Mayor is urging voters to choose ‘uncommitted’ in primary election

By Charles Sercombe
Mayor Amer Ghalib is now officially recommending that voters favor no candidate in the upcoming presidential primary election on Feb. 27.
He is part of a movement calling itself #abandonBiden, in which they recommend voters mark their ballots for “uncommitted.”
A number of Arab community leaders are upset with President Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the November election, and his support of Israel in its invasion of Gaza in Palestine.
That invasion was prompted by an attack by Hamas last October, when the group engineered a brutal invasion of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 200 hostages.
In turn, Israel launched an attack that has resulted in the death of nearly 30,000 Palestinians, many of them women or children.
On his Facebook page, Ghalib said that voting uncommitted is a way “to get your message and vote across to those who care.”
He went on to say:
“This is only in the primary, whether you are Republican or Democrat, but in the final we will have another opinion and then announce who is the most suitable presidential candidate.”
Ghalib also joined over a dozen other mostly Muslim community leaders in a campaign called “Listen to Michigan.”
A flyer, addressed to Michigan residents, states: “The ongoing tragedy in Gaza is an affront to our shared humanity.”
It is signed by Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, state Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck), as well as by Mayor Ghalib and Hamtramck City Councilmembers Mohammed Hassan and Muhtasin Sadman.
The U.S. has had a longstanding policy of supporting Israel and defending its existence, no matter who is president.
Former President Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, has said that if he is elected he will also continue to support Israel, and that he would also deport any immigrant who supports Hamas.
Trump has also said that he will begin deporting migrants in so-called blue states, or, in other words, states that lean Democratic.
Although Ghalib has been openly critical of Biden’s policy of supporting Israel and its war on Gaza, he has also been associating with rightwing hardliner former Army General Michael Flynn, who was Trump’s former National Security Advisor, and who has said that Islam is a “cancer.”
Ghalib is of the Islamic faith.
Hamtramck’s city councilmembers, who are all male and all Muslim, have also been critical of Biden.
According to various media reports, President Biden has become increasingly frustrated with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the military offensive in Gaza.
Biden, according to media reports, has been concerned about the number of civilian deaths and the destruction in Gaza.
At the same time, Congress maybe on the verge of approving more military funding for Israel.
Arab-Americans have traditionally been supportive of Democratic candidates in the past, but that support has been eroding in recent years, say political observers.
It has been said, by political observers, that a non-vote for Biden is essentially a vote for Trump.
Posted Feb. 16, 2024