Arab and Muslim Americans and their allies are criticizing President Joe Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, asking him to do more to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza or risk losing their support in the 2024 election.

Many Arab Americans accuse Biden of failing to push for any humanitarian ceasefire even as Palestinians are killed fleeing Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, more than a dozen academics, activists, community members and administration officials said.

Their growing frustration could impact Democrat Biden’s reelection bid, which opinion polls show is likely to be a rematch with the Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.

In hotly contested Michigan, Arab Americans account for 5% of the vote. In other battleground states Pennsylvania and Ohio, they are between 1.7% to 2%, said Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

Biden won Michigan with 50.6% of the vote in 2020, compared to 47.8% for Trump, and Pennsylvania with 50.01% to Trump’s 48.84%, a difference of less than 81,000 votes.

Arab and Muslim Americans are unlikely to back Trump but could sit out the election and not vote for Biden, some activists said.

“I do think it will cost him Michigan,” said Laila El-Haddad, a Maryland-based author and social activist from Gaza.

While condemning the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on civilians in Israel that killed 1,400 people, Arab Americans said the Israeli response was disproportionate and Biden’s failure to condemn the bombardment has many questioning his promise of a “human rights centered” foreign policy.

DEMANDS FOR POLICY CHANGE

Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab-American mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Muslim per capita population in the U.S., decried Biden’s failure to condemn Israeli threats to cut off water, electricity and food for over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

“Nothing could have prepared us for the complete erasure of our voices and radio silence from those whom we elected to protect and represent us,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Our family members trapped in Gaza have been ignored, our calls for a ceasefire drowned out by the drums of war.”

Linda Sarsour, a former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, told hundreds of attendees at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) event on Saturday that Muslim-Americans should make any political donations contingent on a change in policies.

Many are pressuring Biden to push Israel to temporarily halt its attacks on the Gaza Strip that have killed thousands of Palestinians.

Israel’s bombing of Gaza is “now in the realm of genocide targeting the entire Palestinian population,” said CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the U.S., adding that government officials will be “complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza” unless they intervene.

Biden’s push for more than $14 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel is also drawing fire.

“If you look at his rhetoric, it’s unbelievable, and now they are trying to pump billions and billions of dollars militarily into Israel, with some $100 million in humanitarian aid for the Palestinians,” said Sa’ed Atshan, a Quaker Palestinian-American who teaches peace and conflict studies at Pennsylvania’s Swarthmore College.

Even Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, usually a staunch backer of Biden’s policies, offered some pointed public advice on Monday, calling on the U.S. to continue leading the world “in accelerating critical aid and supplies to an increasingly desperate Gaza population.”

RESPONDING TO CRITICISM SAYS WHITE HOUSE

Biden has appointed more Arab-Americans and Muslims to political posts than any predecessor, as well as the first two Muslim federal judges, but that diversity has not impacted policy for the self-described “Zionist” President.

Some Arab American and Muslim appointees are scared of backlash and reprisals and worried about family members in the region, said one White House official, who is Arab-American.

“There are very vocal people in the administration who have concerns,” the official said. U.S. officials with family in the region are doubly stressed by the “ambassadorial” role they play as they field agitated messages from relatives and others angry at Biden’s Israel strategy.

The White House said it was aware of and responding to criticism of its policies by meeting with administration officials and community members. Biden has made forceful speeches since taking office on the need to confront Islamophobia and hate of all kinds, it said.

Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients and adviser Anita Dunn are meeting staffers and community members and urging cabinet secretaries to do the same, White House officials said.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and his principal deputy Jon Finer met with Arab and Muslim American community leaders on Oct. 13, and the White House officials hosted 30 Palestinian American youth on Friday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged the personal difficulties some staff are facing in a Thursday letter, and met Monday with Palestinian and Arab American community leaders and Jewish American groups.

One 11-year State department veteran, the director of congressional and public affairs for its Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Josh Paul, quit his job last week. Top officials refused to respond to his concerns about “blindly rushing lethal arms to Israel while the people of Gaza face obliteration,” he said in a posting on LinkedIn.

Drones and rockets targeted two military bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq on Thursday, sources and officials said, the latest in a series of attacks after Iraqi militants warned Washington against intervening to support Israel against Hamas in Gaza.

Rockets and drones were fired at Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts U.S. and other international forces in western Iraq, and multiple blasts were heard inside the base, two security sources said.

