Dearborn, United States – Incoming US president Donald Trump pulled off a surprising feat late in the campaign, making gains with Muslim voters with a characteristically bold promise to end bloodshed in the Middle East.
Now, his new supporters are celebrating his victory and confident he will deliver despite Israel, led by his close ally Benjamin Netanyahu, continuing its 13-month siege of Gaza and bombardment of neighboring Lebanon.
In Dearborn, America’s largest Arab-American enclave, preliminary results showed Trump taking first place — a dramatic swing from 2020, when outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden won handily.
This time around, the left-leaning vote fractured between Vice President Kamala Harris and the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
“People got the message that Trump is trying to bring peace to the Middle East and to the whole world,” said Bill Bazzi, the Lebanese-American mayor of neighboring Dearborn Heights, speaking to AFP from a late-night hookah bar that transformed into an early-morning party.
But for many, Trump’s first term paints a different picture.
The Republican imposed a travel ban on several Muslim-majority nations, endorsed Israeli settlements in the West Bank — deemed illegal under international law — and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a major blow for Palestinian statehood.
And during this campaign, he touted his status as Israel’s strongest friend, saying Biden should let Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.
Bazzi dismissed what he called media distortions — insisting the ban was only a matter of closer vetting of select unstable countries to prevent Islamic State militants from getting into the United States.
A Marine veteran who campaigned for Trump in his closing rallies, he added he had been in contact with high-level members of the incoming administration who assured him that “one of the things (Trump) is pushing is to stop the war — he wants more diplomacy.”
Unpopular Biden
Others, like Yemeni-American activist and real estate agent Samra’a Luqman, were defiant after the result.
Like many other Arab Americans, she was outraged by the Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering military and diplomatic support for Israel in the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, where the civilian death tolls continue to soar.
“They can blame us for Harris’ loss. I want them to,” she said. “It was my community that said, ‘If you commit genocide, we will hold you accountable for it.'”
Outside the Shatila Bakery on Wednesday morning, Trump voters were jubilant.
“He’s more intelligent, more educated for this position,” said Diyaa Abd, a 48-year-old trucker who immigrated from Iraq, adding that when Trump was in power, there was peace in Ukraine and the Middle East.
“The one that had to win, won,” chimed in Mike Sima, 75.
The Trump team also did what Harris notably did not: show up in Dearborn.
Her campaign’s decision to tour Michigan with former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney — a vocal Iraq War advocate — also alienated many Arabs.
Trump’s outreach, on the other hand, benefited from a new link to the community: Lebanese-American Michael Boulos, who is married to his daughter Tiffany Trump.
Boulos’ father Massad Boulos was a key emissary for the campaign.
Despite lingering skepticism over Trump’s seemingly contradictory stances, Bishara Bahbah, chairman of Arab Americans for Trump, had faith in his next president.
“Yes, he said ‘finish the job,’ but when I inquired exactly what that means, I was told ‘stop the war,'” he insisted.
“He’s said it, and he’ll do it. Trump has proven he does what he says.”
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By Anna Maria Jakubek with Layal Abou Rahal in Beirut
ADDS Hezbollah says attacks base near Tel Aviv, Trump-Sisi call, Gaza polio campaign ends
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the “Iranian threat” in a call with US president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday as the wars in Gaza and Lebanon show no sign of easing.
Saudi state media also reported that the Gulf heavyweight’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, spoke to Trump to congratulate him.
A trip to Riyadh was Trump’s first foreign visit after he took office in 2017.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement the Israeli premier “congratulated Trump on his election victory, and the two agreed to work together for Israel’s security.
“The two also discussed the Iranian threat,” it added.
Egypt, the first Arab state to sign a peace deal with Israel, also congratulated Trump.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Trump in a call Cairo would work with him “to contribute to stability, peace and development in the Middle East”.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, however, said tens of thousands of its militants were ready to fight Israel, adding that the US election result would have no bearing on the war in Lebanon.
Its leader warned that nowhere in Israel would be “off-limits” to attacks.
Hezbollah claimed a slew of missile and drone attacks on Wednesday, including two that targeted naval bases near the Israeli city of Haifa and two near Tel Aviv.
Israel’s military also said a missile was fired into southern Israel from central Gaza, where it has battled the Tehran-backed Hamas group since Palestinian militants launched a deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Hezbollah’s main bastion of south Beirut came under Israeli air attack after a warning to evacuate.
Israel and Hezbollah have been at war since late September, when the Israeli military widened the focus of its Gaza war to securing its northern border with Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border attacks on Israel last year, in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas after the October 7 attack.
Efforts to end the war in Gaza sparked by the Hamas attack have yet to bear fruit, and the war in Lebanon has killed at least 3,050 people since October 2023, the health ministry said Wednesday.
In a televised speech marking 40 days since his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a strike, new Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said: “We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight.
His address aired after Trump’s victory was announced, but had been recorded earlier.
Qassem said whoever won the election would have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal for Lebanon.
“What will stop this… war is the battlefield” he said, citing fighting in south Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
Hezbollah announced Wednesday it had Iran-made Fatah 110 missiles, a weapon with a 300-kilometre range that military expert Riad Kahwaji described as the group’s “most accurate”.
Earlier, Hezbollah said it targeted a military base near Israel’s main airport close to commercial hub Tel Aviv, but Israel’s Airports Authority said operations were not disrupted.
‘War of attrition’
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Israeli air strikes on the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and the southern city of Nabatiyeh.
An AFP correspondent in the eastern city of Baalbek reported intense strikes in and around the city.
Israel is “betting on prolonging the war so it becomes a war of attrition… We are ready,” Qassem said in his second speech since being named Hezbollah secretary-general last week.
He also called for Lebanese sovereignty to be safeguarded in any truce talks.
Qassem demanded explanations from the Lebanese army after Israeli commandos seized a man from north Lebanon on Saturday who they said was a senior Hezbollah operative.
He said the operation was “a great offence to Lebanon” and a “violation” of its sovereignty.
‘Save us’
In Gaza, where the 13-month war has had a devastating impact, people were desperate for a solution and voiced the hope Trump might offer one.
Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,391 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry the United Nations considers reliable.
“We were displaced, killed… there’s nothing left for us, we want peace,” said 60-year-old Mamdouh al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia.
“I hope Trump finds a solution, we need someone strong like Trump to end the war and save us…”
The UN said Wednesday its polio vaccination campaign in Gaza had ended, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the war.
Netanyahu earlier feted Trump’s “huge victory” as “history’s greatest comeback”.
The United States is Israel’s top ally and military backer, and the election came at a critical time for the Middle East.
While maintaining the steady flow of aid to Israel, US President Joe Biden’s administration had for months piled pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a truce.
Analysts say Netanyahu wanted a Trump return, given their longstanding personal friendship and the American’s hawkishness on Israel’s arch-foe Iran.