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Arab campaigners in Michigan declare ‘victory’ in primary election protest against Biden

(L-R) Abbas Alawieh, spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, Layla Elabed, campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, and Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud speak to the press one day after the Michigan presidential primary, at Haraz Coffee House in Dearborn, Michigan. (AFP)
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Updated 28 February 2024
RAY HANANIA
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Arab campaigners in Michigan declare ‘victory’ in primary election protest against Biden

  • More than 100,000 voters heed call to snub president by choosing ‘uncommitted’ option on ballot, amid anger about his unflinching support for Israel during war in Gaza
  • This could prove significant during the presidential election in November, in which Michigan is likely to be one of the most closely contested states
Updated 28 February 2024
RAY HANANIA

CHICAGO: Arab American leaders hailed as a “victory” the results of a Democratic presidential primary election in Michigan on Tuesday, in which more than 100,000 voters snubbed President Joe Biden’s nomination bid by choosing the “uncommitted” option on the ballot.

Campaigners had urged Arab voters to do this in protest against the Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, despite the thousands of civilians who have been killed or injured as a result.

Primaries are elections held by the Democratic and Republican parties in every state to select their candidates for the presidential election. The “uncommitted” voting option is only offered by some states. Campaigners said the number of Arab Americans in Michigan who voted “uncommitted” represented a solid rejection of Biden’s candidacy.

He still comfortably won the primary. With more than 95 percent of the votes counted on Wednesday afternoon, he had received 618,441, representing 81.1 percent of the total. The number of “uncommitted” votes stood at 101,107, or 13.3 percent. Two other candidates, Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, each received about 3 percent of the vote.

The “uncommitted” vote could nevertheless prove significant in the presidential election if it translates into loss of support for Biden or a switch of allegiance to his likely rival, Donald Trump. Biden claimed victory in Michigan at the 2020 presidential election by the relatively narrow margin of 154,188 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast. There are more than 500,000 Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan. In addition, turnout for a presidential election is usually significantly higher than for a primary; about 1.8 million people voted in the Michigan primary on Tuesday, for example, compared with the 5.5 million at the 2020 presidential election.

In Michigan’s Republican primary, Trump comfortably won with 68.2 percent of the vote. Closest rival Nikki Haley received just 26.6 percent, which 3 percent were uncommitted.

The Michigan primary was the first among several identified by Arab American campaign groups as taking place in key swing states where Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was particularly narrow.

Arab Americans have launched anti-Biden protest movements in several of those states, the most prominent of which has been #AbandonBiden. Its leaders cite as the main reason for Arab anger the president’s support for and defense of Israel during the war in Gaza, including: the allocation of more than $34 billion in aid and weapons; what they view as the pro-Israel bias of Secretary of State Antony Blinken; and the US decisions to veto three UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire.

The #AbandonBiden campaign launched on Nov. 1, shortly after Israel invaded Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. It criticized Israel for the “brutality” of its military campaign, which has razed cities to the ground, destroying civilian buildings and infrastructure in the process, including mosques, hospitals, churches, schools, homes and businesses. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in the past four months.

Osama Siblani, publisher of the Michigan-based Arab American News, which describes itself as the largest Arab American publication in the US, told Arab News that “empty words” from the Biden administration seeking to placate Arab voters will not work.

“The message has been delivered to Biden loud and clear from Michigan’s Arab Americans: Defeat is waiting for you in November,” he said. “This is only a down payment.”

Imad Hamad, the executive director of the American Human Rights Council, told Arab News: “The community delivered and fulfilled its solid commitment not to commit to the reelection of President Biden.

“The uncommitted votes, as well as the votes of those who flipped the party affiliation from the Democratic Party to Republican speaks for itself, setting the record straight moving forward toward the general elections in November.”

The possibility that the #AbandonBiden campaign might help return Trump to the White House has caused alarm among many traditional Democrat supporters.

Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute and a longtime political activist, said many movements have emerged in response to discontent over Biden’s policies on Israel and Gaza.

“We hoped to send a message that couldn’t be ignored by President Biden and we did just that,” he told Arab News.

“The turnout in the Arab community was great and with the support of our allies we topped over 100,000 votes. This is a huge win.”

Samir Khalil, founder of the Arab American Democratic Club in Illinois, where Biden could face another Arab voter backlash in that state’s primary on March 19, said that the president’s abandonment of Palestinians was “unconscionable and unacceptable.”

He told Arab News: “Four years of Donald Trump doesn’t even come close to comparing to four months of Israel’s killings in the Gaza Strip.

“Over 100,000 people voted for ‘uncommitted’ in the Michigan presidential primary yesterday. This record-breaking total for the uncommitted option sent a loud and clear message to the Democratic Party and the Biden campaign: It is time to take action to end the genocide in Gaza.

Abed Ayoub, president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee echoed these comments and said: “Uncommitted voters represent diverse demographics, including young voters, progressive voters, and a significant number of voters from ally communities.”

