(New York) These are just words, thrown by Joe Biden during the first presidential debate of 2020, in response to a promise repeated several times by Donald Trump to moderator Chris Wallace, namely to reveal his tax returns.
” When ? “, asked the Democratic candidate after one of these promises. “Inshallah? »
These are just words, but this “God willing”, pronounced in a sarcastically appropriate tone, ignited the corner of the Web where Arab-Americans express themselves. For the first time in American history, Arabic words were heard during a presidential debate.
“A historic moment in the United States,” tweeted Hamed Aleaziz, journalist at New York Times.
“Joe Biden: “Insh’Allah.” My darlings, it happened,” exulted Siraj Hashmi, host of the podcast Habibi Broson the same social network.
PHOTO PATRICK SEMANSKY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Joe Biden, during the presidential debate of September 29, 2020
“If my parents had told me when I was young that a major presidential candidate would one day say the words ‘inch’Allah’ during a nationally televised debate, I would have thought they were crazy. But everything is possible in 2020,” added Shadi Hamid, editorialist at Washington Post.
What weight did these words have on the Arab-American vote in 2020? Impossible to measure it. What is measurable, however, is the dizzying plunge in Joe Biden’s popularity with this electorate, some members of whom saw him as a sort of cultural hero, on September 29, 2020.
A month and a few days later, 59% of Arab-American voters voted for Joe Biden. However, last November, only 17% of them said they intended to support it in November 2024, according to a survey conducted by the Arab-Muslim Institute.
Poll whose results reflected a feeling of betrayal inspired by the unwavering support for Israel of the man whom some supporters of the Palestinian cause now nickname “Genocide Joe”.
In some key states where Arab-American voters are concentrated, such a defection could help deprive Joe Biden of crucial victories. This is particularly the case in Michigan, where a Democratic primary will offer on Tuesday a first glimpse of the electoral impact of the president’s position in relation to the war in the Gaza Strip.
“Not committed”
Activists and Democratic leaders from Michigan’s Arab-American community are calling on voters to vote “uncommitted” Tuesday to send a message to President Biden about the urgency of calling for a cease-fire. permanent fire in the Gaza Strip. This option is offered on ballots in Michigan during the primaries. It allows Democrats and independents to send delegates to the Democratic convention who are not attached to any candidate, in return for a sufficient number of votes.
“This is how you can make our voice heard,” declared Rashida Tlaib, Democratic representative from Michigan and the only elected representative of Palestinian origin in Congress, in a video broadcast on February 17. “Right now we feel completely neglected and invisible. »
Layla Elabed, Rashida Tlaib’s younger sister and community organizer, is the head of Listen to Michigan, the group calling on voters in the state to vote uncommitted. Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, the “Arab capital” of Michigan, supports this campaign, as does the organization Our Revolution, founded by supporters of independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders (the latter dissociated himself from this effort).
My biggest fear is that Mr. Biden will not be remembered as the president who saved American democracy in 2020, but rather as the president who sacrificed it for Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024.
Mayor Abdullah Hammoud in a column published last week by the New York Times
Listen to Michigan hopes that at least 10,000 Michigan voters will vote “uncommitted” on Tuesday, the number of votes that helped Donald Trump win the state in 2016.
Joe Biden beat the former president by 154,000 votes in Michigan in 2020. This industrial state in the Midwest has 200,000 Muslim voters registered on the electoral roll and 300,000 who claim origins in the Middle East or South Africa. North. Other key states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona, also have significant Arab and Muslim minorities.
But this electorate is not the only one to abandon Joe Biden. Polls indicate that the president is also losing support among young people and blacks, some of whom are outraged by the fate reserved for the population of Gaza, where nearly 30,000 people have lost their lives since the start of Israeli reprisals for Hamas terrorist attack which killed 1,200 people in Israel on October 7.
PHOTO SALEH SALEM, REUTERS
A young Palestinian refugee feeds her little brother in the Rafah camp, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
In Michigan and elsewhere, a number of these voters say they will not vote for Joe Biden unless he comes out in favor of a cease-fire and cuts off military aid that allows Israel to wage its war in the Gaza Strip. They are not satisfied with the president’s statements about “indiscriminate” bombings or “excessive” tactics by the IDF.
Others have already concluded that they can no longer vote for Joe Biden, considering him complicit in the “war crimes” of which they accuse the Israeli prime minister and members of his far-right government. On November 8, they will therefore vote for an independent candidate or stay at home.
And they already refuse to take the blame for a possible victory for Donald Trump, whose positions they know towards the Palestinians or Muslims are likely to be even worse than those of Joe Biden.
They are determined to punish the Democratic president.
Insha’Allah?