Former President Donald Trump has significant plans to court Arab American activists and donors as they jump ship from previously supporting President Joe Biden.
Amid growing frustration with Biden regarding several issues, including his policy on the Israel-Hamas war, Muslim and Arab American voters are eager to make “Biden lose” the 2024 election.
Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell organized a dinner in Michigan for Arab American leaders nationwide in an effort to endorse the GOP hopeful and persuade voters to abandon Biden.
Since the 2020 election, there has been a noticeable shift in who Arab Americans and Muslims plan to vote for this election cycle. According to a New York Times-Siena College poll, 57 percent of Arab and Muslim voters in five of the key battleground states plan to vote for Trump. In comparison, only 25 percent said they would support Biden.
While a number of Arab and Muslim Americans cited Biden’s pro-Israel stance as a reason to abandon the president, a source close to Grenell pointed out that this is not necessarily the reason many are refusing to vote for him— given the fact that Trump said he stood with the Jewish state “100 percent.”
According to the Washington Post, many people, who will be attending the dinner, did not cite the war in Gaza as the main reason for their distaste with Biden. Many voters argue against the president’s enforcement of sanctions on Syria and believe he has not taken enough action to protect the Muslim and Arab communities in the U.S.
The outlet also noted that in 2020, Arab Americans voted for Biden 56-35 at the time.
“What we are seeing now in Gaza and across the region has set it backward by decades. Everyone is thinking, how can we change this? What can we do?” Syrian-American activist Sam Assad Hanna told WaPo reporter Josh Rogin. “That’s why people, including me, are now being more active in support of bringing Trump back to office.”
A recent survey found that most Americans believe that Biden not providing weapons to Israel would “embolden Hamas and [its] backers.” Meanwhile, 74 percent of people support Israel if it would invade Rafah, with 69 percent blaming Hamas terrorists for the war.
Biden’s handling of the conflict in Israel has resulted in millions of Americans voting “uncommitted” in the election rather than voting for the president.
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