In a message posted on social media platform X, Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of the Michigan city of Dearborn wrote: “I am overwhelmed by the power of the people, demonstrated today by the number of Michiganders who voted ‘uncommitted’ … Every person who voted ‘uncommitted’ today was personally compelled to use their voice to speak out against President Biden’s support of (Israeli President) Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”

Biden has faced harsh criticism from other groups, including the Council on American Islamic Relations; Our Revolution, founded by progressive Democratic US Senator Bernie Sanders; and Listen to Michigan.

Hassan Abdel Salam, the national coordinator of #AbandonBiden, and the group’s Michigan coordinator, Khalid Turani, released a statement on Wednesday in which they said: “Abandon Biden leaders stand before the nation today, not just as victors in the Michigan primary, but as bearers of a profound and indignant message against President Joe Biden’s oversight of the ongoing US-Israeli genocide in Gaza. This isn’t just a political setback for Biden; it’s a damning indictment of his presidency’s moral bankruptcy.

“Our motivation is driven by the harrowing realities of Gaza, where the statistics of death and despair climb daily under the shadow of a genocide facilitated by Biden’s administration. At least 29,606 innocent men, women and children have been murdered, including more than 12,300 children and 8,400 women; and more than 69,737 wounded, including at least 8,663 children and 6,327 women.

“These aren’t just numbers; they’re a damning testament to the horror and suffering supported by Biden’s foreign policy.”

They added: “As we move from Michigan to the national stage, our message remains unequivocal: We will accept nothing less than justice, accountability and an end to US funding, arming and support of the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

Biden faced no significant challengers in the Michigan primary, so voting “uncommitted” was the best and clearest way to express the outrage and anger of the Arab American community, campaigners said.

To become president, a candidate must win at least 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes up for grabs. Each of the 50 states receives a set number of Electoral College votes based on population size, and they are normally awarded to the candidate that wins the popular vote in the state.

In 2020, Biden won 306 Electoral College votes compared with Trump’s 232. If Arab Americans votes prevent Biden from winning 36 of these votes in three key swing states at the presidential election in November, he could lose, #AbandonBiden leaders said. Michigan has 16 Electoral College votes up for grabs.

Biden is particularly vulnerable in several swing states where his 2020 margins of victory over Trump were even closer than in Michigan. They include: Arizona, which has 11 Electoral College votes and in which he won the popular vote by a narrow margin of 10,457; Wisconsin (10 College votes; 2020 victory margin: 20,682); Georgia (16 College votes; 2020 victory margin: 11,779); and Nevada (6 College votes; 2020 victory margin: 33,596).

Topics: 2024 US Elections Joe Biden

Ukraine’s parliament cancels session after Russia fired a new missile

Updated 2 sec ago
AP
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Ukraine’s parliament cancels session after Russia fired a new missile

  • Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled
  • President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures
Updated 2 sec ago
AP
KYIV: Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session on Friday as security was tightened after Russia deployed a new ballistic missile that threatens to escalate the nearly three-year war.
Russian troops also struck Sumy with Shahed drones overnight killing two people and injuring 12 more, the regional administration said Friday morning. The attack targeted a residential district of the city.
Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the Russians used Shaheds stuffed with shrapnel elements for the first time in the region. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.
Separately, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky arrived on a visit to Kyiv. He posted a photo from Kyiv’s railway station on his X account Friday morning.
“I am interested in how the Ukrainians are coping with the bombings, how Czech projects are working on the ground and how to better target international aid in the coming months. I will discuss all of this here,” Lipavsky wrote.
Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled due to the ongoing threat of Russian missile attacks targeting government buildings in the city center.
Not only is the parliament closed, “there was also recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and NGOs that remain in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.
Russia on Thursday fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address on Thursday.
It struck a missile factory in Dnipro in central Ukraine. Putin warned that US air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at 10 times the speed of sound and which he called Oreshnik – Russian for hazelnut tree.
The Pentagon confirmed that Russia’s missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Pope Francis to visit French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, local church says

Updated 25 min 57 sec ago
Reuters
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Pope Francis to visit French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, local church says

  • Short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013
  • Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.% Catholic
Updated 25 min 57 sec ago
Reuters

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit Corsica on Dec. 15, the local diocese said on its website on Thursday, in the first recorded trip of a pope to the French island in the Mediterranean.
The short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio, where Francis is expected to speak at a conference on popular religiosity across the Mediterranean region, will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013.
Corsica, noted for its steep, mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of France’s poorest regions, with government statistics estimating that about 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Vatican did not immediately confirm the local church’s announcement, but the trip is known to have been in preparation for weeks. Francis has made two prior visits to France, traveling to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and to Marseilles in 2023 to attend a meeting of bishops.
But the pope, who turns 88 on Dec. 17, has never made a full state visit to France, a historic stronghold for Catholicism that is now widely secular and home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
French President Emmanuel Macron invited Francis to come to Paris for the Dec. 8 reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, but the pope will be leading a ceremony at the Vatican that day to install new Catholic cardinals.
Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, originally from Spain, has led the Catholic Church in Corsica since 2021. Francis made him a cardinal, the highest rank in the Church below pope, in 2023.
Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.5 percent Catholic.
Francis has traveled widely around the Mediterranean over his 11-year papacy, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos and the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Topics: Pope Francis Corsica

