‘Don’t blame us, blame yourself’: Furious at Harris, Arab Americans in Michigan face a hard choice

Kamala Harris’ campaign is facing deep skepticism from Arab American voters in Michigan, many of whom are appalled by President Joe Biden’s handling of the war in the Middle East and remain undecided about whether to back a candidate who supports his policies.

With early voting already underway, Arab American voters say they are disappointed that Harris has not broken with Biden over Israel’s conduct of the war. Some regard her as complicit in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon, which has targeted Hamas and Hezbollah while inflicting terrible damage on civilians.

Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck in Michigan, which has an Arab American population of nearly 400,000, according to the Arab American Institute, mostly concentrated outside Detroit. Those voters showed up for Democrats in 2020, helping deliver the state to President Joe Biden.

But less than two weeks from Election Day, the escalating war in the Middle East looms large for many Arab Americans, who see Biden and Harris as complicit in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon. And they’ve been consistently disappointed that Harris hasn’t split with Biden over the war.

“People are really right now in a dilemma. They really don't know where to go. It’s like somebody hit them with a two by four, right on their head,” said Osama Siblani, the publisher of an Arab American newspaper based in Dearborn, Michigan. “So now they're in total disarray. They may vote for Donald Trump, just to punish Biden and Harris, just to say, ‘Look what you’ve done.’”

Harris and Trump are in a virtual tie among Arab American voters nationally, according to a poll released earlier this month by the Arab American Institute, leaving the vice president 18 points behind Biden’s level of support in 2020.

Arab Americans have leaned Democratic for decades, according to James Zogby, president of the Institute, which has polled Arab Americans since the 1990s. The shift, he said, was purely Harris’ fault.

“What I’ve been saying to the campaign since the beginning: Don’t blame us, blame yourself,” said Zogby, a 31-year veteran of the Democratic National Committee and the current chair of its Ethnic Council.

In a statement to POLITICO, Nasrina Bargzie, director of Muslim and Arab American Outreach for Harris’ campaign, said Harris was “committed to work to earn every vote” and “steadfast in her support of our country’s diverse Muslim community.”

The vice president, Bargzie said, “will continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.” And in reference to Israel’s military actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Bargzie said Harris “is also working to address the suffering in Lebanon and bring about a diplomatic solution and ensure de-escalation and stability in Lebanon and the region.”

Harris is seen by some voters as being harder on right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and more sympathetic to Palestinians than both Biden and Trump, who established a travel ban from several Muslim-majority countries when he was president and whose son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has called Gaza “valuable” “waterfront property.” While Trump is an ally of Netanyahu, he has leveled pointed criticism against the Israeli prime minister, even in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks.

Last week, Harris said on X that “International humanitarian law must be respected,” blasting Israel for “UN reports that no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly 2 weeks.” She has been endorsed by a leading imam in Detroit and a handful of local leaders in Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan, which has an all-Muslim city council — though Hamtramck’s mayor has endorsed Trump.

And during a swing through the state earlier this month, Harris huddled with Muslim American and Arab American community leaders in Flint — and extended the meeting to 20 minutes instead of the scheduled 10. (Zogby, who is based in Washington, said he’d been invited to that meeting to speak to the vice president for “one minute.” He declined.)

“Frankly, it wasn't that I needed to talk to her,” Zogby said. “I need her to talk to the community in a public way to say she understands their frustration and their concern, and that hasn’t been done.”

Democrats are jittery about Harris’ chances in Michigan, a state the party swept in 2022, in part because of her unpopularity with Arab American voters.

The Arab American PAC, a Dearborn-based PAC with which Siblani is involved that typically endorses Democrats, declined to endorse either Harris or Trump on Monday, writing: “This year, we face a choice of two candidates who are harming our communities here and our families and friends in our homelands.”

Neither did the Uncommitted National Movement, a Michigan-based pro-Palestinian group that advocated for a protest non-vote against Biden in the Democratic primary. Last month, Uncommitted released a statement saying it “opposes a Donald Trump presidency” and “is not recommending a third-party vote,” but still said “Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy … has made it impossible for us to endorse her.”

And Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib — the only Palestinian American member of Congress, who represents Dearborn’s district and whose sister, Layla Elabed, is an Uncommitted co-founder — is also withholding her endorsement. Tlaib and Elabed did not respond to requests for comment.

Siblani, who was in the room as the Arab American PAC decided on its non-endorsement, called Trump “a very dangerous man.” But, he said, the war in the Middle East has affected many residents in Michigan so deeply that encouraging them to vote for Harris “is a crime that cannot be accepted right now.”

Siblani said it was likely many voters in his community who showed up for Biden in 2020 would vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who is the ballot in 38 states including Michigan, or sit out the election altogether — and some, he said, might even turn to Trump.

“They're gonna hold their nose if they're gonna vote for Trump,” he said. “But if they do vote for Trump and hold their nose, they are doing it just to punish Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and the Democrats.”