The war has presented a minefield for both campaigns as they try to cobble together the swing states needed to clinch the White House – and manage the competing demands of their electorates.
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While Harris has taken pains to thread the needle on the Middle East, the wars in Gaza and Lebanon have exposed deep stress fractures in the party between more centrist pro-Israel Democrats and the progressive and more pro-Palestinian wing of the party.
While an estimated 100,000 Jews live in Michigan, Harris also needs to win over urban progressives, minorities and young people, the latter who are decidedly more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and led rolling, often violent protests on college campuses over the past year. A decision by the state’s Jewish Attorney General Dana Nessel – a Democrat – to level criminal charges at 11 pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to vacate a tent encampment at the University of Michigan early this year laid bare the internecine tensions in the party. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib – Michigan’s own member of the progressive “Squad” group – accused Nessel of “bias” in pursuing the prosecution because of her Jewish identity; Nessel in turn accused Tlaib, a Palestinian-American of “antisemitism”.
On foreign policy in the Middle East, Trump has also had to chart a delicate course between courting Arab-American minorities – including Iraqi and Lebanese Christians more receptive to a bellicose stance on Iran and its regional proxies – and the isolationist wing of his party. This includes white working-class voters in Michigan – home to America’s auto industry – who are tired of seeing US blood and treasure spent in wars overseas.
Trump has peddled a somewhat ambiguous, opportunistic line on the Middle East crisis; declaring that it never would have happened on his watch while decreeing himself the best option to fix it.
As Harris has equivocated on Gaza, Trump has capitalised on an opportunity to pick off Arab-American voters angry over the Biden’s administration’s response, enlisting the help of his daughter Tiffany’s Lebanese-American father-in-law, Massad Boulos, in outreach in Michigan. Boulos has reportedly delivered, helping to shepherd Trump’s fortuitous meeting with Ghalib before his campaign event in Flint last month.
“He knew a lot about me before the meeting,” Ghalib said in a text message to The Detroit News, after holding court with Trump. “We talked about various topics including the debates, the polls updates, the statistics of votes in Michigan and Wayne County, the Arab American concerns and the Yemeni Americans in particular.”
Describing the meeting in more frank terms on Facebook later, Ghalib wrote in Arabic:
“Did I leave with promises that he will deliver on our requests? Of course not.
“Trump showed that he understood the issue, and [showed] respect for us.”
Sarah Smiles Persinger is a former Age reporter and an editor at the United States Studies Centre. She has a masters in Middle Eastern studies from the American University of Beirut.
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