 Adam Abusala worked on President Biden's 2020 campaign in Battleground, Michigan. Yeah, I was working on Arab-American engagement, getting people out to vote for Biden. So committed that his Palestinian-American parents put Biden 2020 on his birthday cake that year. But today, as President Biden shows unwavering support for Israel in the wake of Hamas' terror attack, Abusala says he's devastated. Right now, I have family in Palestine who's afraid for their lives. And Biden is doing nothing to stop it. I'm hurt for the betrayal that we feel from Biden. But I also feel like a little bit of guilt for what I've done. You just listened to part of a Meet the Press report by Shaquille Brewster, who confirms that Arab and Muslim Americans do feel betrayed by President Biden's unequivocal support for Israel and continued support for Israel, even as they indiscriminately murder Gazans who had nothing to do with Hamas' attack on October 7th. Now, this story comes as report. After report. After report indicates that Biden is burning any goodwill he had left with Arab Americans to the ground. And to make matters even worse, there is a mutiny brewing within the State Department over the administration stance, with high-ranking Muslim appointees reportedly considering resigning as a result of his decisions lately. And even though Biden has slightly adjusted his rhetoric to acknowledge the humanity of Palestinians a little bit, he still has not condemned Israel's war crimes or demanded a ceasefire, and he's now even downplaying the civilian death toll in Gaza. The Indians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I'm sure innocents have been killed. And it's a price of waging a war. I think we should be incredibly careful. I think when not we, the Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they're focusing on going after the folks that are propagating this war against Israel. And it's against their interests when that doesn't happen. But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using. Now put aside the fact that the Gaza Health Ministry just released the full list of deaths with names and ages that can be verified independently now by journalists, or put aside the fact that his administration is using those numbers internally, which indicates that he's lying there. But this point has to be made. When public officials and pundits deny and downplay what's happening before our very eyes, that is how genocides happen. And to see him say that is absolutely tragic. First of all, he says that Israel should be incredibly careful to go after Hamas in order to limit civilian casualties. But they're not. Limiting aid, shutting off electricity, and water is collective punishment, which they admit that they're doing and that's a war crime and you haven't condemned them for that. Second of all, Biden is rejecting the death toll being reported by Gaza's health ministry because it's run by Hamas. And it makes sense in theory to not trust what they're saying, right? But as Adam Taylor explains in an article for The Washington Post, many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable given its access sources and accuracy in past statements. Quote, everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable, said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I'm not aware of any time which there's been some major discrepancy. Now Shakir stated that they would not use the numbers if they were inaccurate because that also hurts their credibility as well. So despite the fact that Gaza's health ministry is Hamas run, like all entities in Gaza, since they are the governing body of Gaza, like it or not, the numbers have been relatively reliable, which is why people use it, which is why Biden's administration internally is citing those numbers. But I mean for argument's sake, let's just say that Biden is correct and they're embellishing those numbers. Well as Kyle Kalinsky or Dusty Smith says, well let's just pretend like the numbers are half or even a quarter of what they're saying. That's still a lot of deaths. That's a lot of dead civilians, a lot of dead children. But let's go even further. Let's pretend for a moment that we don't have access to any numbers. No numbers at all. We have no idea. Well still, even in the absence of numbers, there are enough high-profile deaths of civilians that we can see on social media. Enough examples of carnage that maybe might give people the perception perhaps that Israel isn't being as careful as you want us to think that they are. For example, former lawmaker Justin Amash announced that two of his relatives were killed by an Israeli airstrike while they were sheltering in a church. On top of that, moments after Secretary Blinken says he asked Qatari's prime minister to rein in Al Jazeera's coverage of the war in Gaza. An airstrike on the new Serat camp in central Gaza wiped out the entire immediate family of Al Jazeera's chief Gazen correspondent. His wife, his daughter, his son, his grandson, they were all killed. And they were taking refuge in this camp after they fled from northern Gaza following