As Trump, Harris woo Arab Americans, Michigan mayor readies to up pressure

Dearborn, Michigan – Abdullah Hammoud was pacing across his office, having an animated phone conversation about former President Bill Clinton’s claim that Hamas “forces” Israel to kill Palestinian civilians.

By the time the mayor of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn sat down for an interview, he had shaken off the anger – at least on the surface.

Hammoud, 34, appeared clear-eyed about the future of the city known as the capital of Arab America and the way forward for its bereaved community amid Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon.

“There’s a blanket of grief that has just covered this community, and people are just trying to manage, obviously, amidst the entirety of the presidential election with the backdrop of a genocide, the war in Lebanon, the bombing in Yemen and so on,” Hammoud told Al Jazeera.

Hammoud, one of the most prominent Arab American elected officials in the United States who served in the State Legislature as a Democrat, has not endorsed any of the candidates, urging residents to “vote their conscience” instead.

In a close race, the tens of thousands of Arab voters in Dearborn – a city of 110,000 people – and across Michigan may prove crucial for the outcome of the election in the state and possibly the country.

That’s not lost on the candidates: on Friday, Trump is expected to visit Dearborn, and Harris has met Hammoud previously during the campaign, but not in Dearborn.

Hammoud stressed the need to come out and vote for the community to make its voice heard.

“In this moment in time, what is more important than anything else is standing firm in our values and our principles and standing firm on the side of one another in the city,” he said.

But for Hammoud, the struggle to end Israel’s killing machine in Gaza and Lebanon – the ancestral home of thousands of Dearborn residents, including the mayor himself – does not end when the polls close on November 5 and a new president is elected.

“Whoever assumes that office, we’re prepared to hold their feet to the fire and hold them to account,” he said. “Everybody’s promising a ceasefire, but nobody’s saying how they’re going to deliver it.”

‘Pressure will be turned up’

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has said she would push for ending the war and her Republican rival Donald Trump has promised “peace” in the Middle East.

But both the vice president and former president are staunch in their support for Israel.

Hammoud noted that the two candidates have not articulated how they would deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pledged repeatedly to continue the carnage until “total victory”.

“But the pressure will be turned up from our end. And we’ll be leaning on the broader antiwar coalition that has been built – our union labour leaders, who have all stepped forward and called for not only a ceasefire, but also an arms embargo against Israel,” the mayor said.

“Heck, even at this point, I’ll be leaning on young Republicans who favour an arms embargo.”

For Hammoud, change is possible regardless of the outcome of the election. “The policy is there. Americans, by the millions, support this,” he said.

“And what you’re not going to see is 50 million, 100 million Americans move on their values and principles. I think it’s feasible for us to believe that millions of Americans can move a single person in the White House on this issue.”

Dressed in a blue blazer over a white shirt, Hammoud hit out at both major candidates over their stance on the Middle East as well as their approach to the Arab community in Michigan.

In his office hung a map of Lebanon over a Yemeni dagger, a firefighter’s helmet, an American football with the Detroit Lions logo, the city’s seal – featuring an old car owing to the city’s manufacturing history as the hometown of industrial pioneer Henry Ford – as well as other items representing Dearborn’s history and diverse communities.

‘Policy outcomes aren’t dissimilar’

Hammoud enumerated some of Trump’s anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian policies, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off humanitarian aid to Palestinians and recognising Israel’s claimed sovereignty over Syria’s occupied Golan Heights.

He also invoked Trump’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries as well as recent comments by the former president’s surrogate Rudy Giuliani, who proclaimed that Palestinians are “taught to kill us” at two years old.

“But I think the difficulty is you want to counter Trump with something that seems to be more welcoming,” Hammoud said.

“And so when you see the remarks of former President Bill Clinton, talking about how Israel is forced to kill civilians, and how the Israeli government’s claim to the land predates the existence of Islam, it gets extremely frustrating.”

Clinton was addressing Arab American voters at an official Harris campaign event in Michigan when he made those comments this week.

Earlier this month, Harris also campaigned in Michigan with ex-Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney – the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq and the so-called “war on terror”.

“When you have surrogates like Liz Cheney campaigning across the state of Michigan, talking about how even Dick Cheney – the war criminal – is supporting Vice President Harris, is that supposed to be a welcoming message to this community?” Hammoud asked.

He also noted that the Biden-Harris administration did not reverse Trump’s pro-Israel policies.

“Yes, rhetoric may be different,” he said, referring to the approach of Harris and Trump. “Sometimes policy outcomes aren’t dissimilar, and I think that’s been the frustration for many.”

‘Hope exists’

With the race for Michigan heating up, attention is turning to Dearborn, the country’s first Arab-majority city.

Campaign billboards can be seen across the city. Residents are getting piles of advertisements in their mailboxes daily, focusing on Arab issues and Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon.

But residents do not appear to match the enthusiasm of the campaign. The city’s Arab American community, especially its large Lebanese American population, is dealing with the anguish of watching the war that is destroying their homeland from afar.

The conflict is deeply personal to them. Their families are being displaced, home villages decimated and loved ones killed by mostly US-supplied bombs. The community lost a respected leader, Kamel Jawad, who was killed in an Israeli bombing in south Lebanon on October 1.

“We’re attending funerals far more frequently than celebratory events,” Hammoud said.

Across the city, Lebanese and Palestinian flags and yard signs for school board candidates far outnumber those for Trump and Harris.

Despite voters’ frustration and the growing sense of disenchantment with the political system, Hammoud warned against disengaging from the political process, calling it a “great fear”.

The mayor highlighted the importance of elections, especially at the local level. He cited the election of officials like himself and other representatives, including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who have amplified the community’s demands around the conflict.

He said while people are struggling with the presidential question, “hope exists” on the ground.

“There are rallies happening all across this world, and the centre of America has moved on Israel-Palestine, and the centre of the world has moved,” he said.

“I think we are one generation away from having a generation of elected leaders who will be more reflective of the policy stances and the values and the principles of the broader electorate.”