Meet Trump's key Muslim ally on Michigan mission

Washington, DC — With early voting under way, campaigning on its last legs and Democrats seeing a dip in support over the Gaza war, Bishara Bahbah has taken it upon himself to woo Arab American voters to back former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris.

Bahbah, a wealth management expert and author, used to be a Democrat and was registered as such until earlier this year. After what he said were "repeated pleas to have the US stop arming Israel," he jumped the fence and joined the ranks of the Republicans.

In May, he launched Arab Americans for Trump, an independent group that is separate from the official Trump campaign, which has been campaigning in the swing state of Michigan and elsewhere.

Bahbah has been working closely with powerful Trump allies, including Richard Grenell — former acting director of national intelligence in the Trump administration who hopes to become US secretary of state if Trump is re-elected — and the Lebanese American businessman Massad Boulos, whose son is married to Tiffany Trump, Trump's daughter.

"People are getting really tired of the war-mongering of this administration and people don't see much of a difference between (US President Joe) Biden and Harris in terms of how she views the world and the Middle East. And they've lost faith in Harris, and they've lost faith a long time ago in Biden," Bahbah, who formerly taught at Harvard University, told TRT World in an exclusive interview.

While Bahbah is trying to get voters to endorse Trump, whose past remarks on Muslims often sparked controversy, it's not clear how much support his appeal has garnered among the Muslim Arab community. In fact, his decision to throw weight behind Trump hasn't gone over well with some of the community members he seeks to lure away from the Democrats.

"I have never encountered so much hate from this group on X," he posted on the social media platform in August.

Polling trends

Nevertheless, he's buoyed by a new poll that shows Trump has widened his lead over Harris among Arab American voters.

The YouGov poll of Arab Americans commissioned by the Arab News suggested a massive Arab American turnout (87 percent) on November 5, with Palestine being these voters' top priority and Trump enjoying a two-percentage-point lead (45-43) over Harris.

The findings came after a survey from the Arab American Institute earlier in October gave Trump a 42 to 41 percent advantage over Harris among Arab Americans.

"The message right now has become really fine-tuned to the point that if you vote for Harris, you're voting for continued wars in the Middle East, and if you vote for Trump, you are arriving back to peace in the Middle East," Bahbah, who voted for Biden in 2020, said.

Bahbah's family was uprooted from Jerusalem in historic Palestine during the 1948 Nakba, or "catastrophe" in Arabic, which refers to forced exodus of Palestinians from their land in 1948 when Israel was created.

The family fled to Jordan and then returned to occupied East Jerusalem, where Bahbah was born and spent his childhood and youthful days before moving to the US in 1976.

Now with Israel's war on Gaza again causing mass casualties, expulsions and dispossession among Palestinians, Bahbah, while referring to his own shift away from Democrats, said Arabs in America have been watching the horrors of war and the Biden administration's failure to rein in Israel with disbelief.

TRT World has previously reported on the fury against the Biden administration in areas such as the city of Dearborn, Michigan, where Arab Americans make up a sizable population, with more than 300,000 of the residents claiming to have Middle Eastern or North African roots.

"When you talk to people there, they have families that have been killed in Lebanon … their houses have been demolished or bombed by the Israelis three times, and each time they rebuilt," Bahbah added.

'She's slapped them in the face multiple times'

For months, Palestinians, rights activists and anti-war veterans have accused Harris and Biden of facilitating Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.

Their critics say the administration's unrestrained military, financial and diplomatic support of Tel Aviv's far-right regime, including at least $18 billion since the start of the war, makes the administration complicit.

Harris, who has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, a two-state solution to one of the world's longest ongoing conflicts and dignity for Palestinians, has also been lambasted over her repeated refusals to stop arms supply to Israel.

She has further angered Arab voters by campaigning in Michigan with former representative and Republican congresswoman, Liz Cheney, the daughter of hawkish ex-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Michigan's residents include more than 90,000 Iraqi Americans who have not forgotten the senior Cheney's role in the 2003 American invasion of Iraq.

Liz Cheney, on the other hand, is known for her controversial speeches and ideas. She has been declared by CAIR, America's largest Muslim civil rights organisation, as "a torture advocate, anti-Muslim bigot and warmonger who once refused to condemn racists spreading the Obama birther conspiracy."

Trump has seized on Harris' rehabilitation of Cheney.

