Polling data and widespread media coverage indicate the Biden-Harris Administration has a problem: Long a bastion of support and a key voting bloc for the Democratic Party, support among Arab-American voters for the party is the lowest since party identification tracking efforts among Arab Americans began in 1996.
What is the reason for this change in opinion? Many Arab Americans cited betrayal of their values by the Biden Administration during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023.
According to the Arab American Institute, new polling data indicates 23% of Arab Americans now identify with Democrats, while 31% now identify as Independent — the highest that number has ever been.
In an interview with Time magazine, James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, noted, “This is the most dramatic shift over the shortest period of time that I’ve ever seen.”
The Biden Administration has felt the ire of Arab Americans and young people protesting on university campuses for the president’s unflagging support for the nation-state of Israel, supplying it with billions of dollars of military aid.
Not helpful to Biden’s cause of winning back this furious pro-Palestinian party was his decision to bear hug Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Also unhelpful are the deep fissures the Democratic Party is experiencing over the war.
More than four dozen lawmakers, most of them Democrats, boycotted Netanyahu’s most recent address to Congress. At that speech, the prime minister received more than 50 standing ovations by the Republican majority of the House and the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party.
Arab Americans remain furious at what they see as many Democrats’ complicity in various reported civilian casualty events and alleged war crimes attributed to Israeli forces.
Although Biden since announced he is “standing down” and no longer seeking re-election, Arab Americans remain furious at what they see as many Democrats’ complicity in various reported civilian casualty events and alleged war crimes attributed to Israeli forces.
Netanyahu has alleged Israel is being unfairly persecuted by certain members of the international community, especially Iran and its allies and proxies. He has claimed Israel has allowed billions of dollars of humanitarian aid into Gaza, reporting much of it has been stolen and blocked by the radical Islamist terrorist organization Hamas.
In his address to Congress, Netanyahu shouted to applause in the chamber: “This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the chamber of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol on July 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahu’s visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly ten months. A handful of Senate and House Democrats boycotted the remarks over Israel’s treatment of Palestine. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
He later added a plea to the United States for additional military aid: “Give us the tools faster, and we’ll finish the job faster.”
As Netanyahu spoke, six people were arrested inside the House chamber for disrupting the speech. Outside, dozens of people were arrested for attempting to block his motorcade’s trip to the Capitol. Others burned the American flag and an effigy of the prime minister mere blocks away from his address.
Chants from protestors included: “Bibi, Bibi, we’re not done! The intifada has just begun” and “Netanyahu, you can’t hide. You’re committing genocide.”
This fissure in the Democratic Party does not bode well for Democrats’ electoral chances in November. Even with the announcement of new presidential candidate Kamala Harris, polling data still show an uphill climb in Arab-heavy states, including must-win Michigan.
The latest poll of registered Arab-American voters indicates a near-sweeping victory for Trump. The Detroit Free Press recently showed Trump led Biden 49% to 42% among Arab Americans in Michigan. The data also found 19% of those polled said Harris should replace Biden, 17% suggested Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and 11% said former First Lady Michelle Obama. Other candidates ranked in the single digits, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Both Biden’s support of Israel and Harris’ lockstep agreement with Biden as his vice president are not hopeful signs for winning back the Arab-American vote.
But however disconcerting these realities may be for Arab-American voters in swing states and the growing anti-Israel contingency of the political left, one thing remains certain: Cutting off your nose to spite your face is never a good idea. In this case, that would constitute voting for a Trump-Vance ticket.
In a recent video, The New York Times interviewed dozens of registered Arab-American voters from Dearborn, Mich. The city contains one of the nation’s highest concentrations of Arab Americans and has long been a Democratic stronghold.
But since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict last fall, it has seen a drastic rise in protests of the Biden Administration and even pro-Hamas extremist Islamist activities, with imams praying for Allah to “eradicate from existence the sick, disgusting Zionist regime.” This led one political commentator to dub it “America’s Jihad Capital.”
In the video, Dearborn voters say they will not vote for Joe Biden or other Democrats because of his staunch support for Israel and U.S. funding of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, which has resulted in an estimated 38,000 civilian casualties.
“Listen, Trump is a racist, a con man, a fraud, an idiot, but he might be the sharpest tool to beat Joe Biden,” one voter said.
