Dearborn, Michigan is shaping up to be Ground Zero for this year’s presidential election, particularly for Joe Biden’s team. As his handlers watch his numbers crater in the swing state of Michigan, panic appears to be setting in. He’s losing ground, particularly among Arab and Muslim-Americans who are numerous in that area, mostly because they are furious over Biden’s perceived support of Israel. This week, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer was dispatched to Dearborn in an attempt to make peace with them. What followed was nothing short of a pandering effort to apologize and backtrack. Finer told his audience that the Biden administration is aware that it has made serious “missteps” in its support of Israel. He said they had “left a very damaging impression” and not done enough to show how strongly they value Palestinian lives. What are these people thinking? (NY Post)
One of President Biden’s top advisers told fuming Arab and Muslim American community leaders in Michigan this week that the administration has made “missteps” in its support for Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
“We are very well aware that we have missteps in the course of responding to this crisis since Oct. 7,” Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said during a Thursday meeting in Dearborn, Mich., with Muslim and Arab Americans, including state and local Democratic elected officials, according to the New York Times.
“We have left a very damaging impression based on what has been a wholly inadequate public accounting for how much the president, the administration and the country values the lives of Palestinians,” Finer added.
Finer went on to apologize for previous statements put out by the White House where they failed to sufficiently address the number of Gazan “civilians” who had been killed or injured during the conflict. He also said they should have more forcefully condemned certain Israeli officials. While reviewing this report, one question kept going through my mind. Finer and Biden do realize that the rest of us can hear him saying this, right?
They’re trying to cozy up to this specific demographic because they see the Arab and Muslim vote as critical this fall, particularly in Rashida Tlaib’s district. But we’re talking about a miniscule fraction of the total voters in the country and they’re not even close to a majority in that district. It’s true that if the election is as close as the last one, there are enough of them in that district to potentially damage Biden if they abandon him en masse. But at what cost? Nearly everyone else supports Israel to one degree or another.
To make matters worse, while Finer was addressing that audience, other White House officials were cozying up to Arab-American News publisher Osama Siblani. In case you’re not familiar with him, he is a regional Arab influence and a major cheerleader for Hamas. He has referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as “freedom fighters,” and even cheered for the Houthis when they attacked merchant vessels and American naval ships. Jewish leaders took note of this meeting and immediately started giving the White House an earful. (Free Beacon)
“We are deeply disturbed at the inclusion of Osama Siblani in a meeting with top Biden administration officials,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, told Jewish Insider.
“Siblani is simply the wrong choice to serve as an interlocutor with the administration as they hear from the local Muslim community.” …
Asher Lopatin, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said White House officials should not have met with Siblani given his “long record of open support for U.S.-designated terrorist groups and his demonization of Israel.”
This is a “devil and the deep blue sea” situation for Biden and whoever is making his decisions for him these days. We can even put aside for the moment all of the obvious moral implications of sucking up to people who support terrorists and the abolition of the Jewish state. Even if you consider this from a purely political perspective, the optics are poisonous. Launching an apology tour with these groups of people likely won’t produce much in the way of results unless you’re planning on announcing a total Middle East policy reversal and abandoning Israel. They’ll just see through it as shallow political pandering.
Meanwhile, you draw criticism from Jewish community leaders. You are blasted by the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council. That’s because, as I already noted above… the rest of us can hear you. By attempting to appease both sides in such a divisive and potentially violent dispute, you risk losing the support of both. If Biden had simply remained steadfast in his support for Israel and mostly ignored these raucous pro-Hamas voices, his poll numbers probably wouldn’t be quite as bad as they are now.