During campaign stops ahead of Election Day, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris promised Michigan voters that they would work to end Israel’s conflicts — with Trump pledging “peace in the Middle East” and Harris promising to “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza.”
Some of Harris’ most outspoken pro-Palestinian critics, meanwhile, are urging voters to elect her despite her support for Israel.
The candidates’ pledges came as Harris and Trump were making a final push to win the swing state during the last days of their neck-and-neck campaign. Michigan has large populations of both Jewish and Arab voters, making it a hotspot for activism over the Israel-Hamas war as well as Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Trump has portrayed himself as a champion for Israel but has also sought to take advantage of Arab-American disaffection with Democrats over the Biden administration’s support for the war. On Friday, he visited a Lebanese restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan, an Arab-majority city of 100,000.
He vowed that, if he is elected, “You’re going to have peace in the Middle East, but not with these clowns that you have running the U.S. right now.”
Speaking to reporters among a friendly, standing-room-only crowd at the Great Commoner restaurant, Trump said, “You have people in the Middle East that aren’t doing their job and you have people in the U.S. that aren’t doing their job.”
Trump’s host at the event, restaurant owner Albert Abbas, said, “We look to a Trump presidency with hope, envisioning a time when peace flourishes, particularly in Lebanon and Palestine.”
He added, “I can’t stand in silence when Palestine is being erased. Please help us stop the bloodshed. No amount of money or power should be prioritized over human life.”
Also in Michigan, Harris said at a Sunday rally in East Lansing that she would work for peace in the region. She repeated her formulation for a solution to the conflict, which she has stuck to as she has also sought to appeal to both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian voters.
“This year has been difficult given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon,” Harris said.
“It is devastating and as president I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure, ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, security and self determination,” she added to applause. Harris also vowed to “continue to work on a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon.”
Jewish voters have traditionally supported Democratic presidential candidates by a wide margin, but anti-Israel activism, especially in progressive spaces such as college campuses, has given pause to some Jewish voters. Republicans view that as an opening to peel Jewish voters away from Democrats, while also taking steps to attract Arab-Americans.
Over the course of the year, some pro-Palestinian activist groups urged their followers to spurn Joe Biden and Kamala Harris due to their support for Israel, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein has also sought those votes by placing Gaza at the center of her campaign. In February, the “Uncommitted” campaign, which urged pro-Palestinian activists to refrain from supporting Biden in the Democratic primary as a pressure tactic, garnered 10% of the primary vote in Michigan.
Last month, Uncommitted emphasized that its supporters should not vote for Trump. But now some of the administration’s most prominent pro-Palestinian critics are explicitly urging people to vote for Harris. Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American who was unsuccessfully put forward by pro-Palestinian activists to speak at the Democratic National Convention, made the case for Harris in an op-ed in Rolling Stone.
Romman, whose case for Harris was amplified by “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver, acknowledged that many Arab and Muslim community members were torn about supporting either candidate. She announced that she will “swap her vote” — voting for Harris in the swing state of Georgia in exchange for a voter in a solidly blue state casting their ballot for a third-party in protest.
“The reality is a second Trump presidency would ensure continued disaster for our community and far too many other allied communities as well,” Romman wrote in the op-ed. “Vote for Vice President Harris not because she represents all of our ideals, but because there is a chance, even slim, that we can push her.”
Last week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of Israel’s most vocal critics in the Senate, called on undecided voters to support Harris, despite misgivings about her position toward Israel. He said he frequently got questions about the war in Gaza.
“Some of you are saying, ‘How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?’ That is a very fair question,” he said in a video on X.
“We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing U.S. policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right-wing extremist ally,” he added.
The two most recent Democratic ex-presidents have also stumped for Harris in Michigan. President Bill Clinton gave a full-throated defense of Israel at a Harris rally, accusing Hamas of putting civilians in harm’s way and noting that many of Hamas’ Israeli victims supported a Palestinian state.
“I’m going to do everything I can to convince people that they cannot murder their way out of this, either side,” he said. “But when I read that people in Michigan are thinking of not voting because they’re mad at the Biden administration for honoring its historic obligation to try to keep Israel from being destroyed, I think that’s a mistake.”
Former President Barack Obama, meanwhile, campaigning for Harris, attacked Trump for his past policies and associations with far-right figures.
“Maybe you’re Muslim-American or Jewish-American and you are heartbroken and furious about the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East and worried about the rise of antisemitism,” Obama said in Milwaukee on Sunday. “Why would you place your faith in somebody who instituted a so-called Muslim ban, who sat down for pleasantries with Holocaust deniers, who said that there were ‘very fine people’ on both sides of a white supremacist rally?”
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