Dearborn’s Mayor to Biden: Change Course on Gaza or Lose Presidency

By Staff, Agencies

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud has vowed that, unless US President Joe Biden ends his administration’s unwavering support for “Israel”, it will cost him the Arab American vote and re-election later this year.

Hammoud further stated that, for the next two weeks, he and several other dissenting voices in Michigan will be encouraging voters to select “uncommitted” in the state's Democratic primary, which is slated for 27 February.

Citing continued US support for “Israel’s” devastating war on Gaza, Hammoud said the grassroots “Vote Uncommitted” campaign would try to spur Arab and Muslim Americans in Michigan, 146000 of whom voted for Biden in 2020, to vote “uncommitted” in an act of protest.

Last week, 30 other elected officials announced they would be voting “uncommitted” in the primary in a bid to make Biden change course on the Middle East.

“We did this because no presidential candidate has earned our vote,” Hammoud said, noting that “President Biden's administration [has] continued to make destructive policy decisions [on Gaza]. ... If he continues this course, he will be remembered for sacrificing American democracy in 2024.”

As a swing state, the chances of a Biden re-election in November's presidential without the backing of the Arab American vote may be close to impossible.

In an interview with CNN on 2 February, Hammoud was asked if he was worried about what a Trump presidency would mean for the lives of Palestinians in Gaza.

“We're a city that's protesting to help prevent the killing of innocent men, women and children. And as a community as a city, we don't believe there's a qualifier to that sentence or to that value statement,” Hammoud said.

“We're in search of a president who also believes in that same value statement.”

Hammoud noted that Dearborn is no stranger to hate, and that throughout the past few decades the city has faced attacks and threats on its Muslim community, including Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones's planned march outside the Islamic Center of Dearborn in 2011.

The fact that, all these years later, hate continues to be shown against the city is the "the most disappointing part of all this", according to Hammoud.

“And as a father of two, as somebody who was raised in the post-911 era, I thought that America was better than this. But it seems as though we still have a long way to go to end the cycle of hate.”