A number of Trump’s Jewish supporters have said they do not feel nervous about the number of Muslims supporting the President-elect.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Muslim support may have enabled President-elect Donald Trump to flip Michigan on the way to winning the 2024 election.

Trump won Michigan in 2016–the first time a Republican presidential candidate secured the state in three decades.

Although President Biden won the state in the 2020 election, Trump managed to flip the state back, which he won by just 10,000 votes.

Muslim support may have been a factor in Trump’s clinching the state that is home to the largest Arab population in the United States.

The Harris campaign faced protests from Muslim voters in Michigan over the Biden Administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Although Harris spent Sunday in Wayne County, Michigan, she could not match Joe Biden’s success in the state in 2020.

A day before the election, Trump boasted of a “record-breaking” coalition of Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan.

“We are building the biggest and broadest coalition in American Political History. This includes record-breaking numbers of Arab and Muslim Voters in Michigan who want PEACE,” said Trump on X, a day before the presidential election.

“They know Kamala and her warmonger Cabinet will invade the Middle East, get millions of Muslims killed, and start World War III. VOTE TRUMP, AND BRING BACK PEACE!” he said.

On the Friday before the election, Trump visited a halal cafe in Dearborn, Michigan, the US city with the largest Muslim population.

A number of Trump’s Jewish supporters have said they do not feel nervous about the number of Muslims supporting the President-elect.

They point to Trump’s accomplishments on behalf of Israel from his first administration, namely moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, supporting Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights and parts of Judea and Samaria, pulling out of the Iran nuclear program, and brokering the normalization agreement between Israel and the UAE, Morocco and Bahrain.

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‘Trump is visiting Dearborn, Michigan. Had Harris done this, I’m sure the pro-Trump Israel advocates would condemn it loudly.’

By Ron Kampeas, JTA

A candidate listens attentively as a supporter laments that “Palestine is being erased” and that “No amount of money or power should be prioritized over human life.”

The same candidate praises a mayor who says Israel is committing genocide, calling him “great.”

The candidate in question was not Kamala Harris, whose interactions with pro-Palestinian activists on the campaign have been heavily scrutinized and criticized by Israel advocates. It was her rival, Donald Trump.

Trump’s appearance in Dearborn, Michigan this weekend — where he got the endorsement of local Arab Americans — yielded conventional campaign-stop headlines.

“Trump meets with Arab Americans in Dearborn, but top community leaders skip event,” CBS said. “Trump meets Arab Americans in Dearborn, vows to bring peace in Middle East,” said the Detroit Free Press.

There was barely a mention of the introduction Trump got from Albert Abbas, owner of the Great Commoner cafe.

“I can’t stand in silence when Palestine is being erased — please help us stop the bloodshed,” Abbas said, as Trump cocked his head. “No amount of money or power should be prioritized over human life”

At the event, Trump also greeted Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, one of a handful of municipalities to formally boycott Israel, who has accused Israel of “genocide” in its current war against Hamas. The Trump campaign sought Ghalib’s endorsement after hearing that his socially conservative views had alienated the town’s Democrats.

One conservative outlet, the National Review, lambasted Trump last month for accepting Ghalib’s endorsement — and for calling the mayor ”great” — but the outrage and mainstream media coverage that typically follows many encounters between Vice President Kamala Harris and Israel’s harsh critics did not ensue.

Last month, Harris was interrupted during a Wisconsin campaign stop by a student who accused Israel of genocide. Her team ejected the man from the event, but after he left, she said, “What he’s talking about, it’s real.” Under heavy criticism, a spokesperson clarified that Harris was not agreeing with the protester’s comments.

The episode fueled an ongoing narrative of Harris as siding with Israel critics when she speaks to them. The trend came into its fullest expression in August when the Uncommitted movement of pro-Palestinian advocates said Harris was considering an arms embargo on Israel, a measure the group supports. The Harris campaign clarified that she did not support an embargo and had only said she would continue to speak with the movement.

Conservative media seizes eagerly on Harris’s associations with some of the most vocal Democratic critics of Israel in Congress, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee. Meanwhile, CNN unearthed 2018 video of Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, praising a local Imam known for amplifying antisemitic comments.

Some observers, watching Trump court the Arab-American vote, perceived a double standard: “Trump is visiting Dearborn, Michigan. Had Harris done this, I’m sure the pro-Trump Israel advocates would condemn it loudly,” tweeted Corey Walker, a correspondent for the Algemeiner, a right-leaning Jewish publication.

