Do Arab American and Muslim voters really want to elect Trump in November?

Before the "Abandon Biden" groups punish Biden, they should think long and hard about who will really suffer if that happens.

President Biden’s victory in the Michigan Democratic primary was spoiled by his loss by large margins to “uncommitted” in Dearborn and two other cities with large Arab American and Muslim populations.

“Our goal,” said Khalid Turaani, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan, “is to punish Joe Biden by making him a one term president.” They may well succeed since Michigan is a swing state that Biden won in 2020 by a very narrow margin.

But who would these disaffected Democratic voters really be punishing? The Arab-American and Muslim Abandon Biden advocates, and the pro-Palestinian hecklers at Democratic events, need a refresher on Trump’s Israel policies while president, as well as his latest remarks on the Gaza War. 

As president, Trump’s Israel policy was effectively Benjamin Netanyahu’s to-do list. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the American Embassy there from Tel Aviv. He recognized the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. He marginalized the Palestinians, weakened the Palestinian Authority, and enabled Israeli settlement activity.

Trump did propose a “two state solution” but it was lopsidedly in favor of Israel, which would have kept both sovereignty over Jerusalem and all of its settlements. The proposal went nowhere.

“Nobody did for Israel what I did for Israel,” Trump boasted recently. And let’s not forget Trump’s ban on immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries, his anti-Muslim rhetoric, and his 2016 proposal for a Muslim registry in the United States.

As to the Gaza War, Trump’s most pointed criticism has been that Israel made a “very big mistake by releasing footage of their bombardment of Gaza.” In other words, the mistake is not all of the civilian deaths, but the optics. 

“These photos and shots," he said. "I mean, moving shots of bombs being dropped into buildings in Gaza. And I said, ‘Oh, it’s a very bad picture for the world.’” (He seems unaware that horrific footage also comes from aid organizations, journalists, and Gazan civilians.)

The advisers who shaped Trump’s Israel policy, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, advocate forcible displacement of Gazans into the Negev desert while Israel “finishes the job” in Gaza, and an Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Right-wing Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir welcomes a Trump presidency because, as he put it, Biden is too focused on “humanitarian aid and fuel (to Gaza), which goes to Hamas.” In a Trump presidency, he surmised, “the U.S. conduct would be completely different. ” He means there would be no American pressure on Israel to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza.

The pressure from the Abandon Biden groups may indeed have affected U.S. policy already, especially after the World Central Kitchen attack. Biden has since publicly muscled Israel to provide more humanitarian corridors in Gaza and better protection for aid workers, and to evacuate civilians in Rafah before any offensive.

But pressuring Biden is different from punishing him. The Oct. 7 attack and the Israel-Hamas War has been so personal, so emotionally wounding for anyone with a stake in it, as to leave no space to consider “the lesser of two evils.” Of course, that is the only choice that the Middle East ever offers. Unless Biden abandons Israel, which is not going to happen, the Abandon Biden Arab and Muslim Americans may simply be emotionally unable to support him. If they write in “uncommitted” or stay home in November, and the Michigan presidential race is tight, they could hand the presidency back to Trump.

Before the Abandon Biden groups punish Biden, they should think long and hard about who will really suffer if that happens.

Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor in the Carter and Reagan administrations and a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. He is the author of Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.