Following the latest massacre in Gaza, where more than 100 desperately hungry Palestinian civilians were killed with some 750 others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on crowds waiting for food aid near Gaza City, President Biden ordered U.S. military cargo planes to airdrop 38,000 meals into Gaza. Humanitarian aid groups criticized Israel for blocking most aid trucks from entering Gaza by land and said the U.S. airdrop was inefficient and little more than a public relations move.
More than 30,500 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza, with another 70,000 wounded, since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 hostages. Negotiations in Cairo attempting to broker agreement on a proposed six-week ceasefire in Gaza, appear to have stalled, just days before an unofficial deadline of March 10, the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Prime Minister Netanyahu has threatened to launch a military offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge from the conflict, if Israeli hostages held by Hamas are not freed.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, who talks about the campaign in Michigan’s Feb. 27 Democratic Primary that urged voters to cast their ballots for “uncommitted” rather than Joe Biden. More than 100,000 or 13 percent of ballots were cast for “uncommitted,” sending the president a clear message of opposition to his handling of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
JAMES ZOGBY: Well, the campaign was brilliantly organized and it was a three-week campaign. They had phone banking set up where hundreds of people from lists where we sent out to people and we said, “You can join the phone banking, get numbers on your computer from the central source. You make the calls, you record the responses.” They did it the way one would do a presidential campaign.
It was a great job. They had the support of 30-plus elected officials initially. They got the support of former Congressman Andy Levin. Obviously, Rashida Tlaib was in the mix from the beginning. And there were black elected officials, obviously Arab elected officials. It was a huge undertaking and they did a brilliant job.
And they made the point because Michigan is critical because there’s almost no way to come up with an Electoral College map where Democrats win if you don’t win Michigan and 100,000 people voting uncommitted sends a message that the Biden campaign may be in trouble if they don’t pay attention to what people want.
Now, I’ve heard back from people saying, “Well, then you’re just supporting Trump.” And I say “No.” And they say, “Well, then you should put aside your single issue and support Biden regardless of what he does on this.” And I say,”You wouldn’t say that to any other community about their deeply felt concern? You would say to the candidate, Pay attention to.”
What if the tables were turned and the Jewish community said, “We’re upset and we’re not voting for Joe Biden. We’re going to send him a message that he’d better change.”
What would we be saying to them? Get over your single issue? We wouldn’t.
We wouldn’t say it to black voters. We wouldn’t say it to Latino voters. We wouldn’t say it to women. We wouldn’t say it to gays. Why? Why is it so easy to say to Arabs get over the fact that 30,000 people are dead, 70,000 people wounded. Gaza, a destroyed genocide unfolding. And you’re upset that the president is not doing anything about it.
Why should we be less in the eyes of the administration than any other community? And the answers were not. And so we’re not voting against Joe Biden. We’re sending him a message that you have to do something to earn our support, just like any other community would say. You need to do something to earn our support. You need to do it for us, too.
You want to win Michigan. You’ve got to help us find the reason to encourage people to go for you.
I worked hard in 2020. I worked for Bernie and then I switched, you know, after he won the primary to get people to vote for him. I can’t do that now because I know that my people are hurting and I’m hurting and I need the president to show us more.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well said, Dr. Zogby. We only have a minute or two left. And I wanted to ask you this. I hear the campaign to gather uncommitted votes to send Joe Biden the message about his policy. And Gaza is moving to other states now, on Super Tuesday, Colorado, Minnesota, North Carolina among them. When those votes come in, what is it that Joe Biden can do right now to win these voters back in a critical election where very often we have presidential candidates competing against each other and it’s often a race, you know, of choosing the lesser evil.
But in this case, with Donald Trump, many people are of the view that democracy itself is at stake.
JAMES ZOGBY: And I agree it is. And I want to do everything I can to stop Donald Trump in his tracks. But Joe Biden’s got to give us more to give us the way to go out to people who are feeling this issue as deeply as they felt anything in their lives. And, look, I just want to sort of not have expectations be too high about other states.
I think there’s a sentiment from all the polling that I’ve done is clear nationwide. Arab-Americans are not supporting Joe Biden the way they did in 2020 and neither are young voters. Neither are people of color. I mean, we’re finding numbers dropping 10, 15, 20 percent from where they were in 2020.
And it’s a range of issues, but Gaza is important. Two-thirds of the constituencies I mentioned say that they’re upset with Joe Biden’s Gaza policy. So he has to recognize that, that it won’t necessarily translate into North Carolina, Colorado or state of Washington in the way it did in Michigan, because it wasn’t just this spontaneous “We’re upset.”
We had to work hard to turn people out to vote uncommitted, it’s easy to get people to vote for Bernie. It’s easy to get people to vote for Jesse and I worked on both of those campaigns when they care about the person.
When you’re getting them to vote uncommitted, these are people who weren’t going to vote at all. And so I’m not suggesting that the uncommitted vote goes to Trump. What I’m saying more is that the uncommitted vote will stay home in November.
They will not feel the incentive to vote. And I think that that will be the case in North Carolina, Colorado and Washington where, because they don’t have the same engine driving this that we did in Michigan, I think the turnout won’t be as great.
For more information, visit The Arab American Institute at aaiusa.org.
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