On the threshold of the American presidential elections, an important and vital question arises: “Whom will America’s Arabs and Muslims vote for in the upcoming 2024 presidential elections?
About 59% of Arabs and Muslims in America voted in favour of the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. But the opinion polls this time indicate fundamental changes in voting pattern, including what was shown by the Zogby Brothers pollster, in which only 17% of them will vote for Biden.
Historically, Arabs and Muslims in the US tended to vote for the Democratic Party and its candidate, as it was always closest to immigrants, and more or less free from the influence of the growing right-wing tide in the Republican Party.
Perhaps it goes without saying that the Arab world has paid a high price for its security and peace, during the years of the era of Republican President George W. Bush, in which he led two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention a brutal war against what was called Islamist terrorism throughout the region, which gave the impression that this man is neither a friend of Arabs nor of Muslims.
According to Zogby Brothers, the numbers do not lie. For the first time in nearly a quarter of a century of conducting opinion polls of Arab-American voters, they found that the majority of Arabs and Muslims do not claim to prefer the Democratic Party.
Historically, in the period between 2008 and 2016, which is, from the end of Bush Jr.’s term to Donald Trump’s term, the number of Arab American Democrats outnumbered the Republicans by a ratio of two to one. Is the situation different this year, in a way that threatens President Biden’s chances of remaining in the White House for another four years?
Clearly, something has changed. In polls this year, 32% of Arab Americans identified themselves as Republicans, compared to only 23% who said they considered themselves Democrats.
What prompted Arabs and Muslims inside America to change their positions on President Biden in such an influential and effective manner?
The answer, of course, does not require a lot of mental exercise, as the moral and material support came from the master of the White House to the State of Israel, after the crisis of October 7. It marked as the end of a lot of its neutrality and integrity and wrote a testimony as close as possible to the winding-up of the image of the United States that it was a fair partner or a reliable mediator to reach a just solution to a crisis which has lasted many decades, and without hope for a peaceful solution.
All or most of the Arab and Muslim Americans have lost confidence in the Biden administration, and his deputy (Kamala) Harris, in particular after she made harsh statements on American television networks and threatened to punish Israel if it rejected the Security Council resolution, or to move forward with more attacks on Rafah, while it appeared the reality is that there is ongoing and steady US military support for Israel.
[by Emile Maloof in Alarabiya]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque