The Biden campaign has said it does not want the votes of people seen on video shouting “death to America” at a recent anti-Israel rally in the 2024 battleground state of Michigan.
At last Friday’s International Al-Quds Day rally, the Dearborn crowd was led by Michigan-based activist Tarek Bazzi’s chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Biden campaign spokesman Charles Luttwak said “no” when asked if the president still has a soft spot for these agitators, who typically lean toward Democrats.
Bazzi’s comments were also condemned by the White House.
“The White House condemns in the strongest terms these abhorrent anti-Semitic statements,” Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital. “As President Biden has said, America is the greatest nation on earth and a beacon to the world.”
Given that Michigan is likely to play a key role in the rematch between Biden and former President Trump, it will be crucial whether Biden wants the votes of the same Michigan demonstrators in November. That’s a problem.
Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, helped push for a “no-commit” vote in the state’s Democratic primary as a rebuke to President Biden’s policies on the Gaza-Israel conflict. (Getty)
On the last day of Ramadan, Muslim demonstrators in Michigan chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
The campaign initially limited its comments to the chant itself and primarily cited White House statements.
Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told Fox News Digital that the slogan was “denounced” by the campaign. “The Biden-Harris campaign condemns these disgusting and anti-Semitic comments,” Rutvak reiterated.
“President Biden knows that America is the greatest country in the world. Full stop,” Rutvak said.
The controversy over the Dearborn rally comes as the city has emerged as one of the centers of resistance to Mr. Biden’s re-election. In Michigan’s Democratic primary last month, more than 100,000 voters did not support Biden as the party’s nominee and marked their ballots as “uncommitted.”
Voter hostility toward Biden is largely a result of the administration’s stance toward Israel, which is at war with Hamas following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state. Although the White House has shown increasingly tepid support for America’s allies, many who oppose Israeli attacks remain dissatisfied.
The campaign has sought to defuse tensions with voters in Dearborn, the city with the highest per capita Muslim population in the country. Campaign officials met with Arab American and Muslim leaders from the region in January, an effort that Democratic Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud derided as “inhumane.”
Abdullah Hammoud, right, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, led an effort ahead of the state’s Democratic primary to urge voters to elect “committed” delegates as a rebuke to President Biden. (Getty Images)
Activist who incited “Death to America” chant calls for Israel’s “absolute annihilation” in unearthed video
“This is not the time for electoral politics,” Hammoud told CNN after the meeting. “For 115 days, Israel has killed more than 26,000 Gazans and displaced more than 2 million people.
“For us, this is an issue that requires action, not just lip service. This is an issue where policymakers need to come and talk about doing things differently. This is a conversation we’re having with campaign staff. isn’t it.”
This meeting was followed by another in February, and this latest summit was attended by senior Biden administration officials. As expected, it didn’t work. Democratic Representative Abraham Ayyash has vowed not to engage in further dialogue between the two countries until the administration makes “concrete changes” to its policy on the Gaza conflict. to CBS.
“We want a permanent ceasefire,” Ayyash told The Associated Press after the meeting. “We want to put limits and conditions on military aid sent to Israel, and we want the United States to be serious about rebuilding Gaza.”
Local activist Takeku Batsi. (Middle East Media Research Institute)
Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that U.S. policy in Gaza could change if the Israeli military does not do more to improve the humanitarian situation in the conflict zone, saying such It appears that some of the concerns have been addressed.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters after the call that the United States would shift gears “if we don’t see the change that we need to see.” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said the administration expects results from Israel within “hours to days” of the call.
According to a White House reading of the call, Biden stressed the need for an “immediate ceasefire” to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which the president said was “critical to stabilizing and improving the humanitarian situation and protecting innocent civilians.” He claimed that.
But some Dearborners likened the conversation to “baby steps.” ABC reported. Osama Shiblani, publisher of Arab American News, said the community was calling for a “big step.”
Dear Mayor Bourne says Biden campaign visit to Michigan was ‘dehumanization’ purely for ‘political ploy’
Participants during an anti-Israel demonstration in front of the White House in Washington, DC, Saturday, November 4, 2023. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“All they are trying to do is convince us that there is some movement in the direction that we want,” Sibulani said, according to ABC. “But it’s too late and it’s dragging on. There are more deaths and casualties.”
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Continued tensions with Dearborn voters could pose a problem for the Biden campaign as Michigan’s status as a battleground state hangs in the balance in November. The past two presidential elections have been marked by tense situations in the state. Trump won Michigan by less than half a point in 2016, but Biden won by just over 3 points in 2020.
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