against the Palestinian people is untenable and at odds with the values of the Democratic Party.”
In fact, a spokesperson for the Listen to Michigan campaign Abbas Alawieh—who is also a Democratic strategist—addressed that very point to CNN, “If there is a group of people in the entire country or world who most wants Donald Trump to be as far away from the White House as possible, count me among that group.” Rather as Alawieh explained: “What our movement is saying to [Biden’s] team is that you are losing Michigan by making your policies synonymous with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s.”
Every community pressures elected officials to listen to them on key issues—and Arab and Muslim Americans along with allies—are simply doing just that. These various communities refuse to be silent in the face of the horrific devastation inflicted upon the civilian population of Gaza by right wing Netanyahu—who has welcomed into his cabinet extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir who was literally convicted in 2007 of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization that targeted Arab Christians and Muslims.
That’s why I hope the Listen to Michigan campaign reaches their goal of attracting at least 10,000 voters –which was the margin of Trump’s win in 2016 in that state. (In 2020, Biden won Michigan by 150,000 votes.)
I understand the concern that this type of campaign could result in hurting Biden in November in the key battleground state of Michigan. But we are more than 8 months to the November 5 election, meaning this is the perfect time to voice this issue to Biden so he can change course. (In fact, as noted below, Biden has already begun to move in the right direction on this issue but more needs to be done.)
It’s true as fellow Democrats tell me: “Trump will be worse on the Middle East then Biden.” Bluntly, Trump is an existential threat to the Palestinian people as we saw in his first term where he did everything Netanyahu asked of him—including cutting off aid to relief agencies and hospitals that help Palestinians because Netanyahu views Palestinian Christian and Muslim refugees as a threat to Israel. (Biden recently paused aid to the UN Relief agency that provides much needed aid to Palestinians pending an investigation into whether the organization has purged those with alleged ties to Hamas—of course, we know with certainty that Netanyahu’s cabinet features Ben-Gvir who was convicted by an Israeli court of terrorism versus Arabs but that hasn’t caused the US to pause military aid to Netanyahu’s government.)
It was Trump’s anti-Palestinian policies—along with Trump’s non-stop bigotry against people of color—that animated so many Arab and Muslim Americans to not only vote for Biden, but to raise money, knock on doors, make phone calls and more all in an effort to defeat Trump. In 2020, exit polls estimate nearly 70 percent of Arab and Muslim Americans nationwide voted for Biden. And in Michigan specifically, Biden won 83% of the vote in the Michigan precincts that have the highest concentrations of Muslim and Arab Americans.
Now hopefully people can understand why the number one word I hear frpm Arab and Muslim Americans in response to Biden’s approach to Gaza is “betrayal.” They helped elect him only to have Biden turn his back on them.
In fact, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna—who has long backed a ceasefire but who is not supporting the vote uncommitted campaign—met last week with Arab and Muslim leaders in Michigan where he was struck by how "deeply personal" the issue was to the community and how "raw the anger is." He explained, "This is not electoral for this community. It's emotional and personal," adding, "No shift in campaign language can fix this, only policy change."
It's true that Biden’s rhetoric about Palestinian civilians dying has thankfully evolved since days after the horrific Oct 7 Hamas terrorist attack. Early on, Biden was dismissive of Palestinian suffering, saying, “ I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.” He then added callously at a time when nearly seven thousand people in Gaza had been killed, “I'm sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war."
Since then, Biden has become more vocally critical of Netanyahu given the massive loss of civilian life in Gaza—including thousands of children. Netanyahu’s military—as documented by CNN-- dropped more than 500, two-thousand-pound bombs—supplied by the US—on the densely populated Gaza which can kill people 1000 feet away from the target. That explains why an Israeli official admitted on CNN in December that the Israeli military was killing two civilians for every Hamas fighter.
It's facts like that led Biden to publicly slam Netanyahu’s “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza. And recently Biden reportedly stated that Netanyahu is “giving him hell” and is impossible to deal with in terms of reaching a ceasefire. The reality is Netanyahu has long been part of the GOP apparatus, from his open disrespect of President Obama to his open support of Trump in 2020. There’s little doubt Netanyahu is now undermining Biden in an effort to help Trump win in 2024.
However, despite Biden’s change in rhetoric, just last week his administration vetoed a UN Security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza--with the US being the only nation of the 15 on the Security Council to vote no.
But if you think only Arab and Muslim Americans are angered over the horrific killing of Palestinian civilians, destruction of churches, mosques, schools, homes and the overall collective punishment of nearly two million Palestinian Christians and Muslims by the Netanyahu administration, you simply have not been paying attention.
Those speaking out on this issue represent the core of the Biden coalition. Just ten days ago, the leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the country’s oldest and most prominent Black Christian denominations called for both an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and ending military aid to Netanyahu given his military campaign in Gaza amounted to in their view a “mass genocide.”
In December, more than 1,000 Black pastors issued an open letter demanding Biden work much harder to secure a ceasefire and demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. As one Black leader told the NY Times, “the Israel-Gaza war, unlike Iran and Afghanistan, has evoked the kind of deep-seated angst among Black people that I have not seen since the civil rights movement.” Another, Rev. Cynthia Hale, noted about the Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank, “We see them as a part of us. They are oppressed people. We are oppressed people.”
And, of course, we have seen young people of all backgrounds along with amazing progressive Jewish groups incensed by the loss of life in Gaza protest Biden’s policy.
Overall, a recent AP poll found that 63 percent of Democrats believe Netanyahu’s military respond has gone “too far.” These numbers are not surprising given “10 times more children” were killed in Gaza in just the first two months of the war than the number of children killed in the “nearly two years of war in Ukraine,” as Senator Chris Van Hollen noted. Van Hollen also added in a recent Senate floor speech, that what we are seeing in Gaza is a “textbook war crime.”
Beyond the hellscape that is Gaza, Netanyahu has long made it clear there will be no Palestinian state on his watch—meaning Palestinian Christians and Muslims in his view are not deserving of self-determination. Indeed to that end, his administration last week announced the building of 3,000 new Israeli only settlements in the West Bank to further prevent a Palestinian state.
If you want to be angry at those advocating for the “uncommitted” campaign, that’s your choice. But I’d suggest instead you join with fellow Democrats to press Biden to change his Middle East policy to be consistent with the values of the Democratic Party.
This is how we inspire people to vote so that we can win in 2024!