the IDF's evacuation order. And on top of that, when you look at satellite images taken before and after Israel's bombing campaign, you'd be naive to assume that this destruction isn't also accompanied by mass deaths. I mean, look at this. If Gazens are lucky enough to survive this, they will be permanently displaced. Many of them already have been displaced. But I mean, entire cities are being leveled. We can see that. Furthermore, with a lack of electricity that Israel says they are denying to Gazens and with fuel running out, meaning generators aren't going to be able to operate, babies and incubators and hospitals could literally die unless Israel either allows in additional aid or turns the electricity back on. So putting aside the numbers for a moment, don't you think that these tragedies, just a couple that I pointed out, there are many more, but just these tragedies that I highlighted along with confessions from Israeli officials that they're focusing on damage and not accuracy or that Palestinians are culpable for a mass's crimes too, or that they're human animals isn't necessarily instilling the most confidence in us that Israel is being as careful as you want us to think that they are? Have you thought at all about the optics and how they don't look good for Israel currently and that your unequivocal support for Israel kind of makes it seem like you're complicit in their genocide currently? I mean, are you concerned at all that it seems like you only care about Israeli deaths and have no concern whatsoever for suffering Palestinians? Apparently these aren't concerns for the Biden administration and if they are concerned, he sure as hell has done a poor job at showing that he's concerned, but the message to Arab Americans is coming in loud and clear, they don't think that he cares. Now, we kind of glossed over the fact that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is pressuring a government to censor a news agency at the behest of Israel. That would be terrible even if Al Jazeera weren't credible, but they are credible and their reporting is mostly objective. But see, that's the problem. And former Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, explains why that's a problem. If the international media is objective, it serves Hamas. If it just shows both sides, it serves Hamas. In other words, support for Israel hinges on media being explicitly biased in their favor because if people actually saw the objective truth and the barbarity of Israel's war crimes, they just simply would not support it. So they have to lie to manufacture consent. They have to disseminate propaganda in order for the public to support their genocide in Gaza. And our government is assisting them with that narrative even after these hypocrites attacked Trump for calling press the enemy of the people. But now it's perfectly fine if the Secretary of State pressures a government to censor a news agency that is doing good work. It's despicable. But I do want to get back to the NBC News report because there's another clip that provides us with important insight that the Biden administration is apparently missing. They said that we had to save America from Donald Trump. And now we feel that we have to save Palestine from Joe Biden. More than 300,000 Americans from the Middle East call Michigan home. A state president Biden flipped in 2020 after Donald Trump won in 2016 by just 11,000 votes. And although not all Arab Americans are Muslim, an exit poll from the Council on American Islamic Relations showed nearly 70% of American Muslims backed Biden. We're predicting this could be another 2016. Nattah al-Huti runs the Michigan chapter of a nonprofit that studies and works to increase the political engagement of American Muslims called Engage. 145,000 Michigan Muslims went out to vote in 2020. Biden needs the Muslim vote in order to win. And right now it doesn't look good. The White House in Biden's campaign says they are aware of the concerns and are working to address them. We mourn every innocent life lost. We can't ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have an opportunity. But the publisher of the Arab American News, who last year vocally backed Democrats in the midterms, is calling for his community to withdraw its support. Did you vote for Biden in 2020? Yes. Would you support his reelection? No, I have already made the decision and we are now going to endorse him in the paper. It's not only disrespect, disregard to our lives. In other words, there's an iceberg dead ahead and Biden is sailing straight into it at full speed. And those aren't the only Arab Americans who've expressed profound disappointment with the Biden administration. NBC News reports, quote, Joe Biden has single-handedly alienated almost every Arab American and Muslim American voter in Michigan, said state representative Al Abbas Farhad, a Democrat whose district includes Dearborn, which is home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab American communities in the country. Farhad said he has constituents and neighbors who have family members trapped in