Trump’s Middle East peace promise wins over Muslim voters

DEARBORN, United States: Incoming US president Donald Trump pulled off a surprising feat late in the 2024 campaign, winning over swathes of Muslim voters with a promise to end bloodshed in the Middle East.

Now, his new supporters are celebrating his victory and confident he will deliver as Israel continues its 13-month siege of Gaza and bombardment of neighbouring Lebanon.

In Dearborn, America’s largest Arab-American enclave, preliminary results showed Trump narrowly eking out first place -- a dramatic swing from 2020, when outgoing president Joe Biden won handily.

This time around, the left-leaning vote fractured between Vice President Kamala Harris and the Green Party’s Jill Stein.

“People got the message that Trump is trying to bring peace to the Middle East and to the whole world,” said Bill Bazzi, the Lebanese-American mayor of neighbouring Dearborn Heights, speaking to AFP from a late-night hookah bar gathering that transformed into an early-morning party.

Bazzi dismissed what he called the media’s distortion of Trump’s previous “Muslim ban,” insisting it was only a matter of closer vetting of select unstable countries to prevent Islamic State militants from getting into the United States.

A Marine veteran who campaigned for Trump in his closing rallies, he added he had been in contact with high-level members of the incoming administration who assured him that “one of the things (Trump) is pushing is to stop the war -- he wants more diplomacy”.

Others, like Yemeni-American activist and real estate agent Samra’a Luqman, were defiant.

Like other Arab Americans, she was outraged by the Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering military and diplomatic support for Israel in the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, where the civilian death tolls continue to soar.

“They can blame us for Harris’ loss. I want them to,” she said. “It was my community that said, ‘If you commit genocide, we will hold you accountable for it’.”

The Trump team also did what Harris notably did not: show up in Dearborn.

Her campaign’s decision to ally with former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney -- a vocal Iraq War advocate -- also alienated many Arabs.

Trump’s outreach, on the other hand, benefited from a new link to the community: Lebanese-American Michael Boulos, who is married to his daughter Tiffany Trump.

Boulos’ father Massad was a key emissary for the campaign.

While Trump struck a note of peace, he simultaneously touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.

“Yes, he said ‘finish the job,’ but when I inquired exactly what that means, I was told ‘stop the war,’” insisted Bishara Bahbah, chairman of Arab Americans for Trump.

“He’s said it, and he’ll do it. Trump has proven he does what he says.”