Every day since Donald Trump took office he has surprised not only his former friends and allies, but the people who voted for him. Countless Americans in so-called Red States are increasingly distressed that Trump, the man they thought would improve their economic fortunes by saving and creating jobs, and bringing down the cost of living, has instead embarked on a costly and ill-advised trade war and expansionist policies reminiscent of the 19th century McKinley era.
Needless to say, the cost of living for average Americans is rising, not falling, and jobs are being lost. Their supposed MAGA saviour is even refusing to rule out a possible recession. And almost none of these voters wants to wage a battle against Canada, their closest neighbour and ally.
But the prize for the most extreme example of voter “be careful what you wish for” regret surely goes to a group that called itself Arab Americans for Trump. This was an independent interest group formed in the lead up to the 2024 election whose stated goal was to facilitate interactions between Trump and his associates and members of the Arab American community. The group publicly stated that they had been hugely disappointed by the Biden administration’s “unwavering blank-cheque” support for Israel in the Gaza conflict, and were hoping to convince as many of their fellow Muslim and Arab Americans as possible to vote Republican this time around, instead of giving their traditional support to the Democrats.
While there were some in the community who feared Trump would be “no better” than Harris, those dissenters preferred to vote for third-party candidate Jill Stein, an environmental activist who also committed to promoting a peace plan for the region, or to stay home. In the end, the overwhelming majority of the Muslim/Arab vote went to either Trump or Stein.[i] At the state level Michigan, and the key city of Dearborn, (known colloquially as the Arab American capital of the U.S.), went decisively Republican for the first time in more than twenty years, depriving Harris of 15 electoral college votes that Democrats would normally have expected.
While many analysts after the fact have noted that Trump’s victory was hardly dependent solely on the American Arab vote, it was obviously a significant factor. And it was not long before a groundswell of resentment formed against the community, and this specific interest group, causing numerous problems for its proponents.[ii] In fact, it was only the morning after Trump’s decisive victory was announced that a spokesperson for the group issued a defensive press release stating “Don’t Blame Us”.
Since then, of course, the Trump administration has gone much further and faster than the Biden Democrats in its unwavering support for Israel, to the profound dismay of Arab and Muslim Americans. To begin with, shortly after he was sworn in the president appointed Steven Witkoff, a prominent Jewish real estate developer and Republican fundraiser, as his Special Envoy to the Middle East. But this move paled in comparison with his selection of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as the new American ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister who supports Israeli settlement of the West Bank, and has questioned whether “Palestinians” really exist, was enthusiastically supported in a letter to the Senate sent by some 500 Jewish and Christian faith leaders for his confirmation hearings.[iii]
Just before his official inauguration Trump also held an extremely amicable meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu –a notable exception in itself, after a string of restrained and even hostile encounters with other world leaders – and astonished everyone when he waxed eloquent about Gaza as a “phenomenal location on the sea” that he envisioned could be turned into a major real estate project like the Riviera, as soon as Palestinians had been forcibly removed to adjoining countries.[iv] (A bipartisan group of senators referred to the idea as “deranged” and even the opportunistic and normally supportive Senator Lindsay Graham reacted to this outrageous announcement with skepticism and urged caution.) [v]
More recently Trump has solidly backed Israel’s return to Gaza with military force after increasing disputes with Hamas over the completion of the first phase of the fragile ceasefire agreement, an agreement which the Biden administration had negotiated. He has also demanded that all remaining Israeli hostages be released by Hamas immediately. It is only with this latest manifestation of Trump’s clearcut bias in favour of Israel, that the Arab Americans for Trump decided to take action. As reported in an article in mid-February, the interest group has now formally changed its name to Arab Americans for Peace.
Clearly Arab and Muslim Americans have been deeply disappointed by all of these actions over the past two months since Trump’s inauguration. But his most unexpected – and potentially dangerous – move with respect to the Arab/Muslim community itself has been within their own country. Trump’s recent campaign to remove not only illegal immigrants but individuals he now describes as domestic terrorists, has now been expanded to include those who have voiced public support for Hamas, a category which he has taken to include anyone with pro-Palestinian sentiments. In recent weeks the American public has been treated to numerous videos of masked ICE agents approaching and forcibly removing individuals, often including those with valid documentation. This horrendous Kafkaesque scenario is now playing out with increasing frequency, in violation of their First Amendment rights, against legally resident university students who have been engaged in pro-Palestinian protests [vi] A case in point is that of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student with a valid green card and an American wife who was forcibly abducted from his Columbia residence and is now languishing in an Arizona detention centre awaiting deportation.[vii]
For those Arab Americans who chose to reject the Democrats even though they considered them to be the lesser of two evils, either by staying home or voting for Stein, this is obviously an even more bitter pill to swallow. But it is one that should lead all citizens in liberal democracies to consider their options extremely carefully, and to recognize that politics is the art of the possible. In his first term of office there was every indication that Donald Trump was a strong supporter of the state of Israel, but also that his handling of international affairs was erratic and unpredictable to say the least. His actions in his second term have only heightened that perception. In retrospect, the Biden administration’s handling of the Gaza crisis is looking better all the time.
[i] https://www.voanews.com/a/in-historic-shift-american-muslim-and-arab-voters-desert-democrats/7854995.html and also https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/2/why-many-arab-voters-in-michigan-are-flocking-to-trump-ahead-of-us-election
[ii] https://www.aaiusa.org/library/dont-scapegoat-arab-americans
[iii] https://international.la-croix.com/world/with-new-us-ambassador-to-israel-donald-trump-hands-a-win-to-settlers
[iv] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trumps-gaza-israel-plans-riviera-rcna190748
[v] https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/senate-does-not-support-trump-s-plan-for-1739834618.html
[vi] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/can-mahmoud-khalil-deported-green-card-rcna195694?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
[vii] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/can-mahmoud-khalil-deported-green-card-rcna195694?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
