Palestinian baby has same value as any baby, West says at event
With growing national attention on Michigan’s Arab American population as a potential swing vote in the 2024 presidential election, independent candidate Cornel West urged a cheering crowd in Dearborn to support Palestinians while rejecting hate.
“Gaza, we are with you,” West bellowed Tuesday night as the crowd rose to its feet applauding. “We will not allow this catastrophe to have the last word, not just here in Dearborn but all around the world.”
The interfaith event with West was part of a campaign appearance in Michigan, sponsored by more than 40 groups and organized by the Michigan Task Force for Palestine. Speakers with Muslim, Jewish and Christian groups talked about the deaths of Palestinians, many of them children, expressing outrage over U.S. support for Israel.
“We believe that a Palestinian baby has the same value as any baby in the world,” West declared to hundreds inside Greenfield Manor at a rally called Gaza Endures. “Can we respond to hatred without hating others? I hate the Israeli occupation, I hate the Israeli domination, I hate the Israeli genocide . ... That doesn’t mean that I hate all my Jewish brothers and sisters.”
West’s visit to Dearborn, where the population is more than 54% Arab American, comes at a time when many of the city’s residents are frustrated with President Joe Biden’s strong support for Israel amid its monthslong bombardment of Gaza. It’s unclear if West, a longshot candidate, will be able to make the ballot in Michigan.
Some leaders have been calling for Arab Americans in Michigan to stop supporting Biden and other Democrats for their support of Israel’s military strikes and siege on the Palestinian territory. Two news conferences calling upon voters to “Abandon Biden” were held recently in Dearborn and Detroit. CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” ABC News’ “This Week” and NBC News’ “Meet the Press” have run segments in recent weeks on the Arab American vote in Michigan.
“They’re counting on you forgetting,” Khalid Turaani, of West Bloomfield, a leader with Michigan Task Force on Palestine, said of politicians. “We will never forget ... when it comes time to elections.”
There was already backlash among some Arab Americans and Muslims against Democrats before the recent conflict started Oct. 7, over Biden’s support for Israel during its 11-day offensive in May 2021 and also Democrats’ liberal views on some social issues, which led to decreased support for Democratic candidates in heavily Muslim precincts in Dearborn. In the 2022 election, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had a 40-point drop in support in one largely Arab precinct in Dearborn.
Politico reported last month that West is focusing on Michigan, planning to reach out to Arab Americans, environmental advocates in the Flint area and indigenous communities. Biden won Michigan in 2020 while Donald Trump won the state in 2016. Both are seen as front-runners in their parties for the 2024 election. Like Biden, Trump is generally supportive of Israel, but he did sharply criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the week after the Oct. 7 attack and in later remarks made in November stating that Palestinians and Israelis both hate each other. A new survey by New York Times/Siena College released this week shows that “the young Biden ‘20 voters with anti-Israel views are the likeliest to report switching to Mr. Trump,” reported the New York Times.
There are more than 310,000 people in Michigan of Middle Eastern descent, a diverse group with varying political and social views; Iraqi Americans are now the largest Middle Eastern group in the state, a majority of them Chaldean, who are Iraqi Catholics. Dearborn and Wayne County have the highest percentage of residents of Arab descent among all cities and counties, respectively, in the U.S. Michigan also has a sizable Jewish population estimated at 71,000 by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit that’s more concentrated in Oakland County.
“This is not about hatred, this is about love of a subjugated people.”
Cornel West
Independent presidential candidate
In addition to his speech, West had a fundraising luncheon earlier in the day at a Dearborn restaurant, with tickets ranging from $500 to $3,300. Emgage Action, a Muslim American political advocacy group, hosted a conversation with West.
The groups that sponsored the talk included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Michigan, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)Detroit and the Islamic Center of Detroit, the largest Palestinian-majority mosque in Michigan, West’s campaign said in a statement.
Drawing on Black and Baptist traditions, West, a professor of philosophy and theology, said Palestinians have been “terrorized, traumatized, hated,” but don’t receive the same sympathy as others do.
“If there was a Palestinian occupation of our precious Jewish brothers and sisters and nearly 8,000 Jewish babies were killed in 50 days, the U.S. government, the corporate media would be crying out,” West said. Biden has said he does not trust the figures on fatalities Palestinian leaders are releasing.
West blasted the Democrats, calling them “milquetoast.” Democrats say: “We hate Trump, but Netanyahu is our friend,” West
said, adding that “fascism is fascism” and needs to be condemned everywhere.
West is not on the ballot for the February presidential primary in Michigan for Democratic and Republican candidates. West will need to gather enough signatures to get on the November ballot, said Anthony K. RogersWright, co-campaign manager/policy director of West’s campaign. The Michigan Department of State requires candidates not affiliated with a political party to obtain a minimum of 12,000 signatures to make the ballot, according to election information provided by Angela Benander, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
In October, West announced he was leaving the Green Party to become an independent.
The Associated Press wrote: “It remains to be seen whether West can gather the tens of thousands of signatures required to qualify for the ballot in crucial states. Without the infrastructure of a formal party, such signature gathering will fall largely to grassroots volunteers.”
At the Tuesday interfaith rally, speakers included Palestinian American activist Huwaida Arraf, of Macomb Township; Rabbi Alana Alpert, of Congregation T’chiyah, a Reconstructionist congregation in Ferndale that recently hosted U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, for a Hanukkah menorah lighting; Jack Eggleston, a retired Lutheran pastor who led the crowd in saying “cease-fire now”; and Imam Imran Salha of the Islamic Center of Detroit, who decried as hypocritical people who ask Palestinians to criticize the Oct. 7 attacks against Israelis while ignoring Israel’s previous attacks.
Alpert spoke out against Israel’s military strikes in Gaza and raised questions about the traditional narratives of Hanukkah, but also criticized the Oct. 7 attack, calling it “a horrifying massacre of Israelis by Hamas on Oct. 7, including the murder of 1,200 human beings, most of them civilians and the taking of hundreds of hostages.”
Her comments drew an outburst from some in the audience, with one saying her description was “debatable.”
One man said “How many were killed by IDF?” referring to the Israel Defense Forces. A woman in front then yelled out: “Stop.”
As West spoke, a large screen behind him projected photos of what appeared to be Palestinians injured in Gaza. At other times, the screen showed a Palestinian flag and shots of the crowd.
Near the end of his talk, West called for Israel’s government and military to be brought before the International Criminal Court, for “war crimes ... against humanity,” which he announced earlier in the morning.
He also called upon people who are oppressed to not lose their humanity in their struggles, talking about the history of Blacks and Native Americans in the U.S., linking to them to Palestinians.
“This is not about hatred, this is about love of a subjugated people,” he said.