American Arabs don’t trust Biden

US President Joe Biden has lost support among Arab Americans. This is evidenced by data from a survey conducted by the Arab American Institute, an NGO that protects the rights of emigrants. According to him, only 17% of Arab voters now support Biden, while in 2020 the level of support for this presidential candidate was 59%.

For the first time since the polls began in 1997, Arab voters no longer identify themselves as supporters of the Democratic Party. According to the survey results, 32% identified themselves as Republicans, 31% as independents. 40% said they would vote for the Republican candidate if Donald Trump became the nominee again, although only 5% wanted to vote for him in 2020.

This decline in confidence in the president is caused by Biden’s support for Israel’s actions in the Palestinian conflict. 68% of American Arabs believe that the United States should not help Tel Aviv with weapons, but instead Washington should influence the Jewish state for a ceasefire.

While condemning the Hamas attack on Israel, American Arabs nevertheless consider Tel Aviv’s response to it disproportionate. They are also unhappy with the fact that Biden did not condemn the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, thus breaking his promise to build a policy around respect for human rights. Biden has appointed more Arabs and Muslims to government positions than any of his predecessors, but that diversity has not translated into the White House’s pro-Israel policies, Reuters reported. In particular, at a meeting on October 21 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden called himself a Zionist.

For Biden, the situation is further complicated by the fact that Arab voters dissatisfied with his activities live in the so-called swing states, the result of elections in which often determines the winner. For example, in Michigan they make up 5% of voters, in Pennsylvania and Ohio – from 1.7 to 2%. In 2020, Biden won Michigan and Pennsylvania by narrow margins.

Biden’s relations with the Arab diaspora are really deteriorating due to Washington’s support for Israel, and this creates an additional headache for the administration, says Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Arab diaspora has always been an important factor in supporting Democrats along with African Americans, but now anti-Semitic sentiments are growing among them, which do not fit well with Biden’s chosen course. Nevertheless, the situation for Arab voters, in principle, remains without alternative, the expert believes.

Given the exclusively pro-Israeli position of the Republicans, Arabs can only vote for Democrats or be passive in their choice. At the same time, the whole situation with the fall in ratings does not mean Biden’s immediate collapse – the consequences still remain uncertain and this crisis can be overcome, the expert summarizes.

The decline in the confidence of Arab and Muslim voters is extremely important for Biden, since the president is losing the support of left-wing progressives in the Democratic Party, notes Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics. This is much more serious than the disappointment of Muslims alone, since it is the left progressives who are a growing group among the Democratic Party, while the influence of the centrists, on the contrary, is falling.

Left-wing Democrats oppose Israel’s actions in Palestine and accuse Biden of covering up Israeli war crimes. This crisis is creating discourse within the Democratic Party about the possible replacement of Biden with another candidate. According to the expert, if Biden remains, many potential voters simply will not vote for him.