First Gaza, now Lebanon: How support for Israel’s war is influencing Michigan voting

Pro-Palestinian supporters hold a candlelight vigil in Dearborn, Mich., on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks in Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.

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Rebecca Cook/Reuters

DEARBORN, Mich. — This city, home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the country, is a city in deep mourning over two wars in the Middle East thousands of miles away.

The signs of that grief are everywhere.

At a funeral for a Lebanese American man killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon.

At a candlelight vigil where people bowed their heads in prayer.

And on the walls of a local coffee shop and art gallery, Black Box, covered in the colors of Lebanese and Palestinian flags. Playing cards with pictures of President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are also taped up, each marked with the words “war criminal.”

Lisa Alcodray speaks with a customer about the exhibition inside the Black Box cafe on Oct. 10 in Dearborn, Mich.

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Valaurian Waller for NPR

Many residents here have loved ones who have been killed in Lebanon and Gaza. They say they feel betrayed by the Democratic Party over the administration’s continued military support for Israel despite global alarm over the level of civilians killed and suffering.

They’re trying to figure out how to express this pain at the ballot box in less than a week.

Fractured support for Harris

Back in February, a self-described anti-war coalition called the Uncommitted Movement, led by Arab and Muslim American Democrats, rallied voters to send a message to President Biden: get a cease-fire, stop sending weapons to Israel, or risk losing voters in Michigan.

More than 100,000 voters heeded the call during the Democratic primary and checked “uncommitted” on the ballot.

Today, Biden is no longer the Democratic candidate, and Vice President Harris is at the top of the ticket. However, for those who chose “uncommitted” — the majority of whom have voted Democratic in the past — support for Harris is by no means guaranteed in this key swing state, where she and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck.

All these months later, there is no cease-fire in Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. In fact, it’s expanded to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Calls to end or condition U.S. military aid to Israel over the level of civilians killed and infrastructure destroyed have gone largely unheeded.

“It’s such a tough moment. It feels like a moment of impossibility,” said Abbas Alawieh, the co-founder of the Uncommitted Movement and a Democratic organizer. “I’m feeling a certain level of despair, and I’m also feeling the contradictions of that despair being so rooted in the policy of our government to send weapons and bombs to kill people I love.”

The unity that was so apparent in February among Arab Americans, young voters and other progressives in the Detroit metro area has fractured, and people are divided on how to express their objections to U.S. policy with their limited political power come Election Day.

Abbas Alawieh is still choosing Harris. “I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from my own beloved community members for this position. Some ask me, what could be worse than genocide?” Alawieh said on Oct. 1.

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“When [Harris] became the candidate, we made this offer that if you change the policy, then we’ll automatically endorse you, and if you can’t change the policy then give us something,” Alawieh said, his face pale and his hands shaking as he spoke in a Dearborn cafe. “Not only did they not give us anything, they actively worked to push voters for whom this is a top issue away.”

The inability to get anything from Harris has diminished the credibility of this movement in the view of so many in his own community, home to the largest Lebanese American population in the country. Their families hail from the cities and towns being bombed by Israel right now. More than 2,700 people have been killed in a matter of weeks and over a million displaced, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

Despite Alawieh’s pain over the deaths of his own family members in Lebanon and his displaced loved ones, he is still choosing Harris.

“I’m looking at Trump’s plans, and I know it could get worse,” he said. “Trump is actively accepting contributions from people who want the full annexation of the West Bank. Trump, very importantly, has very specific plans for how he will criminalize our anti-war organizing here in this country. And that is a clear difference from Vice President Harris.”

It’s a choice that has isolated him. Alawieh’s movement didn’t endorse Harris but still warned against voting for a third party and of what it sees as the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency.

“I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from my own beloved community members for this position. Some ask me, what could be worse than genocide?” he said. “I have a hard time figuring out how to respond to that.”

They’re voting for Trump and Stein

People here don’t use the word “war” to describe what’s happening in Gaza, where more than 43,000 people have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, aid has been intermittently blocked by Israel, hospitals bombed and people are trapped and unable to flee. They say genocide.

It’s the subject of a case before the International Court of Justice and something Israel denies. Israel says it’s going after Hamas which led the deadliest attack in that country’s history that killed some 1,200 people and saw fighters take some 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas officials over alleged war crimes.

Now all those voters Alawieh helped mobilize just a few months ago are “being left on the table” by his party.

And across the cafe, Samraa Luqman, a Yemeni American community organizer, is ready to pick those votes up for Trump.

