Trump Administration
Read also:
- ‘I joined the Druids for Spring Equinox – one sacrifice rule disappointed me’
- Lamine Yamal impostor fools excited fan while casually walking down the street of Barcelona
- Southwest flight nearly departs from taxiway in Orlando after crew ‘mistook the surface for the nearby runway’
- Former Cowboys star WR comes out of retirement to join Washington Commanders in 2025
- Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher’s first red carpet in years sparks curiosity about her ‘hidden’ husband
In Detroit and its suburbs, anger is deep over Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. So is the sense that there is nowhere for Arab Americans to turn.
In Detroit and its suburbs, anger is deep over Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. So is the sense that there is nowhere for Arab Americans to turn.
A night service for Ramadan at the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, Mich.Credit…
By Kurt Streeter
Photographs by Brittany Greeson
Reporting from Michigan
When Haneen Mahbuba saw the news of the deadly Israeli missile strikes on Gaza this week, she found herself so crestfallen that she struggled to breathe.
“Suddenly, it felt like I was suffocating,” Ms. Mahbuba said. While taking in what had happened from her Detroit-area home, she saw a photo of a child maimed by the violence — a girl who seemed to be nearly the same age as her daughter.
“I immediately prayed in prostration to God to end this madness,” she said. “So many in my community feel abandoned and let down. The human rights organizations have let them down. The politicians have let them down.”
“Where do we turn?” she wondered.
Ms. Mahbuba’s reaction highlighted the anger, anxiety and betrayal felt by many Arab Americans in the Detroit suburbs in the wake of President Trump’s first months in office, and particularly after the latest round of Israeli missile strikes on Gaza on what Israel said were Hamas targets. In nearly two dozen interviews across the region over the last three weeks, a common theme emerged:a sense among Arab Americans that their political concerns, especially about Gaza, have been largely shunted aside by both major political parties.
In this flat pocket of southeastern Michigan near the Canadian border, the Arab and Muslim presence dates back over a century. It is now among the most concentrated and influential of its kind in the nation.
Many Arab Americans here were angered by the Biden administration’s actions during the war in Gaza. That played out in November: majority Arab American voting districts in the area, which had long supported Democratic presidential candidates, shifted significantly toward Mr. Trump.
If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
