‘Blame yourself’: Trump’s election hasn’t dampened pro-Palestinian activists’ anger at Democrats

For Democratic pro-Palestinian activists, Donald Trump’s reelection delivered a bitter vindication.

For Democratic pro-Palestinian activists, Donald Trump’s reelection delivered a bitter vindication. Led by the Uncommitted National Movement, they spent months pushing and pleading with the Biden administration to scale back its support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Their warning had been consistent and direct: Not only did Democrats risk collapsing support among Arab American and Muslim voters in Michigan, but the conflict – and the continuous flow of military aid to the Israeli government – could depress enthusiasm among the coalition of young, mostly progressive-minded voters who proved key to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. “We told them that the impact of Gaza was going be bigger than just the Arab community. It’s why the turnout was lower in college areas and among young Black voters,” said James Zogby, co-founder of the Arab American Institute and a Democratic National Committee member for more than 30 years. “From the polling we’ve been doing over the last year, we saw it had an impact. And it certainly had an impact on my community.” Early post-election analysis of the race suggests that those concerns were well-founded – and emblematic of a broader disconnect between party leaders and the Democratic grassroots. Arab Americans, like Latino and Black men, all moved toward Trump in the final accounting. The president-elect’s vote-share improved nearly everywhere, from the red states he’s dominated for nearly a decade to traditionally liberal electorates, where Democrats either stayed home or, to a lesser degree, backed third-party candidates. “While Kamala Harris was ignoring communities, especially of Muslim Arab communities here in Dearborn,” Uncommitted co-founder Lexis Zeidan told CNN, Trump “was coming to these communities and pandering to these communities, and he was capitalizing off of these vulnerable emotions and telling them what they wanted to hear.” Dearborn, Michigan, is home to the country’s largest Arab American population. As the results came the night of the election, its shift away from the top of the Democratic ticket startled even some of the most passionate activists.