Biden’s reelection campaign is careening toward disaster and if Trump slinks back to The White House future historians could do worse than take a long look at what happened in Michigan.
In last week’s Shift I mentioned Dearborn’s mayor Abdullah Hammoud refusing to meet with Biden’s campaign manager over the administration’s policy on Gaza. Hammoud said he wanted to meet with foreign policy officials, not political ones.
On February 6 a group Michigan community leaders held a press conference to launch the “Listen to Michigan” campaign. They’re calling on Democrats and Independents to cast an uncommitted vote in the state’s February 27 Democratic primary.
“It will be difficult for Biden to earn back our trust after financing war and genocide in Gaza,” reads the group’s website. “He must stop funding the Israeli government’s atrocities against the Palestinian people. President Biden’s been a successful candidate in the past by representing a broad coalition, but right now he’s not representing the vast majority of Democrats who want a ceasefire and an end to our government’s unconditional weapons funding of Israel.”
“He’s not representing the young people who put him in office and turned out in the midterms — and are now out protesting his policies in the streets.”
Polling shows that the state is a serious problem for the president and we’re even seeing Democratic lawmakers sound the alarm.
“It’s a competitive state, and the Arab American issue is one that’s got to be taken seriously,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) told The Hill. “We have to talk to them, and we’re gonna. Those issues are very serious ones.”
“Nobody believed me when I said Michigan was competitive in 2015, 2016,” she continued. “I have one thing on my side: People recognize Michigan’s competitive this year. We got to excite young people and get them to turn out the way that they did two years ago.”
With storm clouds developing, The White House dispatched a number of senior Biden officials to Dearborn this week. United States Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power (an interesting choice to say the least!), principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, Office of Public Engagement director Steve Benjamin, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs director Tom Perez, White House liaison to American Muslim Communities Mazen Basrawi, as well as aides Jamie Citron and Dan Koh.
The Listen to Michigan group attended the meeting, but seemingly didn’t walk away impressed. Here’s spokesperson Abbas Alawieh’s assessment:
As our movement to vote ‘Uncommitted’ in the February 27th Michigan Democratic Presidential Primary gains momentum, President Biden sent top White House officials to Dearborn today after ignored Michiganders urging a permanent ceasefire for the past three months.
In the meeting, Palestinian Americans with family in Gaza expressed deep alarm and pain as they urged the administration to bring an end to the killing.
Arab and Palestinian American community leaders at the meeting described excruciating stories of surviving war and enduring the betrayal of President Biden’s support of genocide.
We were met with yet another failure from the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire that saves lives. We asked how Biden can demand our votes when he provides unconditional weapons funding to an Israeli government that pursues a policy of collective punishment against Palestinians.
Biden’s funding of Netanyahu’s extreme, far-right government makes a mockery of his claim to fight against the bigotry and authoritarianism of Trump and the MAGA movement.
Actions speak louder than words. As Biden continues funding Netanyahu’s atrocities, he can count us ‘uncommitted’ to his re-election.
Nadia B. Ahmad wrote about the meeting and mood at the site.
“No number of meetings between White House officials and local community leaders, hastily arranged to try to smooth things over, can paper over this rift,” she explains. “Voters still remember how Biden labeled himself a “Zionist” and “supporter of Israel” during his campaign. And they recoil at the appointment of Dana Stroul, co-author of a paper essentially supporting perpetual Israeli control of Palestine – to a prominent State Department role overseeing Middle East policy.”
“Actions speak louder than words, and Biden’s actions leave Arab American and Muslim voters feeling disillusioned and disrespected. The days when their support for Democrats could be taken for granted are over. Outreach events in places like Dearborn and Detroit are band-aids over a much deeper wound. And they do nothing to address the underlying policy failures fueling this tension.”
Defending the indefensible
For months, State Department spokespeople have been trotted out to justify the unjustifiable. They’ve all been painful to watch, but no one has flailed more as of late than Vedant Patel. Just look at this excruciating exchange from earlier this week.
Question: Just quick on the evidence thing, though. So did the IDF and everyone Blinken met with yesterday say we are not going into Rafah?
Patel: I am not going to speak to the specifics of the meetings and engagements that the Secretary has had beyond what we have already wrote out. And he gave a pretty lengthy press conference that your colleagues on the road attended and asked questions in which —
Question: Yeah, we all watched the press conference, but we’re trying to figure out —
Patel: — he spoke to this pretty clearly.
Question: — how you are saying there is no evidence you have seen if he had an entire briefing yesterday with top Israeli officials. Did – yes or no, did they tell him we are not going into Rafah?
Patel: I am just not going to get into the specifics of the engagement that he had on the road.
Question: Yeah, Vedant —
Patel: Yeah.
Question: — the Israeli prime minister said yesterday that he directed the army to prepare for an operation in Rafah.
Patel: Again, when I’m saying that we’ve not seen these reports, Michel, what I am speaking about is that – reports around the serious planning for such an operation. And we believe that planning for such an operation should require and – some thought into the more than a million people who are sheltering in the area. It’s also an area that is a key conduit for humanitarian aid and the safe departure of foreign nationals. Conducting an operation without thinking these pieces through is not something we’d support, and the Secretary made that clear to the prime minister.
