Biden’s Gaza policy to face big test
Michigan’s primary gives Dems chance to voice disapproval
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — For months, anger within the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden’s support for Israel in the war in the Gaza Strip has been building. Protesters have shouted through his campaign events, marched outside the White House and vilified him as “Genocide Joe” on social media.
Now, Michigan’s primary election Tuesday will put that discontent on the ballot for the first time, with Biden’s liberal detractors urging Democrats to vote “uncommitted” against him. Some of the president’s allies worry that a movement to register disapproval against him now could have lasting effects into the general election — especially if Biden does not alter his stance toward the conflict.
Michigan’s combination of an early primary, a large and politically active Arab American population, progressive students on college campuses and the option of a protest vote have raised the stakes of what has otherwise been a sleepy election in the state.
There are warning signs for Biden that frustration over Gaza has spread beyond Dearborn and other Detroit suburbs that are the heart of Michigan’s Arab diaspora, and onto the state’s college campuses, where students increasingly feel affinity with the Palestinian cause.
In some Michigan communities without a large Arab American presence, crowds have demanded that their local governments enact cease-fire resolutions. The Detroit Metro Times, an alternative weekly newspaper, recently endorsed voting “uncommitted” in the primary.
There is no public polling to indicate how much support the “uncommitted” push might bleed from Biden, but Democrats at the highest levels of Michigan politics have cautioned — mostly privately — that the president is at risk of losing the state to former President Donald Trump if those who disagree with his Israel policy stay home or vote for a third-party candidate.
“Every vote that doesn’t support Joe Biden makes it more likely we have a Trump presidency,” said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a co-chair of Biden’s campaign. “Any vote that is not cast, or is cast for a third party, or cast to send a message, makes it more likely that there is a Trump presidency.”
The campaign to vote “uncommitted” was announced
this month by Layla Elabed, a sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American progressive who last weekend became the first member of Michigan’s congressional delegation to call for voting against Biden in the primary.
Tlaib’s endorsement raised alarms among Biden supporters in the state’s congressional delegation, who worry that it will be difficult to persuade voters activated by the “uncommitted” push in the primary to support Biden in November.
Yet in Michigan, few Democratic officials are eager to risk a backlash if they criticize the effort to vote “uncommitted.”
“The Muslim community and the Arab American communities are clearly very upset, and understandably so,” said Rep. Shri Thanedar,
a Detroit Democrat. “You know, 30,000 or so innocent civilians have been killed, including women and children. So the concern is understandable. They are using this time to get attention, and make a point, and make a case. And I really do not blame them.”
Thanedar said he would vote for Biden, however, because “I’m not a singleissue voter.”
Michigan Democrats expressed uncertainty about how many people will vote “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s primary.
While the Biden campaign is bracing for Arab Americans and young progressive voters to oppose the president in the primary, Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokesperson, stressed that union workers, suburban women and Black voters
remain supportive.
Two weeks ago, Biden’s White House dispatched a delegation of senior aides to Dearborn to try to ease tensions with Michigan’s Arab American community.
Jon Finer, a deputy national security adviser, told local leaders that the Biden administration had made “missteps” in dealing with Israel and Gaza and had left “a very damaging impression.”
The same day, Biden declared that Israel had gone “over the top” in its response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people.
But students, Arab 1Americans and other Michiganders said that Biden’s alliance with Israel’s government was unforgivable and would prevent them from voting for him in November if he did not call for a ceasefire and halt U.S. aid to Israel’s war effort.
Abbas Alawieh, a former congressional aide from Dearborn who helped organize the group Listen to Michigan, which is leading the “uncommitted” effort, said it was Biden, not those protesting his foreign policy, who was putting his electoral prospects in jeopardy.
“President Biden has brought risk onto himself in a general election by making it so that his policy on Gaza is indistinguishable from Netanyahu’s most murderous instincts and actions,” Alawieh said after the Ann Arbor rally, referring to the Israeli prime minister. “He’s already lost people, and what we’re trying to tell him is, if you take a different approach, that is something that people here in Michigan need to see.”