Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) has announced her support for a campaign to pressure President Joe Biden to drop his support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, calling on voters in the state’s upcoming Democratic primaries to chose “uncommitted.”
In a video posted on social media, Tlaib said that voting “uncommitted” on February 27 is a crucial way that the anti-Zionist movement can flex its power against Biden as Israeli forces, fueled by U.S. military, diplomatic and financial assistance, have killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians so far, with thousands more missing under the rubble.
“It is important, as you all know, to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local electeds,” Tlaib said. “It is also important to create a voting bloc. Something that is a bullhorn to say, enough is enough. We don’t want a country that supports wars and bombs and destruction.”
“We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza. I want you to think of Al-Shaima, I want you to think of Rema, I want you to think of Sidra, I want you to think of all the amazing young children, and the people [whose] lives were lost in Gaza,” continued Tlaib, who is the only Palestinian American in Congress. “This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government. If you want us to be louder, come here and vote uncommitted.”
Tlaib is the most prominent lawmaker to back the Listen to Michigan campaign so far, and is already facing attacks from pro-Zionist Democrats and corporate media due to her support of the campaign.
Michigan House Majority Floor Leader Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D), Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud of Dearborn, the city with the most Muslim people per capita in the U.S., and former House Rep. Andy Levin (D-Michigan) are also advocating for the effort, while progressive group Our Revolution is also using its resources to promote the campaign. Listen to Michigan and Our Revolution have email lists of about 128,000 people and 87,000 Michigan voters, respectively.
Michigan is an important swing state for Biden in November, and boasts one of the largest populations of Arab Americans and Muslims across the country with about 300,000 people. This includes Palestinian Americans who have single handedly lost dozens of members of their families in Israeli air raids. The U.S.-backed massacre has wiped out entire generations.
Biden won Michigan in 2020 by a narrow margin of 154,000 votes, delivering him 16 electoral votes that helped him defeat Donald Trump.
But recent polling has shown that Biden has since lost a huge amount of support from Arab and Muslim communities due to his support of the assault on Gaza, with the Arab American Institute finding in November that, while 59 percent of Arab Americans reported voted for Biden in 2020, only 17 percent say they would do the same now. Meanwhile, his approval among Arab Americans has dropped from 74 percent to a mere 29 percent in the same time period.
“The political situation is this: It’s not Our Revolution or Listen to Michigan whipping this up,” Levin said in an interview with MSNBC this weekend. “People are not going to vote for Joe Biden on February 27 because they are really mad at him. Their cousins are dying. Their friends are dying.”