The Iraqi military said it closed the area around the base and started a search operation. It was not clear yet whether the attacks caused casualties or damage, said the sources.

Rockets hit another military base hosting U.S. forces near Baghdad’s international airport, Iraqi police said on Thursday, without providing further details.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said two rockets had been fired at U.S. forces at the airport. One was intercepted and the other hit an empty storage facility and there were no casualties, the official added.

The latest attacks take to four in the past 24 hours targeting Iraqi military bases that hosts U.S. forces in Iraq.

Last week, Iraqi armed groups aligned with Iran threatened to target U.S. interests with missiles and drones if Washington intervened to support Israel against Hamas in Gaza following the deadly incursions by Hamas militants that killed 1,400 people.

U.S. military forces in Iraq were targeted on Wednesday in two separate drone attacks, with one causing minor injuries to a small number of troops even though the U.S. military managed to intercept the armed drone.

The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq, and 900 more in neighbouring Syria, on a mission to advise and assist local forces in combating Islamic State, which in 2014 seized swathes of territory in both countries.

Ain al-Asad air base is located in the western Anbar province.

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said the country needs a strong government but not of “one party with brute majority”, and batted for a coalition rule.

Speaking at his party’s annual Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park in central Mumbai, he said when the “chair” (of ruler) is unstable, the country becomes strong.

Mr Thackeray, who is part of the Opposition’s INDIA bloc, advocated a “mili-juli sarkar’ (coalition government) which can take everyone along, and cited the examples of governments under Manmohan Singh, P V Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

There was a time when Sena founder and his father late Bal Thackeray said that the country needed a strong government, Uddhav recalled.

“We have seen a strong government for nine years now. Have the issues of the people been resolved? “There should be a strong government, but not of any one party with a brute majority,” he added, targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his friend-turned-foe.

The BJP or (its predecessor) Jana Sangh played no role in any struggle including that for the country’s freedom, Marathwada liberation struggle or the Samyukta (united) Maharashtra movement, the former chief minister claimed.

Attempts were being made to “steal” the Shiv Sena, he said, slamming the rival Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

Warning his rivals, Mr Thackeray said, “After we come to power, we will hang upside down those who are harassing us.” Attacking the BJP, Mr Thackeray said his party’s Hindutva was nationalism.

Slamming the Shinde government over the lathi-charge at Maratha protestors in Jalna last month, Thackeray said the Marathas were agitating for quota even when he was chief minister, but he never gave such orders.

Who was the “General Dyer” who ordered lathi-charge in Jalna, he asked.

The issue of reservation for Maratha, Dhangar and other communities can only be resolved by the Centre and Parliament, Thackeray further said.

The BJP creates a rift and then acts as a protector, he alleged.

Slamming Maharashtra assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar over “delay” in disqualifying rebel MLAs of the Shiv Sena, Thackeray said the country was not just watching how the case unfolds. If the speaker did not heed the Supreme Court’s direction (to hear disqualification petitions expeditiously), the people would be watching if an apex court exists in the country or not, he said.

Mr Thackeray also dared the Shinde-led government to hold elections and let people decide whether the rebel MLAs were “qualified or disqualified”.

Seeking to counter the BJP’s attack on dynastic politics, Thackeray said he was proud of his family.

“…a doctor’s son becomes a doctor. We are preserving the legacy of our family… Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud is also preserving the legacy of his family,” he said.

“He (Chandrachud) has occupied the position because of his merit. His father (Y V Chandrachud) too was the chief justice of the country and he was very strict,” Mr Thackeray said.

On the other hand, there were some leaders who came from obscure families and rose to power, Mr Thackeray said, citing the examples of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Saddam Hussain, Vladimir Putin and Muammar Gaddafi.

Targeting the Maharashtra government over the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project, he asked who will benefit from it.

The high-speed train project was being executed “so that traitors can quickly flee to Gujarat,” he quipped, and alleged that attempts were being made to “loot Mumbai.” All good investments were being diverted from Maharashtra to Gujarat and other states, Mr Thackeray claimed.

The Pakistani team was playing cricket in India when Indian soldiers were being shot at on the India-Pakistan border, the Sena (UBT) chief said.

After the speeches were over, effigies of Ravan and a demon dubbed as “khokasur” were burnt.

The Thackeray-led Sena has often accused the MLAs of the Shinde group of taking `khokas’ (crores of rupees) to switch loyalties which led to the collapse of the Thackeray government in June last year.