“If the election is that close and it’s a dead-weight tie, I’m going to break that tie, and I’m going to vote for Trump to ensure Biden is held to account,” another said.
Finally, there was this zinger: “I don’t know what Trump would do under these circumstances.”
Finally, there was this zinger: “I don’t know what Trump would do under these circumstances.”
This dumbfounding video recalls Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
Despite their rage at the Biden Administration and the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party, Dearborn’s voters are either profoundly uninformed or willfully lying to themselves if they claim they do not know how Trump would handle the conflict. He, his advisers and his record have clarified that perfectly.
To start, Project 2025, a document created by several former Trump staffers and the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation, promises in its 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” document to cut aid to “antagonistic regimes” that include “the Palestinian territories.”
Aid packages, they allege, “serve no other purpose than to subsidize corrupt, incompetent and hostile regimes,” including the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which the Palestinian Authority governs. The document also vows to ensure “Israel has both the military means and the political support and flexibility to take what it deems to be appropriate measures to defend itself against the Iranian regime and its regional proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
If cutting aid to the West Bank and increasing military assistance to Israel are Dearborn’s ideas of holding Joe Biden to account for his perceived failure in Gaza, then they are fish jumping out of a frying pan and straight into the fire.
If anything, the previous Trump Administration was arguably the most pro-Zionist government in modern American history. Notably, however, Trump’s infantile disposition and perpetual temper tantrums have seen him turn on Netanyahu after the prime minister congratulated Biden for his 2020 election victory — a victory Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed was stolen.
Take, for instance, the Trump Administration’s 2017 decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the disputed and divided capital city of Jerusalem — a move that was a blatant pander to evangelicals who have, historically, been largely supportive of Israel, and Orthodox Jews. The move drew praise from other pro-Israeli and pro-Zionist evangelical leaders, such as Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, who said God was on Trump’s side for the move.
The move also drew praise from John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and president of Christians United for Israel, the world’s largest Zionist Christian organization.
John Hagee, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, is a leading proponent of Christian Zionism, a theological/political movement aimed at influencing U.S. policy on Israel.
Evangelical Christians like Hagee are some of Israel’s staunchest defenders. These evangelicals believe both the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and the capture of Jerusalem in 1967 were the fulfillment of God’s promises made to Abraham to establish Israel as the Jewish nation forever.
They often point to Bible verses like Genesis 12:3 to argue that God will “bless” the United States if it “blesses” Israel and “curse” the nation if it does not. Some say Jewish possession of Jerusalem, particularly the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem, is vital to fulfilling the prophecy about the Second Coming of Christ.
This theology is called “dispensationalism,” although Christians United for Israel also invites other evangelicals and Christians into its fold and does not necessarily require dispensationalism as a tenet for membership.
If that were not enough to convince Dearborn voters their blind hatred for Biden is clouding their political judgment, perhaps it would be helpful to note former Vice President Mike Pence addressed Christians United for Israel in July 2019.
Commenting on political and social turmoil in the West Bank at the time, Pence offered these words: “President Trump is committed to finding a path that can lead to a true, just and lasting peace for Israel, the Palestinians and all peoples in the region. For peace to be lasting and to be real, it must be negotiated.
“But peace can only be negotiated with partners who are committed to peace. Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of Israel. And the United States will never negotiate with terrorist Hamas. … And let me assure you, while any peace will undoubtedly require compromise, you can be confident of this: The United States of America will never compromise the safety and security of the Jewish State of Israel.”
If the voters of Dearborn and university protestors across the nation are, in fact, concerned about an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza, voting for Trump to spite Biden will ensure their ridiculous designation of the current president as “Genocide Joe” will be egg on their faces if a Trump-Vance administration claims power.
Far-right Republicans, with sure certainty, will make good on their promise to turn Gaza into a parking lot. It was Trump, and not Biden after all, who told Israel to “finish the job” because they were “losing the PR war.”
Democrats thus have a choice they must make immediately: Rein in the extremist anti-Israel wing of the party or risk four more years of a Trump administration and ensure the innocent people of Gaza face a plight infinitely worse than that which they currently face.
David Bumgardner is a graduate of Southwestern Seminary’s Texas Baptist College and is a former BNG Clemons Fellow.
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