Last week, the Republican slammed Cheney as someone who "wants to go to war with every Muslim country known to mankind." He also warned that "if Kamala gets four more years, the Middle East will spend the next four decades going up in flames."

Bahbah said Trump has infused hope among Arab Americans.

"People are sick and tired of Biden and Harris, and they really see hope in Trump," Bahbah claimed, adding many Arabs, particularly Arab Democrats, seemed confident when Harris was nominated as a presidential candidate, "but then she's slapped them in the face multiple times, refusing to have a Palestinian American speaker at the DNC (Democratic National Convention) to talk about the family that he lost in Gaza."

Bahbah was referring to pro-Palestine Democratic delegates and their allies who were denied a prime-time speaking slot at the DNC in August to address the bloodshed and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

That convention was held in Chicago, home to the US' largest Palestinian community.

Republicans also did not give a platform to any Muslim speaker in their national convention this year. In 2016, however, Sajid Tarar, a Pakistani American, grabbed media headlines when he spoke at the convention and also prayed for Trump.

Trump's ties with Muslims

Trump's history with Muslims is complex.

For example, his ban on Muslim migrants from several Muslim countries, his brazen support for Israel, and his refusal to criticise Israel or consider an arms embargo against Tel Aviv have not gone well with many Muslim voters.

Yet, many Muslim leaders have lined up to support Trump.

The Republican recently received support from Amer Ghalib, a Yemeni Muslim immigrant who serves as the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan.

Last week, Trump invited several Muslim leaders onstage with him at a campaign rally in Michigan where he acknowledged, "They (Muslims in the US) could turn the election one way or the other," adding, "The Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan and across the country want a stop to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East. That’s all they want."

At the rally, Mayor Bill Bazzi, the first Muslim and Arab American elected mayor of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, threw his weight behind Trump.

"We're going to stop the wars, we're going to make the United States safe again, and we're going to make the world safe," Bazzi said.

Democrats are also losing a large number of Arab American voters to Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West. Some analysts say the Democratic votes for these candidates might actually boost Trump's chances.

Democrats could also face a significant setback because of thousands of "uncommitted" voters who want to punish Democrats for their role in the Gaza war but also dread Trump's return to power.

Bahbah, who sees his Michigan mission succeeding, contended, "I tell you, I'm very confident that he [Trump] will stop the war."

Bahbah, who is often seen with Trump and recently campaigned in Arizona swing state with the ex-US president, said "One of the things that the president (Trump) and I spoke about was peace in the Middle East based on a two-state solution. And his response to me was 100 percent. He agreed with that."

Bahbah, however, sought to defend Trump, saying the Republican leader "has not mentioned anything about Muslim ban during his entire campaign, right now."

"There is no such thing as Muslim ban. Trump has not raised the issue, and no one is raising the issue on the Republican side. And the whole issue centres around extra vetting of people coming from countries with political turmoil. And that would apply to any country that has political turmoil in it, and that's about it."

Jerusalem and Trump

Commenting on the Trump administration's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing nearly 70 years of American foreign policy and shifting the country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a move the Biden administration adhered to as well — Bahbah said, "most of us were angered by the embassy shift and the recognition of the (Syria's occupied) Golan Heights as part of Israel."

"But when it comes to the move of the embassy, Trump never precluded recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. That was never mentioned and it was laid on the table and it was up to negotiations at the time. The Palestinian government said thousands of 'nos' and 'we're not going to be talking to President Trump.'"

Bahbah asserted that sentiment had changed following the exchange of letters between Trump and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which he argued, "was a clear indication that they have reestablished communication and relationship."

Bahbah said he along with another person was involved in the exchange of those letters.

Palestinians see East Jerusalem, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, as the eternal capital of their homeland. The US had moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to an area in undivided Jerusalem that cuts across the 1949 Armistice Line that separates West Jerusalem from No Man's Land, which Israel occupied in 1967.

And Israel, which illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, claims undivided Jerusalem as its capital. Both Palestinians and the international community reject it.

Like many Arab Americans, Trump's Jerusalem decision forced him to vote for Biden in 2020, "only to be disappointed by the Democrats later."

"Biden has proven to be a very weak president for the US. He has proven to be a non-consequential individual vis-à-vis (Israeli PM Benjamin) Netanyahu," Bahbah said.

"Biden could put any red lines. Netanyahu would cross them and there would be no consequences. So, Netanyahu has zero respect for Biden. Harris, too, will remain non-consequential if elected."