Trump supporters meet representatives of Michigan’s Arab and Muslim communities

Michael Boulos, his father Trump adviser Dr. Massad Boulos and National Chairman of Arab Americans for Trump Dr. Bishara Bahbah. (Provided by Dr. Bishara Bahbah)
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Updated 23 May 2024
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Trump supporters meet representatives of Michigan’s Arab and Muslim communities

  • The aim of the meeting was to secure support for Trump’s presidential bid, amid widespread dissatisfaction with Biden’s stance on Israel during the war in Gaza 
  • In 2020 Biden won Michigan by only 154,188 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast — a slender 2.8% margin of victory 

CHICAGO: Arab and Muslim supporters of the former US president, Donald Trump, held a meeting in Michigan on Tuesday night to discuss with community leaders his actions while he was in the White House, and attempt to win their support for his bid to regain the presidency. 

It comes after the #AbandonBiden movement claimed a significant degree of success in their efforts during the primary elections process to persuade Muslim voters to protest against President Joe Biden’s actions in support of Israel during the war in Gaza by refusing to endorse him as the Democratic candidate for president. 

Biden comfortably won his party’s nomination in the primaries. However, on his way to victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election, he won several key swing states by slender margins, and if the Muslim voters who rejected him in the primaries in those states were also to abandon him at the election in November, they might have a significant effect on the outcome. 

Michigan was one of those swing states in 2020; Biden won it by only 154,188 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast — a 2.8 percent margin of victory. 

Since the war in Gaza began, Biden has provided Israel with more than $40 billion in military-funding support and provided political cover for the actions of Israeli authorities during the conflict, which has claimed more than 35,000 lives. Because of this, some Arab American and Muslim American leaders and progressive Democrats have urged the community to protest against his reelection. 

Bishara Bahbah, the national chairperson of Arab Americans for Trump, an independent organization that is separate from the official Trump campaign, told Arab News on Wednesday that he and other supporters of the former president met about 40 “leaders” of the Arab and Muslim community in Michigan on Tuesday to “straighten out the many misconceptions about what Trump has done and seeks to do” in the Middle East. 

“The meeting went very well. A number of the issues were cleared up. There was no ‘Muslim ban’ — the Democrats spun it,” he said, referring to Trump’s controversial policy while president of blocking citizens of certain, predominantly Muslim, countries from entering the US. 

“It was a question of proper vetting (of those) coming either as visitors or as immigrants to the United States,” said Bahbah. “The impact was only on a few countries that were in turmoil, and the people who were qualified to be allowed in were let in. 

“Many Muslims entered the US during that alleged ‘ban.’ All Trump did was implement the laws of entering the country for everyone.” 

He added that the policy had affected only six of 50 predominantly Muslim countries and accused the Democrats and the media of distorting the issue into “something it was not.” 

Bahbah also said the Trump administration’s recognition in 2017 of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, and its decision to move the US embassy to the city on 2018, were also misrepresented by the Democrats. 

“Yes Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but he did not specify that he would not recognize the Eastern portion of Jerusalem as a capital for Palestine,” said Bahbah. He added that many Arabs, including some of his relatives, worked at the embassy. 

“If that was wrong, why didn’t Biden reverse that? Biden had the opportunity to reverse it but he did not.” 

He accused Biden of being “absolutely deceptive” and added: “The US president should answer to the people of the United States. Under a Trump leadership, there would be an end to the wars in the Middle East, including the war between Israel and Hamas. 

“Once Hamas is out of the picture and once new leadership is elected in both Israel and in the Palestinian authority, there will openly be talk about developing the Palestinian areas. The ultimate solution would be satisfactory to Israelis and Palestinians, and we all know what that means.” 

Bahbah said: “The only person (Israeli Prime Minister Banjamin) Netanyahu fears is President Trump. Netanyahu played political football with Biden but Trump would be forthright.” 

Asked about a survey by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the results of which were published last week and suggested both Biden and Trump were performing poorly among Arab Americans, with support in single digits, he said: “I respect ADC but I think there is a difference between a survey and a poll. It may reflect the views of ADC members but not the Arab and Muslim community. 

“Trump has been misunderstood. Trump will muscle peace and he will bring about prosperity to the region and lead to a satisfactory resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.” 

