In Michigan, some Arab American voters revisit their support for Trump after he suggests

Some Michigan voters who either sat out the election, voted for a third-party candidate or voted for President Trump are now revisiting their decision after he proposed Tuesday that the United States “take over” the Gaza Strip, rebuild it and relocate Palestinians elsewhere.

In the town of Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest Muslim population per capita in the country, 43% voted for President Trump in the 2024 election. Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris won 37% of the vote, substantially lower than the 68% former President Joe Biden won in 2020, according to the city’s election data. 

Sarah Chabaan, a college senior in Dearborn who voted for Mr. Trump, said she was “disappointed” with his proposal but remained skeptical “he would actually implement what he’s saying.”

Asked if she regrets her vote, Chabaan said “a little bit” but pointed to Mr. Trump’s involvement in the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. 

“Had I voted for Kamala, I think maybe the war might have still been going on. That’s the unfortunate situation,” Chabaan said. 

Mr. Trump’s Gaza idea has been defended by White House officials, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.” But the proposal was largely panned by Arab American and Muslim organizations in the U.S. Middle Eastern countries also rejected the premise. 

On Thursday morning, Mr. Trump wrote that the Gaza Strip “would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.” He also stated that no U.S. troops would be involved, a sticking point for congressional Republicans. He has not revealed many more specifics about the idea, which prompted immediate criticism regarding the displacement of the Palestinians, the abandonment of a two-state solution and the idea that the U.S. would control Gaza.  

“The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth,” the president wrote. On Tuesday, he suggested it could be the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Harris ended up with 15,000 fewer Dearborn voters than President Biden got four years earlier. That gap contributed to Harris’ overall loss in the battleground state, where Trump won by 80,103 votes. 

Amer Zahr, who voted third-party for president but Democratic for other offices, said many in Dearborn don’t believe Mr. Trump’s proposal will actually happen, and said it’s “an outrageous idea posed by someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” 

But he pinned the blame on the Democratic Party and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for not doing more to win over disaffected Arab American and Muslim voters. He and other Michigan residents CBS News talked to brought up Mr. Trump’s visit as a candidate to Dearborn, and the lack of a Palestinian American speaker at the Democratic National Convention. 

Zahr suggested that while there’s a “difference in style” between Biden and Mr. Trump on the Israel-Hamas war, they still share a “blind support for Israel.”

“Now, Democratic politicians and liberals are willing to stand up against it a little bit because it’s not their guy anymore,” he said. “The real news story is that Democrats and liberals are able to reject the notion of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. I hope they keep doing it.”

Osami Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News, who did not vote for any presidential candidate, said “the vote for Trump was not really a vote for Trump.”

“It was a vote against the Biden-Harris administration, because they could not stop the carnage from happening in Gaza,” said Siblani. “We did not endorse Trump. We did not endorse Harris. We actually recommended that our community not vote for the top of the ticket.”

Siblani also decried Mr. Trump’s proposal to own the Gaza Strip as “insane.” 

“The people whose homes were burnt in L.A. because of the fire, they’re gonna just leave it? Or they’re gonna rebuild it and live there? People do not leave their lands.”

Much of Gaza has been decimated by Israeli military strikes that began after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Over the past two weeks, about 200,000 displaced Palestinians returned to the northern part of the Gaza Strip after Israel authorized their movement as part of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas. 

Zaynah Jadallah, a Palestinian American and director at the Council of American Islamic Relation’s (CAIR) Michigan chapter, said it was “very dehumanizing” for Palestinians to hear Gaza referred to as “a piece of property, or talking about it like an opportunity for a real estate or an investment when it’s their land.”

Other Michigan Arab American and Palestinian leaders condemned Mr. Trump’s proposal, too. Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, wrote that Trump’s proposal “is yet another chapter in the ongoing genocide.”

Dawud Walid, the executive director of the CAIR Michigan chapter, said “any forced displacement of Palestinians in their land would be ethnic cleansing.”

“Perhaps some people right now in our community are second guessing their vote for Trump,” he added.

One group that helped Mr. Trump in his voter outreach to the Arab American community, “Arab Americans for Trump,” changed its name Wednesday to “Arab Americans for Peace” as a result of Mr. Trump’s proposal, according to the Associated Press.