WASHINGTON: Arab-American anger over Joe Biden’s Israel policy could cost him dearly in November’s US presidential vote, as a community with electoral influence in key swing states turns against him.Over the weekend, the Democratic incumbent’s campaign manager travelled to Dearborn, Michigan — home to the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the United States — and was snubbed by a group of a dozen or so officials, including the Detroit suburb’s mayor.Biden has asked Congress for billions of dollars in additional military aid to Israel and his government has vetoed multiple UN Security Council calls for a ceasefire in the conflict, leaving many Muslims and people of Middle Eastern heritage feeling betrayed by the Democratic Party, their former political home.”When elected officials view the atrocities in Gaza only as an electoral problem, they reduce our indescribable pain into a political calculation,” Mayor Abdullah Hammoud wrote on X about why he chose not to meet Julie Chavez Rodriguez.His comments were cheered by Dearborn residents, who expressed anguish at the daily horrors in Gaza since Israel began a military offensive following deadly attacks and hostage-taking carried out by militant group Hamas on October 7.
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