Oubai Shahbander, a Trump supporter who helped organize Tuesday’s meeting, which took place at a restaurant in Troy, a suburb of Detroit near Dearborn, said Arab and Muslim community leaders were invited to attend and hear “directly from Trump supporters” why they should back the former president’s election bid. 

One of the speakers was Trump’s former director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell. 

“What’s very clear is that Arab Americans in Michigan are not supporting Joe Biden and they never will,” Grenell told Arab News after the meeting. 

“They know his disastrous leadership led to multiple wars and massive death. What’s also true is that the support for Donald Trump has never been higher with Arab Americans, because peace and peace accords and sanctioning Iran are very popular.” 

There was pushback against Grenell from some of the attendees, who criticized Trump for surrendering Jerusalem to Israeli government control, and for promoting peace accords with Arab countries without firmly securing Israeli support for a two-state solution. 

Grenell acknowledged those issues but said Trump can still provide Arabs and Muslims with greater respect and honesty than Biden. He added that Trump continues to support a two-state solution, an option publicly rejected by Netanyahu after becoming Israeli Prime Minister. 

Critics also highlighted comments by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the start of the war in Gaza in which he suggested the beachfront of the territory could be developed by authorities in Israel as a tourist attraction or an upmarket residential area for Israelis. 

Others at the meeting said their party and Trump can deliver peace for the Palestinians, and would deliver on their promises and respect the community, unlike Biden, who they said has repeatedly broken his promises to Arabs and Muslims in the US. 

“The feedback from the community has been incredibly positive,” Massad Boulos, whose son, Michael, is married to Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, told Arab News on Wednesday. 

“We spoke to a diverse set of members of the Arab American community on Tuesday night and the level of support for President Trump’s policy is clearly growing. We made it clear that Arab American support is absolutely crucial in this election and that our interests in the community, and for our families, are best served with Donald Trump back in the White House. 

“I spoke about my personal experience as an Arab immigrant to this great country and the importance of preserving this great country for our children and grandchildren — it’s a message that resonates with Arab Americans in Michigan. Arab Americans just can’t afford another four years of a president that doesn’t care about them or share their values and interests.” 

Bahbah and Shahbander said further meetings between Trump supporters and Arab and Muslim community leaders would be organized “to clarify distortions” from Biden and the mainstream news media, which they accused of favoring Biden over Trump. 

The meeting came less than a week after several Arab American leaders met Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 

Leaders of the #AbandonBiden movement have said they hope to organize a “national gathering” in the Fall at which Arab, Muslim and other voters can consider alternative presidential candidates.

 


Madrid’s ghost towns revived as Spain’s housing crisis escalates

Updated 57 min 54 sec ago
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Madrid’s ghost towns revived as Spain’s housing crisis escalates

  • Sesena, a development near Madrid, gained notoriety as one of the so-called ‘ghost towns’ created when Spain’s property bubble burst in 2008
  • Sesena has been adopted as a commuter town as Madrid overflows, even though it is located in the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region

SESENA, Spain: The first call came two minutes after estate agent Segis Gomez posted a listing in Sesena, a development near Madrid that gained notoriety as one of the so-called “ghost towns” created when Spain’s property bubble burst in 2008.

Half-built and half-empty for more than a decade, these days the squatters have gone from this development 40 kilometers south of the capital and middle-class families, driven out of the city center by an acute housing crisis, are moving in. Construction, meanwhile, has restarted.

Demand is so strong in Sesena that Gomez has a waiting list of 70 people for each property. Property prices have recovered their original value after plunging to less than half during the crisis, he said.

As anger grows over the cost of housing in Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made providing affordable homes one of his main goals – even as he encourages population growth through immigration. The size of the challenge is clear in Madrid, which grew by 140,000 people in 2024, but only registered permits to build 20,000 new homes.

Short supply is being exacerbated by a boom in holiday lets, record migration and onerous planning laws.

“The problem is that we can’t match supply and demand quickly enough. So prices go up, or people have to trade price for distance,” said Carles Vergara, a real estate professor at IESE Business School in Madrid.

Sesena has been adopted as a commuter town as Madrid overflows, even though it is located in the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region and still lacks good transport links to the capital and public services, which caused homebuyers to reject it in the past.

Its founder and original developer, Francisco Hernando, had a vision of 13,000 affordable apartments with gardens and swimming pools on the Spanish plain where author Cervantes set his best-known work Don Quixote, but the project became a byword for speculative greed and corruption. Only 5,000 homes ended up being built. Hernando, who began his project in 2004, failed to tell homebuyers he hadn’t secured access to water or that the town had no public transport or schools. Hernando died in 2020.

