Trump’s role in Gaza ceasefire increases Arab American anger towards Biden Israel-Palestine conflict news
Washington DC – When Samra Luqman voted for Donald Trump in November, she believed that, even if there was even a one percent chance that the former president would push for a ceasefire in Gaza, he would be a better choice than the Democrats who Had failed to stop it. war.
Trump ultimately won that race and is expected to re-enter the White House on Monday. And in the lead up to his inauguration, Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas have agreed to halt hostilities in Gaza, where more than 46,700 Palestinians have been killed over the past 15 months.
But Lukman says she does not feel innocent, even though Trump has claimed credit for pushing through the ceasefire agreement.
Instead, he is angry at outgoing United States President Joe Biden for failing to finalize the agreement months ago.
“I’m even more angry because Trump, who is not even in office yet, did a little hand twisting and the ceasefire agreement happened immediately,” Luqman told Al Jazeera. “This could have happened earlier also. “It’s very tragic, all those extra lives lost.”
He said the way the deal was reached “cemented Biden’s legacy as Genocide Joe”, a nickname that links the Democratic leader to Israeli abuses in Gaza.
After overwhelmingly supporting the Democrats in previous elections, many Arab American voters in the November race turned against the party and its candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, because of their support for Israel’s war.
While many Arab voters say it is too early to celebrate the fragile ceasefire agreement, they insist that Trump’s intervention shows that his decision to drop Harris was the right one.
The shift in Arab American voting preferences was particularly evident in the swing state of Michigan.
In a predominantly Arab neighborhood in the eastern part of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Harris received less than 20 percent of the vote. Most residents cast their ballots for either Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
While Harris argued that she and Biden were working “tirelessly” to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the vice president also promised to continue providing arms to Israel without any conditions.
The Biden administration also vetoed four UN Security Council resolutions that would have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Trump’s role
Amer Ghalib, the Yemeni American mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, was among those who supported Trump last year, even appearing at his rallies.
He said ceasefire negotiations in Gaza were the top demand of the former president’s Arab and Muslim supporters.
“He knew it was a reasonable and humane request,” Ghalib told Al Jazeera in a statement.
“We supported him and called for a ceasefire, peace, fighting Islamophobia, fair representation for Muslims in his administration and promoting and protecting faith and family values, and safe education for our children. He has shown some signs of moving forward to fulfill each of his promises.
Both Trump and Biden took credit for the ceasefire agreement on Wednesday, with the incoming president emphasizing that the “epic” agreement would not have happened if he had not won the election in November.
However, it is difficult to assess the extent of Trump’s role in behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
But multiple Israeli media reports have indicated that Trump was decisive in getting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the deal, which would release Israeli detainees in Gaza as well as hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Trump last week sent his envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with mediators in Qatar and Netanyahu in Israel.
On Thursday, the US president-elect appeared to confirm Israeli accounts that Witkoff had pushed Netanyahu to accept the deal.
He shared a Times of Israel article on social media, which quoted an unnamed Arab official as saying: “The Trump envoy impressed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did in an entire year.”
It is noteworthy that Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani thanked Witkoff by name while announcing the deal on Wednesday.
‘Everything is getting worse’
Trump warned earlier this month that “everything will collapse” if Israeli detainees were not released by the time he took office on January 20.
Some analysts saw the message as a threat to Hamas. But the Palestinian group has repeatedly said it would accept the ceasefire deal laid out by Biden in May, which included prisoner exchanges and a permanent end to the war.
It was Netanyahu who publicly stated on several occasions that his government intended to continue the war.
Still, Biden administration officials – including Secretary of State Antony Blinken – have insisted that Hamas is blocking the deal.
Hala Rarrit, a former US diplomat who resigned last year over the Biden administration’s handling of the war, said the deal announced Wednesday is the same proposal that had been on the table since May.
Rariette told Al Jazeera that the Biden administration’s months-long failure to finalize the agreement was “a matter of political will”.
“If there had been no change in administration, I think we would have continued to hear exactly the same rhetoric of ‘we are working tirelessly to ensure a ceasefire,'” Rurritt said.
He said there would have been no change if Harris had been elected, but Trump’s victory created incentives for a ceasefire agreement.
Concern about the agreement
Although Wednesday’s announcement sparked jubilation in Gaza, Arab American advocates are cautious about celebrating.
It is unclear whether Israel will respect the agreement, which does not take effect until Sunday. In neighboring Lebanon, a US-brokered ceasefire agreement in November has failed to stop daily Israeli attacks.
Israel has killed dozens of people in Gaza since the agreement was announced, including at least 21 children.
Suhaila Amin, an advocate for the Arab American community in Michigan, said she hoped the ceasefire would be successful, but stressed that it was difficult to get the word out from US and Israeli politicians.
Still, he said the agreement reached after Trump’s intervention makes Israel more culpable for Biden’s reluctance to end the war.
“For many within the community, pushing against the Biden administration for continued funding of genocide – as well as turning a blind eye to verified and documented human rights violations – is something we stand by,” Amin told Al Jazeera. Are.” ,
Amen said voters are “well aware” that Trump helped broker the ceasefire agreement.
She added, “As Biden carries with him the bloody legacy of genocide in his name, our work continues to ensure that our rights are protected and that there is no further harm or oppression to the Arab and Muslim American community from the White House up and down “
‘We hope this will not be temporary’
The way Walid Fidama sees it, the former president made “concrete promises” to end the war in Gaza when he met with Arab and Muslim advocates before the election. The Yemeni American, a lifelong Democrat, finally cast his vote for Trump in November.
“We’re glad they helped broker a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and we hope it won’t just be temporary,” Fidama told Al Jazeera.
“We want the agreement to be fully effective and for displaced people to return to their homes.”
But some members of the Arab American community are skeptical that Trump will bring lasting peace to the Middle East, as he promised during the campaign. After all, Trump has filled his incoming Cabinet with staunchly pro-Israel allies, including Senator Marco Rubio, his nominee for Secretary of State.
And during his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump made several policy changes that strengthened the Netanyahu government, including relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem.
Lukman said he had no illusions that the Republican establishment would distance itself from Israel, but that immediately ending atrocities in Gaza “to save more lives” was his top concern.
“I’m not going to support Marco Rubio. But at the same time, I’m really honest there aren’t a lot of good options,” Luqman said.