Gaza, including some who are American citizens, and they feel completely abandoned by the U.S. government for not doing more to help get them out, get aid in, and pressure Israel for a ceasefire. What I'm hearing now is people feeling completely betrayed by Joe Biden, said Amir Zahar, president of New Generation for Palestine, a Dearborn-based network of mostly young Palestinian Americans. People are feeling that the Democratic Party is unequivocally with the few exceptions supporting Israel and not humanizing Palestinians and looking at the humanity of Palestinians. Now, as Politico adds, may soon Zayed, a Palestinian American comedian, did everything she could to get Joe Biden elected in 2020, but after watching how Biden has navigated the Israel Hamas war over the last two weeks, Zayed said she can no longer vote for him in 2024. Quote, the man broke my heart, she said. I never in my life thought the empathizer in chief would sound the way he did. The Palestinians were given no humanity, she said. Joe Biden should spend every breath he has condemning Israel's genocide with the same zeal he condemned Hamas's massacre of civilians, that same zeal, and we get nothing. 1,000 children are dead and we get nothing. So you have a plethora of anecdotal examples of Arab Americans saying they're just not going to vote for Biden again. Full stop. Now, if that isn't a wake-up call for the Biden administration, then nothing will be. Now, I think internally they know and they're scared shitless, but they're still not reverse in course. Therefore, they are willingly bleeding support and not actively trying to change what's happening currently. Now, I know that most liberals and even a lot of leftists don't agree with that sentiment that they're not voting for Biden. They think that they should vote for Biden, because obviously Trump would be worse on the issue of Israel-Palestine. He'd be worse for Arab Americans. He'd be worse for every marginalized community, for poor people, for everyone across the board. And as someone with trans family members, I'm horrified at the prospect of Trump winning. I think he's an existential threat to the existence of my trans family members. And I don't think American democracy can survive another four years of Trump. Having said that though, you don't have to agree with their decision to not vote for Biden, but it's very important that you understand where they're coming from. You can't just lash out in anger at them, which is what liberals usually do when it comes to voters disillusion with the Democratic Party. You need to listen to what they're saying. They feel hurt. They feel like they're disposable. They feel used. They feel betrayed. They feel like they're not seen by this administration. And if Biden loses Michigan in 2024 because Arab Americans choose to stay home, he can lose the entire election. And guess what? That's on Biden. That's not on them. And Ellie Mestal explains why in an op-ed for the nation that Arab Americans aren't the only voters that Biden is alienating with his behavior here. He writes Biden risks labeling himself as a president who is in favor of colonization and one who will turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing and war crimes. And those are tough labels to shake once they take hold in communities of color. Voters of color are strategic and willing to swallow a lot of nonsense and vote for the lesser evil. But there are some who will simply not pull the lever for any president in any party who stands aside while an oppressed people is besieged, starved, and bombed into oblivion. Biden can entirely appropriately call terrorist attacks against Israelis pure evil, but he can't seem to fix his mouth to say turn on the water to civilians living in the desert. He can say that Palestinian people deserve dignity and respect, but can't unequivocally say cutting off electricity to civilians is a human rights violation. I'm sorry, but it's hard to see Biden's personal decency when he can't speak up for the thirsty. Biden is asking black and brown voters to trust that he values all lives equally, but that becomes almost impossible to believe when he endorses the treatment of Palestinians as collateral damage to a counterterrorism campaign. Moreover, I feel like white commentators too easily forget that we live in a country where Trump is a looming threat only because a significant majority of their own cousins and uncles and spouses are set once again to vote for a raving orange clown no matter how many times he gets indicted for crimes. White folks are the ones threatening the future of American democracy. To save it, Democrats need super majorities of Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Arab American voters, and they need black people to continue supporting Democrats by well over 80% margins, and they need all those groups to turn out. So just maybe the white anti-Trump crowd could listen to voters of color with some respect when they try to tell you what's wrong with their political approach. Now, Ellie goes on to make a really important point. It also must be said that Biden's