When the market collapsed, initial investors saw the value of their property plummet, while many homes ended up in the hands of banks.

Madrid’s expansion

Today, Sesena teems with life as parents drop children at its three schools, drink coffee in its bars and visit recently-opened gyms and pharmacies. Impact Homes, a developer, is constructing 156 one-to-four bedroom apartments it expects to complete this year. Next door, another building has already pre-sold 49 percent of its units, it said in an email. “Sesena is at 100 percent,” said Jaime de Hita, the town’s mayor.

Nestor Delgado moved to Sesena in 2021 with his family from Carabanchel in south Madrid because an apartment cost 20 percent less to rent. In May, he bought a house with his wife for €240,000 ($272,808).

“We chose (Sesena) because we can afford it,” Delgado, 34, said.

The trade-off is rising before 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) to be among the first in the queue for the 6.30 a.m. bus to Madrid to arrive at his construction job by 8 a.m. or face an hour’s wait for the next bus.

Back to life

Other ghost towns are also coming back to life. Valdeluz, a development 75 km east of Madrid originally envisioned to house 30,000 people, was abandoned a quarter of the way through when the property bubble burst.

Mayor Enrique Quintana told Reuters the town’s 6,000-strong population is swelling with people from Madrid and could expand by 50 percent in the next four years.

A development on the edge of the village of Bernuy de Porreros, 100km north of Madrid, which as recently as six years ago was mostly abandoned, is now bustling with activity as handymen put the finishing touches on homes.

Lucia, a 37-year-old state employee, bought her house in April. Her daily commute to Madrid involves a 15-minute drive to the train station in Segovia and 28 minutes on the high-speed train, which costs her 48 euros for 30 trips thanks to a frequent traveler discount.

The development began to revive when Spain’s so-called bad bank Sareb, which was set up to take bad loans from the financial crisis, in 2021 began selling the homes for as little as €97,000. Four years later, one property was resold for double that, said resident Nuria Alvarez.

Until recently a relatively compact city, Madrid is on the way to becoming a metropolis like Paris or London, with commuter zones stretching beyond its administrative boundaries, said Jose Maria Garcia, the regional government’s deputy housing minister.

The metropolitan area’s population of 7 million will grow by a million in the next 15 years, the government estimates. Madrid has a deficit of 80,000-100,000 homes that’s growing by 15,000 homes a year and plans to build 110,000 homes by 2028, Garcia said.

Sesena, meanwhile, is once again dreaming big.

Its mayor, de Hita, said the town is securing permits for a new project dubbed Parquijote, with a proposed investment of €2.3 billion to build a logistics park that will create local jobs, along with 2,200 homes.

It’s no quixotic fantasy, de Hita said.

“This time we have learned from what happened,” he said. “It is fundamental that we look for growth by learning from the past.”


Scientists long ago envisioned the end of climate cooperation

Updated 04 June 2025
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Scientists long ago envisioned the end of climate cooperation

  • Scientists are currently updating SSP projections and crafting a new set of climate narratives

PARIS: They warned it could happen: a world of surging nationalism, stalling economic development and the unravelling of decades of international cooperation on climate change and other global challenges.

Long before Donald Trump lurched away from diplomatic norms and the international rules-based order, scientists mapped out different potential futures to understand the possible implications for greenhouse gas emissions.

Developed a decade ago, five of these "pathways" became crucial to the work of the United Nations' IPCC climate expert panel.

These are not predictions for the 21st century. Rather, they envision what could happen with various societal changes including for trade, economic development, technological innovation and global population.

The most optimistic narrative foresees sustainable growth and improved equality. A second "middle-of-the-road" scenario is an extension of current trends.

The third is a world riven by rivalries, a fourth is blighted by increasing inequality, and the fifth assumes supercharged economic growth grounded in expanding fossil fuel use.

Keywan Riahi, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, who coordinated the development of the so-called Shared Socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), said the world has largely developed in line with the third scenario in recent years.

While it is certainly not a perfect fit, what we see now "is a much more fragmented world," Riahi told AFP. "Collaboration is more difficult, economic development is actually also not so optimistic."


Scientists' original description of the SSP3 scenario was: "A resurgent nationalism, concerns about competitiveness and security, and regional conflicts push countries to increasingly focus on domestic or, at most, regional issues."