She said she met with former President Trump recently in Dearborn, where he made a promise to her to end the war. That stands in stark contrast to his public statements, in which he said Israel should “finish the job” and criticized Harris and Biden for calling for a cease-fire. At a rally for Trump just this weekend, speakers used racist and misogynistic rhetoric, including Rudy Giuliani. He demonized Palestinian toddlers, falsely claiming they are “taught to kill us at two years old.”

Samraa Luqman, an activist and community organizer, at Haraz Coffee House in Dearborn on Oct. 1.

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Asked why, despite this rhetoric, she believes Trump’s promise to end the war, Luqman says he’s more likely to do so than Harris.

“Believe him or not, if there is a 99% chance that Trump is going to continue the genocide and I have to weigh it against 100% chance that it’s going to continue under Harris, I’m going to take the 99% chance,” she said. “The fact that there is that slight hope means that I need to go with the best thing for my people.”

And she’s not the only one making this calculation. This weekend, several prominent Arab and Muslim leaders endorsed Trump at a campaign rally in Michigan.

Luqman’s children are half-Palestinian, and this year of watching kids being killed is intolerable, she said. She blames the Biden administration and Harris directly for these deaths.

“It hurts a lot. That hurt has transformed into rage,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to ensure Harris loses. Whatever I can do. And, I’m still a Democrat.”

She sees this as a path to building real political power for a community that has over 200,000 votes in Michigan. For context, Trump won this state by about 11,000 votes in 2016 and Biden won by over 150,000 in 2020.

Luqman wears a necklace featuring the Palestinian flag.

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“If Muslims are credited with swinging an election,” she said, “imagine the political strength we’re going to have. Both Democrats and Republicans are going to be vying for our vote.”

But most Arab American and Muslim Americans NPR interviewed around Dearborn said that if they don’t stay home on Election Day, they’ll go with a third-party choice: Jill Stein.

The Green Party candidate has been actively campaigning in Michigan promising to “end the genocide.”

She has no chance of winning, but she could pull a chunk of support from Harris, and the Harris campaign is running out of time to win these voters over.

Some see Harris as the “strategic choice”

In the last few weeks, her campaign has made overtures. Last month, Harris met with some American Muslims and Arab Americans over an hour away in Flint. This weekend, a different group of Arab Americans endorsed Harris in Dearborn. They called her the strategic choice despite their disappointment. Trump, they said, has shown indifference to Palestinian suffering while promising mass deportations and the revival of a travel ban on majority-Muslim countries, known as the Muslim ban.

The Harris campaign told NPR she is “committed to earn every vote” and that she has been steadfast in her support for American Muslims “including ensuring that they can live free from the hateful policies of the Trump administration.”

Some American Muslims view this as Harris making a real effort despite having to uphold Biden’s policies.

Imam Mika’il Stewart Saadiq sits inside Kitab Cafe in Detroit on Oct. 10. He is one of 25 American imams from across the country who endorsed Harris in an open letter.

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Valaurian Waller for NPR

“I’m not voting for Kamala because I’m afraid of Trump. I see her as a great candidate,” said Imam Mika’il Stewart Saadiq, a Black Muslim leader born and raised in Detroit.

He is one of 25 American imams from across the country who endorsed Harris in an open letter.

“I don’t think it’s fair that we lay the blame of the mess of eight years of older white men at the feet of a Black woman in our generation who’s saying cease-fire now before the president said it,” he said in an interview. “We’ve seen what Trump can do. We’ve seen what Biden can do. Let’s see what she can do.”

Saadiq voted uncommitted in the primary, but once Harris got on the ticket he got behind her.

“I respect people’s righteous indignation and people saying I just can’t vote. I’m never going to try and convince a Palestinian American that they should understand my political calculus,” he said. “But then when it comes to Trump and the MAGA beast at the gate, again we ask the question, OK, now are you asking me to sacrifice myself? Because remember, anti-Black racism, usually when you’re darker, you get it the worst.”

He shares a parable from the Islamic Prophet Muhammad to make his point. The story is about a boat with lower- and upper-deck passengers.

“We’re all in the same boat. We are Americans,” Saadiq said. “People at the bottom of the boat, they want water, so they’re like, ‘Hey, we have an idea. We’re going to bust a hole in the bottom of the boat and get water.’ If the people at the upper level don’t stop them, then everybody sinks. So in this hysterical political climate, there are some of us that say, OK. Don’t put the hole in the bottom of the boat. Don’t sink everybody.”

But with just days until the election and the war expanding, many Arab and Muslim American voters in this battleground state said they already feel like they’re sinking.

This story was edited for digital by Majd Al-Waheidi. It’s part of “We, The Voters,” NPR’s election series reported from the seven swing states that will most likely decide the 2024 election.