Trump’s Strange Bedfellows: Arab Americans and Right-Leaning Jews
The New York Times
Donald J. Trump won votes from Arab Americans and conservative pro-Israel Jews. Someone is likely to be disappointed.
In the final hours before Election Day dawned, some of Donald J. Trump’s top surrogates in Michigan were onstage in a Grand Rapids arena, distilling the choice in the campaign into a stark and striking message.
“Choose peace over war,” urged Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich.
Democrats, suggested Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights, Mich., were “a bunch of warmongers.”
And former Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate, welcomed “our Christian Arab friends, our Muslim Arab friends” and declared, “We all want a path to peace.”
“Thank you,” he said, “for being part of that coalition.”
It is an extraordinary new coalition. Along the way to his decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump drew at least some Arab American and Muslim voters who are outraged by the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza. He managed to do so without alienating the right-leaning American Jews who see Mr. Trump as Israel’s strongest champion.