When asked about a double standard, Rich Goldberg, who served as a national security official under Trump, said he had a better gut feeling about the former president.

“A lot of pundits like to talk about the ‘kishkes test’ — typically it’s a test of which candidate feels Israel and the Jewish community in their kishkes,” he said in a text.

“I think we have a very different kind of kishkes test this cycle — a question of which candidate turns your own kishkes upside down when you think about their views and policies on Israel and pro-Hamas activism in our country. Israel is at war,” he said. “Jews are under attack. This isn’t hypothetical anymore, it’s real and it matters. And I think that’s driving unprecedented numbers of Jewish voters to Trump.”

Naomi Rose, writing an op-ed for The Commentator, an independent student publication at Yeshiva University, cited a number of statements by, and associations of, Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, that she deemed hostile to Israel. “To vote for a Harris-Walz administration would be to vote for an administration that is inherently anti-Israel, and consequently, antisemitic,” she concluded.

Trump’s supporters say there’s a reason his pro-Israel supporters are not unnerved by associations or incidents that would have them rushing to social media to condemn Democrats: his record from 2017 to 2021, when as president he reversed years of orthodoxies on the Middle East, favoring Israel’s claim to Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and parts of the West Bank, cutting funds to the Palestinians, pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement and brokering normalization deals between Israel and countries in the region.

The Trump campaign referred a request for a statement to the Republican National Committee, which in an email noted that polling of Israelis shows they strongly favor Trump.

Elizabeth Pipko, an RNC spokeswoman, said Trump was the best guarantor not just of the safety of Israelis but of American Jews.

“For many American Jews like myself, the events of October 7th, 2023, and the year that followed, will forever remind us of the threats we face around the world, and in our own country,” she said in an email. “To this day, many I know are afraid to leave their homes appearing visibly Jewish, in major cities across the United States. It is not difficult for most to recognize that the leadership of Kamala Harris failed when it came to our protection and that the Democrat party of our parents and grandparents no longer exists.”

Who Trump meets with is less important than what he did, said David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel. (Friedman, notably, criticized Trump after the former president dined with a Holocaust denier in 2022, and said he subsequently spoke with Trump about that dinner.)

“Trump and Harris both have a record of four years in office,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “That’s what counts. Trump’s record was the most pro-Israel in history; Harris, one of the worst.”

Matt Brooks, the CEO of the Republican Jewish Committee, said that Trump earning Arab-American support is a measure of how much he can get accomplished with diverse and even antagonistic actors.

“We obviously we don’t agree with everything this guy says,” he said, referring to Ghalib, the Hamtramck mayor, “but he endorsed Trump knowing full-well how pro-Israel he is.”

While it’s true that the Biden administration has in recent months had tense relations with Israel over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war, supporters of the president and Harris note that it also shepherded through $14 billion in emergency defense assistance for Israel and deployed U.S. forces to the Middle East to inhibit threats on Israel by Iran or its proxies. Harris has committed to full defense assistance for Israel and has said all options are on the table to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Trump’s ties to critics of Israel have come more into view as he cultivates the Arab and Muslim American vote in Michigan, a swing state. In a recent letter to community leaders. he has vowed to restore peace to Lebanon.

A political action committee backed by billionaire Elon Musk, who supports Trump, targets Arab Americans with ads emphasizing Harris’ pro-Israel bonafides — as well as the Jewishness of her husband, Doug Emhoff.

Trump has not quite won over the Arab-American vote: Some Arab-Americans cannot shake memories of a president who wholeheartedly backed Israel when he was in office, and who instituted — and vows to reinstitute — a ban on entry targeting citizens from a number of Muslim-majority countries.

He has also, at times, made his Jewish supporters uneasy: Trump notably gets plenty of attention and criticism when he flirts with antisemites and antisemitic rhetoric, including from Jewish Republicans.

And his relationship with Israel could get tense. Israeli officials, the Times of Israel has reported, have expressed concern that Trump’s insistence on a quick end to the war — by some accounts, he wants it done by inauguration — could upend U.S.-Israel ties.

His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, has advocated isolationist policies and for a time blocked a joint Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan defense assistance package. He recently said that Israel and the United States will not always agree on Iran.

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said there was no guarantee that Trump would be as supportive of Israel in a second term, noting his predilection toward isolationism.

“His foreign policy has been egregiously inconsistent, and — according to his own former national security adviser, John Bolton — his support of Israel is not guaranteed in a second term,” she said.

Ellie Cohanim, a top staffer in the State Department’s antisemitism monitor office under Trump, said Trump’s past — not his campaign-trail associations — predicts his future.

