'Between someone that kills you, or insults you': Arab Americans face tough choice this election


Jihan Abdalla
  • English
  • Arabic

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Amer Zahr greets voters and hands them flyers outside a community centre in Dearborn, Michigan. The Palestinian-American comedian and activist is running for a place on the local school board, and early voting is well under way.

With just two days until the 2024 US presidential elections, all eyes are on swing states that will decide the outcome of the election, including Michigan, home to the highest concentration of Arab Americans.

Like many in Dearborn, the capital of Arab America, Mr Zahr endorsed Bernie Sanders for president four years ago, but ultimately supported Joe Biden, in an effort to remove Donald Trump.

But anger with the Biden administration's support for Israel in Gaza and Lebanon has pushed voters away from the Democrats and into the arms of third-party candidate Jill Stein, or Mr Trump.

“The Democratic Party has shielded Israel during this genocide and we ended up in the situation we're in now,” Mr Zahr tells The National, adding that he plans to vote for Dr Stein.

“We have a historic opportunity as Arab Americans to show our power, and it's become clear to us that the best way to show our power this year is by unseating the party that's in the White House. And so voting third party is one iteration of that, and the Trump vote is another.”

Most Arab-American residents in Dearborn have long voted for the Democrats, but Israel’s military campaign in Gaza – and more recently its invasion of Lebanon – have personally affected the community.

Dr Stein, from the Green Party, has said she supports an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo on Israel. Mr Trump has promised to bring peace to the Middle East if he is elected, although he has not provided any details.

Abdullah Hammoud, Dearborn's first Arab-American Mayor and a Democrat, last week declared he would not be endorsing Ms Harris, and has instead advised his constituents to “vote their conscience”. He also urged people to focus on local issues and races.

“In the city of Dearborn, everybody knows somebody who has been killed, injured or displaced,” Mr Hammoud tells The National, adding that his wife has lost relatives in Lebanon.

“We haven't seen a willingness yet from Vice President Harris to abandon the current course that President Biden has taken on the genocide in Gaza and the conflict in Lebanon … I'm not sticking my name behind an individual candidate."

Dearborn’s influential Arabic and English weekly newspaper, The Arab American News, has also not endorsed a presidential candidate.

“Both are warmongers,” says Osama Siblani, the paper’s publisher. “I cannot even fill the bubble with the names of any of these candidates. It’s very depressing.

“They have done absolutely nothing to encourage us to vote for either of them. They keep sending billions of dollars for rockets and bombs to strike our homeland and to kill our people. How do you even get on board with any of those people?”

Osama Siblani reads a copy of The Arab American News. Joshua Longmore / The National
Osama Siblani reads a copy of The Arab American News. Joshua Longmore / The National

Sensing an opportunity, Mr Trump's campaign has increased its engagement with Arab-American voters, seizing on the community's anger with the Biden administration.

Some Dearborn residents say the Trump team's approach and message have been catching on; others say they are determined to punish Ms Harris over the administration’s support for Israel. More still say they cannot vote for the former president who passed the so-called Muslim travel ban.

“It’s the difference between someone who kills you and someone who insults you,” Nasser Beydoun, a Lebanese-American businessman who last year ran for Senate as a Democrat, tells The National.

“I’ll take the insult. The biggest message we can send is to defeat Harris.”

A lack of enthusiasm for both main candidates is causing concern that people will not turn out to vote this election, local leaders say.

“People here are just generally disengaged, they don't agree with the top of the ticket at all,” says Mustapha Hammoud, a Dearborn city councilman. “They don't feel like their vote matters.”

Four years ago, he and many others in the community volunteered to help increase voter registration and encourage people to vote. Very little of that is happening this year, he said.

His family, he says, used to entirely vote Democrat, “without question”, preferring the party's social and economic policies. This election, each member is going to vote something different he says.

“People in my family are so angry about what they see as an administration complicit with a genocide that they're willing to vote for Trump,” the councilman says, adding that his grandparents have had to flee the Lebanese village of Tebnine.

“And then others who have never voted third party before are voting third party and that's just a microcosm of things – that same scene is playing out all around kitchen tables, all around Dearborn.

“People who never thought that they would drop the Democratic Party are much more willing to do so.”

Mustapha Hammoud is a city councilman in Dearborn. He says his family once voted entirely Democrat. Now it is split. Ahmed Issawy / The National
Mustapha Hammoud is a city councilman in Dearborn. He says his family once voted entirely Democrat. Now it is split. Ahmed Issawy / The National
Ruwais timeline

1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established

1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants

1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed

1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.  

1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex

2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea

2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd

2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens

2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies

2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export

2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.

2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery 

2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital

2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13

Source: The National

TO A LAND UNKNOWN

Director: Mahdi Fleifel

Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa

Rating: 4.5/5

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE. 

Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on

Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins

Read part one: how cars came to the UAE

 

Updated: November 06, 2024, 10:13 PM`