Arab Americans eye Trump's pro-Israel government picks

It has been several weeks now, but Wasel Yousaf has photos on his phone to help him relive the memory of meeting his idol.

"He made a joke about how tightly I was shaking his hand," Yousaf said, looking at an image of his introduction to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, surrounded by Arab American supporters in Dearborn, Michigan.

Since then, the candidate has become the president-elect, buoyed especially in this state by voters like Yousaf, a coordinator for the state's chapter of Arab Americans for Trump. 

The forgotten 'Muslim ban'

There was a time when Trump was not a harbinger of hope for Arab Americans or Muslim Americans. Shortly after taking office in 2017, he signed an executive order banning foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, a move his critics called his "Muslim ban."

Protests against the ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries took place in airports around the United StatesImage: Ronen Tivony/ZUMA Press/IMAGO

During the 2024 presidential campaign, he said he would reinstate the travel ban and expand it to "ban refugee resettlement from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip."

The conflict in the Middle East and disillusionment with President Joe Biden's administration brought many Arab American voters to the polls in Dearborn, which has the proportionally largest Muslim population of any city in the United States.

Many said they were disappointed in Biden's failure to rein in Israel's bombardment of Gaza after Hamas attacks on Israel killed about 1,200 and saw 250 people taken hostage. The resulting war has caused nearly 45,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-led Gaza Strip. Israel, Germany, the United States and several other countries designate Hamas as a terrorist organization.

'Peace through strength'

"Most of the diverse community of Arabs here are [tied] to their roots and homeland. So they're looking for peace. Trump's campaign signaled peace through strength," said Yousaf. "It leads us to hope for a finish to all the wars around the world in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen and now in Syria."

In his first sit-down interview since the election, aired on December 8 with NBC's "Meet the Press" program, Trump was pressed on whether he would pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza.

"I want him to end it, but you have to have a victory," Trump said, a nod to Israel winning the war on its own terms. During the campaign, Trump promised peace in the Middle East but offered no clear plan for how to achieve it.

The war can't go on forever

Bilal Irfan, a medical student who spent the summer volunteering at schools in the West Bank, said he also hopes the war will be over soon but added he's not confident the outgoing or incoming US government will be able to make it happen.

"Until you see a substantial shift from any American administration which has not come yet, where they are actually prepared to put guardrails on Israel's policy, Israel will dictate the time, scope and degree of the genocide that it wants to commit on its own time," Irfan said.

"I think it's kind of hopeless to expect the Trump administration to really make any change on that front when they don't really see American foreign policy as independent of Israel's."

Humanitarian organization Amnesty International has recently said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice has said it was "plausible" that Israel violated provisions in the Genocide Convention. It is an assertion strenuously denied by Israel and its supporters, including Germany and the United States.

Irfan said he draws comfort from the idea that the war can not go on indefinitely.

Nearly 45,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there Image: OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP

"I'm more hopeful because of the duration of time, not necessarily because of the new US administration. I just think the longer this continues to go on, I believe and hope that there will be change that will happen," he said.

Trump's pro-Israel picks for key positions

There are voices like Khalid Turaani's, an Arab American activist, warning that the situation for people in Gaza and Arabs in the United States would only get worse under Trump.

Turaani cited the selection of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the ambassador to Israel. Huckabee once said, "There's really no such thing as a Palestinian."

"When he says there's no such thing as Palestinians, when people don't exist, then there's no genocide," said Turaani. "You cannot kill or genocide a group of people who do not exist. I think throughout history when people commit genocide, they deny that those people existed."

Turaani said he was also concerned about Trump selecting New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be the US ambassador to the United Nations. A childhood spent in a camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria has made Turaani wary of Stefanik's stance toward the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Stefanik has repeatedly expressed support for Israel's decision to defund UNRWA and called on the US to do the same, as Trump did in 2018.

Stefanik has expressed opposition to continued funding of the UNRWAImage: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/picture alliance

"Our sustenance, our food, when we were children in the refugee camp, was coming from UNRWA. My education from the first grade all the way to the ninth grade was in schools funded by UNRWA. We didn't have anything else," he said. "Stefanik is going to crack down on the United Nations. Using starvation as a weapon of war is going to be continued with someone like Stefanik."

In the last weeks before Trump reenters the White House, both sides are racing to secure a deal that would see Hamas' hostages returned and a ceasefire — a deal that has faltered repeatedly in the 14 months of conflict.

An end to the suffering in Gaza at the end of the Biden administration — or the beginning of Trump's second term — would be welcome to Arab Americans around the United States, regardless of who delivers it.

But how Trump's future policies will shape the lives of Palestinians and the lives of Arab and Muslim Americans remains an open question.

Edited by: Sean M. Sinico