When pressed on the potential military operation in Rafah, NSC Coordinator John Kirby had no answers either:
Question: John, if — could I just parse a little bit more the Rafah statements? On the one hand, you said a — any military operation in a place like Rafah would have to take into consideration protection of civilians. And then you also said that any military operation in Rafah would be a disaster. So, is — does — is it the U.S.’s position that there could be a military operation in Rafah that could be designed in a way that would be protective enough of — of civilians? Or is the message any military operation would be impossible — any military — any military operation would be indefensible given the — given the situation in Rafah now?
Kirby: Again, we haven’t seen — I haven’t seen a —
Question: Right, I understand you haven’t seen it —
Kirby: — plan here. So —
Question: — but in terms of what you’re —
Kirby: So, any — any — our view is: Any military — any major military operation in Rafah at this time, under these circumstances, with more than a million — probably more like a million and a half Palestinians who are seeking refuge and have been seeking refuge in Rafah — without due consideration for their safety would be a disaster…And we would not support it.
Question: But I guess my question is: Can you see — could you see a path towards due consideration for their safety that could make a military operation in Rafah now, like, actually work?
Kirby: That’s a speculative one. I’m not going to go down a hypothetical here, Michael, in terms of what it could look like. Again, we haven’t — we have no indications that there is such planning for a major operation in Rafah. I’ve just said that right now, without proper planning and consideration of the — the innocent lives that are there — more than a million of — folks that are in Rafah — a military operation right now, without any kind of due consideration for that, would be a disaster for those people, and we would not support it.
Odds & Ends
???? Vulture: ‘Melissa Barrera Reportedly Almost Fired for Palestine Advocacy’
???????? ‘Why the U.S. must restore funding to UNRWA’
???????? ‘Michigan Muslims and Arabs are over Biden’
???? ‘The Guardian exposes how CNN slants the Gaza news’
???????? ‘U.S. admits it hasn’t verified Israel’s UNRWA claims, media ignores it’
???? Responsible Statecraft: ‘Biden says he’s pushing a 2-state solution. Let’s put him to the test’
???????? Counterpunch: Gaza Occupies Toledo City Council
???? Electronic Intifada: ‘Gaza genocide turns into PR disaster for US’
???? NPR: ‘Senate approves $118 billion bill pairing aid for Ukraine and Israel with border fund’
???? The Nation: ‘Brown University Students Are on a Hunger Strike for Palestine’
???? Truthout: ‘The Political Costs of Biden’s Support for Israel’s War Are Mounting’
???? Last weekend multiple athletes contending for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team in the Men’s Marathon finished their races carrying Palestinian flags today at the Olympic Trials in Florida.
“We are all competing to represent our country. This forces reflection on what this country currently represents,” said Julian Heninger, one of the runners who held a flag. “After months of war and heinous acts, we have the largest international governing body on the planet, the International Court of Justice, demanding that Israel prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians, and we have over 70% of Americans that support a ceasefire. Yet here we stand with our executive branch overriding the will of its own people and dragging us into deeper conflict in the region. The louder we can make our voice to demand a future for Palestinian people and its tragically targeted youth is why speaking up and out and using a platform such as the Olympic Trials feels so important to me.”
???????? Axios: ‘Democrats talk UNRWA alternatives with Israeli official’
???????? A coalition of queer organizers and activists protested outside the Human Rights Campaign annual fundraising gala in Manhattan. The coalition demands queer
organizations cease complicity with Israeli pinkwashing and call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Adalah Justice on Twitter: “While hundreds protested outside, Palestinian and Jewish queers disrupted the ‘Without Exception’ HRC Gala to find out why Palestinians are the exception. HRC is funded by arms manufacturers like Northrop Grumman who are sending arms to Israel to genocide Palestinians.”
???? From the latest Jonathan Martin column in Politico:
Few in the administration sense the danger more than Vice President Kamala Harris. From holiday parties to a dinner at her residence last month for a group of prominent Black men, Harris has been telling sympathetic Democrats outside the White House that she recognizes the political challenge posed by Biden’s unwavering public support for Israel, I’m told by officials familiar with her comments at the events. Harris told people she’s making the case privately for the administration to show more empathy for the plight of innocent Gazans, an internal push that my colleague Eugene Daniels reported in December.
The vice president, too, has been heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters. And it’s no coincidence that her abortion rights tour has not yet taken her to activist-filled college towns such as, well, Ann Arbor and Madison that would otherwise be obvious stops to motivate core Democrats. (Even going to comparatively conservative San Jose this week, however, didn’t spare her from protesters.)
Biden himself is a different case. Like everyone in the administration and any Democrat with a pulse, he’s deeply suspicious of Benjamin Netanyahu, and privately has called the Israeli prime minister a “bad fucking guy,” according to people who’ve talked to the president. (Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said, “the president did not say that, nor would he,” adding that the two leaders have “a decades-long relationship that is respectful in public and in private.”)
???? ‘Annie Lennox Calls for Gaza Ceasefire During Sinéad O’Connor Grammys Tribute’
✊ There is a new website to follow the pro-Palestine movement in New Jersey.
???????? Teen Vogue: ‘Kinnan Abdalhamid, Palestinian Student Shot in Vermont, Calls for US, Schools to Demand Israel Ceasefire’
Stay safe out there,
Michael