This "rocky road" is arguably the worst of all the hypothetical futures.

Planet-heating emissions are second only to economic expansion driven by oil, gas and coal.

But the fractured SSP3 world ranks first when it comes to damages from climate change, showing the largest population boom, and the weakest economic growth.

This scenario "reflects a current strain of populist isolationist politics that is ascendent today", climate scientist Zeke Hausfather noted in a recent newsletter post.

In 2021, Hausfather got blowback for calling SSP3 "Trump World". But "the actions in his second term around energy and trade seem to be playing out much more closely to SSP3 than other pathways", he said.

The US has ditched the Paris climate treaty, turned its back on global cooperation on science, trade and health, and eviscerating its international development budget.

Washington has lambasted UN sustainable development goals, especially related to climate change and women's rights.

Domestically, the world's second biggest carbon polluter has undermined progress on low-carbon technology, cancelled climate research, and even stymied weather data collection.

World leaders have expressed their disquiet.

"The global economy thrived on a foundation of openness and multilateralism underpinned by US leadership... but today it is fracturing," said European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde in late May.

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney declared the global trade system in place for 80 years "over", and China's Xi Jinping urged the preservation of "the international order based on international law, and global fairness and justice".


There are important ways in which today's reality differs from the hypothetical SSP3 world.

World population projections are significantly lower, for instance.

And the development of climate tech has been "much more successful", Riahi said.

A dramatic drop in the cost of solar and wind power, as well as electric vehicles and batteries, has boosted the growth of low-carbon technologies.

Carbon dioxide emissions have also slowed, while predicted warming for the end of the century is lower than a decade ago -- albeit still reaching catastrophic levels.

Scientists are currently updating SSP projections and crafting a new set of climate narratives.

They have much to unpack.

Riahi said that even if there was a "complete collapse of climate policies globally", the previous worst-case emissions projections will likely not materialise because clean energy has become so cheap.

At the same time, he said, the world will almost certainly overshoot the Paris deal's aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the coming years.

This has forced scientists to consider a new set of questions.

What is the new best-case scenario for bending emissions down to zero?

If current policies persist, will emissions stay high for a longer period, causing temperatures to keep rising in the coming decades?

"What are the implications climatically of this high overshoot, which is unfortunately a more and more likely scenario if you extrapolate what we see at the moment?" said Riahi.


More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since April: Islamabad

Updated 04 June 2025
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More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since April: Islamabad

  • Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars
  • Over one million Afghans have left Pakistan since Islamabad launched its repatriation program in 2023

ISLAMABAD: More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since the government renewed a deportation drive in April, Islamabad’s ministry of interior said.

More than 135,000 Afghans left Pakistan in April, while the number dropped to 67,000 in May and more than 3,000 were sent back in the first two days of June, according to the ministry.

Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars. Hundreds of thousands have come since the return of the Taliban government in 2021.

But over one million Afghans have left Pakistan since Islamabad launched its repatriation program in 2023, the ministry added.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration on Tuesday voiced concern over a surge in Afghan families being deported from Iran, recording 15,675 crossing in May, a more than two-fold increase from the previous month.

The influx across both borders threatens to strain Afghanistan’s already “fragile reception and reintegration systems,” IOM said in a statement.


South Korea’s new president Lee Jae-myung vows to pursue talks with North and bolster ties with US and Japan

Updated 04 June 2025
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South Korea’s new president Lee Jae-myung vows to pursue talks with North and bolster ties with US and Japan

  • Lee Jae-myung’s government to deal with North Korean nuclear threats and its potential military aggressions with ‘strong deterrence’
  • But he would ‘open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation’

SEOUL: South Korea’s new President Lee Jae-myung vowed Wednesday to restart dormant talks with North Korea and bolster a trilateral partnership with the US and Japan, as he laid out key policy goals for his single, five-year term.

Lee, who rose from childhood poverty to become South Korea’s leading liberal politician vowing to fight inequality and corruption, formally began his term earlier Wednesday, hours after winning a snap election that was triggered in April by the removal of then-President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated imposition of martial law late last year.

In his inaugural address at the National Assembly, Lee said that his government will deal with North Korean nuclear threats and its potential military aggressions with “strong deterrence” based on the solid South Korea-US military alliance. But he said he would “open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation.”