lack of support for Palestinians is being viewed in the context of his enthusiastic support for Ukraine. The situations are far from analogous, but Biden literally linked his support for Ukraine and support for Israel together in his Oval Office address. It's a politically tone-deaf comparison for Biden to make because linking the two doesn't work in his favor. It's simply not lost on voters of color that when a white country was invaded, Biden sent guns and missiles and money. While all he seems to have for Palestinians is some bottles of water chucked at them from Egypt and the hard-won pronouncement that not every single one of them is a terrorist who should be deleted from existence. So there's a lot of really important points made here by Ellie Mistal and another point that he made that I didn't read to you was if Biden does indeed approve more aid to Israel and another aid package to Ukraine, then voters at some point are going to begin to wonder, what about us? Where's our aid? Because we can barely afford to feed our families. We struggle to pay rent. So when do we get a turn? When do we get aid, right? And I think that that is something that he needs to address, but he doesn't seem concerned at all. But one of the most important points that Ellie Mistal made was that Democrats, they rely on a strong, multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalition to win elections. And if they fail to inspire confidence in voters of color that they actually care about the plight of marginalized people, then they may stay home. They risk losing those people. And it's not just Biden. I mean, take a look at members of Congress who signed on to the resolution calling for a ceasefire. You'll probably notice a couple of things. So one is that the list is embarrassingly small. And two, these are exclusively black and brown members of Congress. So it looks really, really bad to see virtually every white Democrat in Congress seemingly turn a blind eye to the suffering of brown people. And it looks even worse to know that they are all dogpiling on the only Palestinian American in Congress right now, lambasting her for daring to speak out in favor of Palestinian human rights. It communicates to voters of color that these Democrats don't actually care about their concerns. They're just votes whose utility is gone after each election. And none of them. Not a single Democrat seemed self-aware enough to course correct. Even Bernie Sanders, his own staffers, hundreds of his own staffers came out and said, please, Bernie, we voted for you twice. We supported you monetarily. We volunteered for you. Please support a ceasefire. He has not done that. He released a milk toast statement. So I don't think that they understand how bad they are hurting themselves right now by being so tone deaf, by refusing to listen. But the issue goes even deeper than that because Biden stands here is not just alienating every Americans and voters of color, but he's also alienating young voters. And he's already doing terrible in that regard as well. But this could hurt him even more. As Alexander Salmon of Slate explains, a recent Quinnipiac poll underscores Biden's disastrous standing with the youth vote. The president's favorability rating has cratered out at an almost unbelievable 25% among registered voters under 35 years old. Now Biden's Israel policy threatens to deepen that divide even further. Again, it's wise to not overreact to polls, but the data is not terribly ambiguous on this. On this issue, young voters are far from the president, who publicly remains hawkish and unstinting in a way that has not kept pace with their political attitudes or even those to a lesser degree of the Democratic Party. Biden has continued to pledge unquestioning and total support for Israel, even as human rights groups sound the alarm about the threat of the Israeli military committing ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, human rights groups inability to deliver anything resembling sufficient aid to Gaza and comments from Israeli military leaders that indicate a willingness to target civilians. Biden's Thursday night public address on the matter, which broadcasts right around the same time that Israel was bombing one of the world's oldest churches, killing 16 people, was cheered by Fox News, which is not incidentally a youth outlet. But none of the ways that Biden has responded to the conflict have been received favorably by young Americans. That same Quinnipiac poll found that 51% of voters under 35 say they disapprove of the United States sending weapons and military support to Israel a much higher figure than the 28% of Americans who oppose such a policy. Only 21% of voters under 35 say they approve of Biden's Israel policy. 42% of voters across all age brackets approve. A CBS news poll conducted last week came to an even starker conclusion. One asked if the U.S. should send weapons and supplies to Israel. 