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Record 281 aid workers killed in 2024, says UN, with 1 month left

Updated 7 min 47 sec ago
AFP
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Record 281 aid workers killed in 2024, says UN, with 1 month left

  • 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023
Updated 7 min 47 sec ago
AFP

Geneva: A staggering 281 aid workers have been killed around the world so far this year, making 2024 the deadliest year for humanitarians, the UN aid chief said Friday.
“Humanitarian workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ new under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
With more than a month left to go of 2024, the “grim milestone was reached,” he said, after 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023.
“This violence is unconscionable and devastating to aid operations,” Fletcher said.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza was driving up the numbers, his office said, with 333 aid workers killed there — most from the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA — since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, which sparked the war.
“States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarians, uphold international law, prosecute those responsible, and call time on this era of impunity,” Fletcher said.
Aid workers were subject to kidnappings, injuries, harassment and arbitrary detention in a range of countries, his office said, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine.
The majority of deaths involve local staff working with non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, Fletcher’s office said.
“Violence against humanitarian personnel is part of a broader trend of harm to civilians in conflict zones,” it warned.
“Last year, more than 33,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts — a staggering 72 percent increase from 2022.”
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution last May in response to the surging violence and threats against aid workers.
The text called for recommendations from the UN chief — set to be presented at a council meeting next week — on measures to prevent and respond to such incidents and to increase protection for humanitarian staff and accountability for abuses.

Topics: Aid workers

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Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike

Updated 22 November 2024
AFP
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Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike

  • Vladimir Putin says the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a ‘global’ nature
  • NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike
Updated 22 November 2024
AFP

KYIV: Russia said on Friday it had scuppered Kyiv’s military objectives for 2025 just after President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to the West by test-firing a new intermediate-range missile at Ukraine.
That assessment for next year came after a Russian drone attack at night on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two civilians and wounded a dozen more in an attack with new cluster munitions, local authorities said.
Putin announced the missile launch in a defiant address late on Thursday, saying the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global” nature, while hinting at strikes on Western countries.
In a meeting with military commanders, Russian defense minister Andrei Belousov said Moscow’s advance had “accelerated” in Ukraine and “ground down” Kyiv’s best units.
“We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Belousov said of the Ukrainian army in a video published by the Russian defense ministry.
The attack, which apparently targeted an aerospace manufacturing plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, sparked immediate condemnation from Kyiv’s allies.
China, which has thrown its political clout behind the Kremlin, reiterated calls for “calm” and “restraint” by all parties after Russia confirmed the new missile strike.
“All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meanwhile, on Friday described Russia’s deployment of the medium-range missile as a “terrible escalation.”
NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike, according to diplomats.
Ambassadors from countries in the NATO-Ukraine Council will hold talks on Tuesday. The meeting was called by Kyiv following the Dnipro strike, officials said.
The Russian attack came after Ukraine recently fired US- and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time, escalating already sky-high tensions over the conflict, which is nearly in its third year.
Washington said it had granted Kyiv permission to fire long-range weapons at Russian territory as a response to the Kremlin’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops on Ukraine’s border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile, which he said proved Moscow “does not want peace.”
In Kyiv, Oleksandra, a 30-year-old resident working in the media, said the Russian strike was a sign of desperation within the Kremlin.
“You could have launched a missile that is less expensive and have the same result. As long as this missile does not carry a nuclear payload, there is nothing to fear about,” she said.
Russian troops have been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing a string of small towns and villages from overstretched Ukrainian soldiers lacking manpower and artillery.
In the city of Sumy, authorities said a Russian drone had struck a residential neighborhood. Emergency services distributed images showing rescue workers retrieving the bodies of the dead from the rubble.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory after launching a major ground offensive in August.
The head of the Sumy region, Volodymyr Artyukh, said Russia had deployed a drone with modified munitions that were equipped with shrapnel, describing the weapons as being “used to kill people, not to destroy buildings.”

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Russia Ukraine

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Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels

Updated 22 November 2024
AFP
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Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels

  • More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement
  • Gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency
Updated 22 November 2024
AFP

RAIPUR, India: Indian security forces gunned down at least 10 Maoist rebels on Friday during a firefight, police said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people of India’s remote and resource-rich central regions.
The gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.
“Dead bodies of 10 Maoists have been recovered so far,” Vivekanand Sinha, chief of the state police’s anti-Maoist operations, said.
Sinha said the police recovered several automatic weapons from the rebels.
India’s home minister Amit Shah this year issued an ultimatum to the insurgents to surrender or face an “all-out assault.”
A crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the Maoists across the insurgent-dominated “Red Corridor,” which stretches across central, southern and eastern states but has shrunk dramatically in size.
India has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development in remote areas and claims to have confined the insurgency to 45 districts in 2023, down from 96 in 2010.
The conflict has seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces over the years. Twenty-two police and paramilitaries were killed in a gunbattle with the far-left guerrillas in 2021.
Sixteen commandos were also killed in the western state of Maharashtra in a bomb attack that was blamed on the Maoists in the lead-up to national elections in 2019.

Topics: India

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