Arab American leaders listen as Kamala Harris acts to support key states
DEARBORN, Michigan: Osama Siblani's phone won't stop ringing.
Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his re-election bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties have asked the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News whether Harris can regain the support of the nation's largest Muslim population is located in metro Detroit.
His response: “We're in listening mode.”
Harris, who is poised to clinch the Democratic nomination after Biden resigned, appears to be moving quickly to the task of convincing Arab American voters in Michigan, a state Democrats believe she cannot afford to lose in November, that she is a leaders they can unite behind.
Community leaders have expressed a willingness to listen, and some have had initial conversations with Harris' team. Many had become aggravated with Biden after they felt that months of outreach had not yielded many results.
“The door has been cracked open since Biden stepped down,” said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. “There is an opportunity for the Democratic nominee to pull together the coalition that launched Biden's presidency four years ago. But that responsibility will now fall to the vice president.”
Arab American leaders like Hammoud and Siblani are watching closely for signs that Harris will be more vocal in pushing for a ceasefire. They are excited about her candidacy but want to be sure she will be an advocate for peace and not an unequivocal supporter of Israel.
But Harris will have to walk a fine line not to publicly break with Biden's position on the war in Gaza, where officials in his administration have been working diligently toward a ceasefire, mostly behind the scenes.
The rift within Harris' own party was evident in Washington last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to address Congress. Some Democrats supported the visit, while others protested and refused to attend. Outside the Capitol, pro-Palestinian protesters were met with pepper spray and arrests.
Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress whose district includes Dearborn, held up a sign reading “war criminals” during Netanyahu's remarks.
Harris did not attend.
Some Arab American leaders interpret her absence — she instead attended a campaign event in Indianapolis — as a sign of good faith with them, even as they acknowledge her ongoing responsibilities as vice president, including a meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday.
Her first test in society comes when Harris chooses a substitute mate. One of the names on her short list, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, has been public in his criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters and is Jewish. Some Arab American leaders in Michigan say putting him on the ticket would raise their concerns about the level of support they could expect from a Harris administration.
“Josh Shapiro was one of the first to criticize the students on campus. So it doesn't make much of a difference to Harris if she chooses him. It just says that I will continue with the same policies as Biden,” said Rima Meroueh, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities.
Arab Americans are betting that their vote carries enough electoral weight in key swing states like Michigan to ensure that officials will listen to them. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, and the state's Muslim-majority cities overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020. He won Dearborn, for example, by a roughly 3-to-1 margin over former President Donald Trump.
In February, over 100,000 Democratic primary voters in Michigan voted “not committed,” securing two delegates to protest the Biden administration's unequivocal support for Israel's response to the October 7 Hamas attacks. Nationally, the “uncommitted” collected a total of 36 delegates in the primary earlier this year.
The groups leading this effort have called for – at a minimum – an embargo on all arms shipments to Israel and a permanent ceasefire.
“If Harris called for an arms embargo, I would work around the clock every day until the election to get her elected,” said Abbas Alawieh, an “uncommitted” Michigan delegate and national leader of the movement. “There is a real opportunity right now to unify the coalition. It is up to her to deliver, but we are cautiously optimistic.”
Those divisions were on full display Wednesday night when the Michigan Democratic Party gathered over 100 delegates to present them to unite behind Harris. During the meeting, Alawieh, one of three state delegates who did not commit to Harris, was speaking when another delegate interrupted him by turning on the sound and telling him to “shut up,” using an expletive, according to Alawieh.
The call could be a preview of tensions expected to resurface in August, when Democratic leaders, lawmakers and delegates gather in Chicago for the party's national convention. Mass protests are planned, and the “non-aligned” movement intends to make their voices heard inside the United Center, where the convention will be held.
Trump and his campaign, meanwhile, are keenly aware of the turmoil within the Democratic base and are actively seeking support from Arab American voters. That effort has been complicated by Trump's history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies during his one term as president.
A meeting of over a dozen Arab American leaders from around the country and several of Trump's surrogates was convened in Dearborn last week. Among the surrogates was Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-born businessman whose son married Tiffany Trump, the former president's younger daughter, two years ago. Boulos uses his connections to gather support for Trump.
Part of the pitch that Boulos and Bishara Bahbah, president of Arab Americans for Trump, made in Dearborn was that Trump has shown an openness to a two-state solution. He posted a letter on social media from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledging to work for peace in the Middle East.
“The three main points noted at the meeting were that Trump needs to state more clearly that he wants an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and that he supports the two-state solution, and that there is no such thing as a Muslim ban.” said Bahbah. “This is what the community wants to hear clearly.”
Ahead of a July 20 meeting in Michigan, Trump also met with Bahbah, who pressed him on a two-state solution. According to Bahbah, Trump responded in the affirmative, saying “100 percent.”
But any apparent political opportunity for Trump could be limited by criticism from many Arab Americans of the former president's ban on immigration from several Muslim-majority countries and comments they found offensive.
“I haven't heard any individuals say that I'm now rushing to Donald Trump,” said Hammoud, Dearborn's Democratic mayor. “I have yet to hear that in any of the conversations I've had. They all know what Donald Trump represents.”
Siblani, who organized Wednesday's meeting with Trump's surrogate, has spent months serving as an intermediary between his community and officials from all political parties and foreign dignitaries. Privately, he says, almost everyone expresses the need for a permanent ceasefire.
“Everyone wants our votes, but no one wants to be seen as aligning with us publicly,” Siblani said.