59% of respondents under 30 said it should not. An even more resounding 64% of those between the age of 30 and 44, a bracket more likely to vote that carries the whole millennial generation and part of Gen X said the U.S. should not. So little by little Biden is driving a wedge between him and the people that he needs the most to win in 2024. But he's not adjusting right now. And Simon also pointed out that young people were already disillusioned with Biden for restarting student loan payments without the $10,000 to $20,000 and promised cancellation. I mean after the Supreme Court struck down his initial plan he said he would pursue cancellation through his authority under the Higher Education Act. We've heard nothing to this point. And this handling of the issue certainly has not helped. And you've got to remember that millennials like myself we grew up during the Bush years. So we're very sensitive when it comes to U.S. foreign policy especially in the Middle East. So in response to 3000 Americans dying on 9-11 we watched our government butcher more than a million Iraqis who had nothing to do with 9-11 in response. And now it feels like we're already watching history repeat itself. In response to the tragic attack in Israel on October 7th thousands of Gazans who had nothing to do with that attack are now being killed. Over a thousand children now the number is around 2000. So many young people are just not going to accept what Biden is doing. A lot of people aren't going to including older people as well because people don't have an appetite for war. And even if this gets us embroiled in broader conflict in the Middle East it's going to be even worse for Biden. Now a Gallup poll released on the 26th also found that his approval among Democrats dropped by 11 points which is a stunning new low for his presidency and it's a huge red flag and correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation. So we can definitively say that that drop that we're seeing is specifically due to his mishandling of the situation but it's not unreasonable to think that it could contribute to that. It's not unreasonable to assume that he should right now start to win back the voters that he lost. So I need to be very blunt when I say this. Biden's inhumane one sided response to Israel's war on Gaza could literally cost him the election and as a result killed democracy in the United States permanently. This is serious. He needs to take this serious but he is fucking up royally right now and doesn't understand that he has to reverse course otherwise we're all going to pay for his mishandling, his genocidal rhetoric here. But the good news is that it's not too late to turn it around. We can still save democracy but it's going to require Biden to actually fucking try for a change and he can start by being more like the 1986 version of Biden who grilled then-president Ronald Reagan's secretary of state over South African apartheid so I will leave you with that. What disturbs me more than the policy that you call a policy is the rationale for the policy. The rationale for the policy you set out four principles that you adhere to and then you and I will go over them in a moment then you say in page 14 we must not become part of South Africa's problem we must remain part of their solution we must not aim to impose ourselves our solutions our favorites in South Africa damn it we have favorites in South Africa the favorites in South Africa are the people who are being repressed by that ugly white regime we have favorites our loyalty is not to South Africa it's to South Africans and the South Africans are majority black and they are being excoriated it is not to some stupid puppet government over there it is not to the Afrikaans regime we have no loyalty to them we have no loyalty to South Africa to South Africans and the fact of the matter is we I mean I listen to this rationale first of all it is the leaders of South Africa and their people black and white who have the majority responsibility they must rise to it well they are rising to it they're rising to it the only thing left available to them is that repulsive repugnant regime of Afrikaans there and it's the only way they have they've tried everything for the last 20 years they begged they borrowed they crawled and now they're taking up arms the second thing progress toward peace requires a timetable timetable elimination of a part what's our timetable what are we saying to that repugnant regime are we saying you've got 20 days 20 months 20 years we ask them to put up a timetable what's our timetable these people are being crushed and we're sitting here with the same kind of rhetoric the same thing we heard we heard go slow we heard we have to take care of the problem afterwards we heard we can't impose you are totally misconstruing the testimony that I gave read first furthermore senator let me say that I hate to hear a senator of the united states calling for violence I'm not calling for violence that's what you're doing I hate to hear exactly what you're doing I hate to hear an administration and a secretary of state refusing to act on a morally abhorrent point I hate to hear this country I'm ashamed that this country puts out a policy like this that says nothing nothing