He said he’ll pursue pragmatic diplomacy with neighboring countries and boost trilateral Seoul-Washington-Tokyo cooperation based on the robust South Korea-US alliance.

“Through pragmatic diplomacy based on national interests, we will turn the crisis posed by the major shift in global economic and security landscapes into an opportunity to maximize our national interests,” Lee said.

Security and economic challenges lie ahead

It was unclear whether Lee’s election would cause any major, immediate shift in South Korea’s foreign policy. Lee, previously accused by critics of tilting toward China and North Korea and away from the US and Japan, has recently repeatedly stressed South Korea’s alliance with the US as the foundation of its foreign policy and avoided any contentious remarks that would raise questions on his views on the US and Japan.

“We’ll have to now see if the pressures of office will cause Lee Jae-myung to govern from the center — at least when it comes to matters of national security and the alliance with the United States,” said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The toughest external challenges awaiting Lee are US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy and North Korea’s expanding military partnerships with Russia. But experts earlier said whoever becomes president can’t do much to secure major progress in South Korea’s favor on those issues.

During his inauguration speech, Lee didn’t directly mention trade issues with the US

US and Japan react

The US and Japan said they congratulated Lee’s election and expressed their commitments to developing three-way cooperation.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he wants to hold summit talks with Lee “as early as possible,” saying he hopes to further promote bilateral ties, both public and commercial. The US State Department said that Seoul and Washington share “an ironclad commitment” to the alliance grounded in their mutual defense treaty, shared values and deep economic ties.

It’s unclear how North Korea would react to Lee’s speech, as it has shunned any talks with South Korea since 2019. North Korea in recent years has supplied weapons and troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine, and South Korea, the US and their partners suspect Russia might in return transfer high-tech technologies to North Korea to help it perfect its nuclear weapons program.

Russia’s Tass news agency said Wednesday that one of President Vladimir Putin’s top security officials, Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu, has arrived in Pyongyang for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in the latest sign of the countries’ alignment over Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Lee said revitalizing a slowing domestic economy would be his top priority and that his government would immediately launch an emergency task force to wage a “head-on battle” against the threats of recession. He also promised more aggressive government spending to help spur economic activity.

South Korea’s central bank last week cut its key interest rate and sharply lowered its growth outlook for 2025 to 0.8 percent, as it moved to counter Trump’s tariff hikes and weak domestic demand worsened by recent political turmoil.

South Korea still faces political divide

Lee also called for unity to address the country’s stark political divide deepened after Yoon’s martial law debacle, saying that he will “answer the people’s solemn call to let hope bloom over deep and painful wounds.” Lee still promised a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding Yoon’s martial law imposition, describing it as a “rebellion that seized people’s sovereignty with arms.”

Yoon and some of his top military and police officers already stand trial on high-stakes rebellion charges in connection with martial law. Lee’s push to bring those involved in Yoon’s martial law stunt accountable has subsequently caused speculations among his opponents that he would launch political revenge against Yoon associates and senior prosecutors whom he previously accused of fabricating evidence to initiate criminal charges against him.

Lee faces five trials on corruption and other allegations, but experts say those trials will likely stop during his term because the South Korean constitution gives a sitting president immunity from most criminal prosecutions.

Lee also reiterated his campaign vows to reduce inequality and pledged to address the imbalance between the greater Seoul capital area and less developed regions. He said that “the polarization fueled by inequality is now hindering further growth.”

Lee’s term began immediately without the usual two-month transition period after the National Election Commission formally confirmed his election victory.


NATO’S Baltic drills are part of preparations for a potential clash with Russia, TASS reports

Updated 04 June 2025
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NATO’S Baltic drills are part of preparations for a potential clash with Russia, TASS reports

  • BALTOPS – NATO’s annual exercise in the Baltic Sea and the regions surrounding it – is being held this month

NATO’S Baltic drills are part of the alliance’s preparations for a potential military clash with Russia, TASS news agency cited Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko as saying in remarks published on Wednesday.

“We assess NATO’s military activity as part of preparations for military clashes with Russia,” TASS cited Grushko as saying.

“If we look at the focus of these exercises, the concept, the structure of the deployment of forces, the forces themselves, their quality, the tasks that are formulated for these exercises, then this is a fight against a comparable adversary,” Grushko said according to TASS.

BALTOPS – NATO’s annual exercise in the Baltic Sea and the regions surrounding it – is being held this month.