“For anyone curious what President Trump’s policy will be towards Israel as our 47th president, you just have to review his track record as our 45th president,” she said in an email. “Donald Trump showed such historic support for Israel as our 45th president, that he will go down in history as the most pro-Israel, pro-Jewish President in American history.”

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A number of the people invited to dinner did not specifically name the war in Gaza as the root of their displeasure with Biden.

By Jack Elbaum, The Algemeiner

Former US President Donald Trump is making an effort to court Arab American leaders amid their growing frustration with incumbent President Joe Biden over several issues, including his policy regarding the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

This week, Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, organized a dinner for Arab American leaders in Michigan to try and get them not just to abstain from voting for Biden — but actually to endorse and vote for Trump, according to The Washington Post.

Grenell is not formally a part of the Trump campaign, but he was recently referred to as “my envoy” by the former president.

There has been a measurable shift regarding who Arab Americans plan to vote for in November’s presidential election compared to who they voted for in 2020.

A New York Times-Siena College poll released last week found that 57 percent of Arab and Muslim voters in five key battleground states said they planned to vote for Trump, compared to just 25 percent who said they would back Biden.

In contrast, the Post noted, those who said they voted in 2020 reported they had supported Biden 56-35 at the time.

The shift raises questions over how potential endorsements from Arab American leaders in swing states could affect Trump’s rhetoric regarding the Israel-Hamas war.

At times, Trump has called for Israel to quickly finish the war and demurred when asked whether he stood with the Jewish state “100 percent.”

However, at other times, he has blasted Biden for being what he described as insufficiently pro-Israel.

But key Arab American endorsements are unlikely to cause a major shift in Trump’s rhetoric. A number of the people invited to the dinner organized by Grenell did not specifically name the war in Gaza as the root of their displeasure with Biden.

Some object to his enforcement of sanctions on Syria, while others argue he has not taken any explicit steps to benefit the American Muslim community, according to the Post.

Additionally, recent polling has shown the American people at large support Israel’s war effort against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

The Harvard CAPS Harris poll for May found that 79 percent of Americans support Israel more in the war than Hamas, 70 percent believe Israel is taking steps to avoid civilian casualties, and two-thirds do not believe a ceasefire should happen until all the Israeli hostages seized by Hamas are returned and the terrorist group is removed from power.

A majority of Americans have a favorable attitude toward Israel and believe that Biden not providing certain weapons to Israel would “embolden Hamas and [its] backers.”

Meanwhile, 74 percent of Americans believe Israel should move forward with a military operation in Rafah, and 69 percent — including majorities in both parties and independents — say Hamas is mostly to blame for the current crisis in Gaza.

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US Muslim support for Biden has fallen from 59% before the war to 17% since October 7th.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

US Muslims from key swing states gathered in Dearborn Michigan on Saturday to formulate the “#Abandon Biden” strategy to punish the president at the 2024 polls for his policy in the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden, who has supported Israel’s efforts to free hostages and eliminate Hamas, has angered the American-Muslim community, whose support for the president has plunged from 59% before the war to 17% since October 7th.

Participants from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania gathered in Dearborn, Michigan, the US city with the highest percentage of Muslims.

Their leaders declared that because President Biden did not demand that Israel implement an immediate and permanent ceasefire, they were going to use their leverage and numbers to make the #Abandon Biden movement succeed.

University of Minnesota professor, Hassan Abdel Salam, said, “We’re looking into finding ways to build a mechanism of coordination between all the swing states so that we’re constantly working together to ensure that Muslim Americans will come out in all of these states and that Mr. Biden will lose every one of them.”

Jaylani Hussein, Executive director of CAIR Minnesota said, “We are not powerless as American Muslims. We are powerful. We don’t only have the money, but we have the actual votes. And we will use that vote to save this nation from itself.”

The leaders at the summit indicated that the participants aren’t considering voting for Donald Trump instead, and there were many discussions about whom they would support as president instead of Biden.

“We’re not supporting Trump,” Hussein said. “We’re not going to make the same mistake of thinking about President Biden the way we thought. We don’t have two options. We have many options, and we’re going to exercise that.”

Currently, Michigan is the state with the highest percentage of Arab Americans at 2.1%, and in 2020, Biden won Michigan by 2.8 points.

In Wisconsin, there are 25,000 Arab American voters and Biden won the state by 20,000.

Arizona is home to 25,000 Arab Americans, and Biden won the state by 10,5000 votes.

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