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    Heads of state and government are “not doing their job” in the Middle East conflict.
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    Heads of state and government are “not doing their job” in the Middle East conflict.

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    3 minutes, 44 seconds Read

    Dearborn — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigned Friday in Dearborn, the country's largest Arab-majority city, making the case that peace can and should be achieved in the Middle East.

    Four days before Tuesday's election, Trump greeted a crowd of supporters at The Great Commoner, a cafe in downtown Dearborn. The former president was presented with a plaque in the shape of Michigan's Lower Peninsula and signed additional plaques with a peace quote from former Republican President Ronald Reagan.

    Trump answered a handful of questions from reporters but did not explain his specific plans for how he would resolve the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and the militant group Hamas. There are people in the USA and the Middle East “who are not doing their job,” said Trump.

    “If they get it done, if they get it right, there will be peace,” Trump said.

    “You will have peace in the Middle East,” Trump said elsewhere. “And they should have that in the Middle East too, but not with the clowns that exist in the Middle East.”

    It was not clear who Trump referred to as “clowns.”

    For months, Trump has tried to win over Arab American voters, many of whom live in traditionally Democratic areas of Michigan, but has argued that Democratic President Joe Biden has not done enough to end the war in the Middle East.

    In Michigan's February Democratic primary, 101,623 ballots were cast as “non-binding” to protest Biden's support of Israel in the ongoing conflict. Biden ended his bid for re-election on July 21, which led to Democrats nominating Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

    According to the nonprofit Arab American Institute, Michigan has the second-largest population of Arab Americans among the 50 states, at about 392,000.

    On October 18, Trump visited Hamtramck and campaigned with the city's mayor, Amer Ghalib, who is Muslim. During that trip, Trump told reporters that Biden was trying to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister.

    “He should probably do the opposite,” said Trump, who did not elaborate on the remark.

    In a social media post, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, called Trump a “proud Islamophobe” and a “serial liar who does not stand for peace.”

    But Tlaib, a fierce critic of Israel, did not endorse Harris this fall.

    “The reality is that the Biden administration’s unconditional support of genocide got us here,” Tlaib added. “This should be a wake-up call for those who continue to support genocide. This election didn’t have to be close.”

    However, Sami Khaldi, president of the Dearborn Democratic Club, said Trump is trying to recast himself. He was not the candidate of peace, but the candidate of division, Khaldi argued.

    “Vice President Harris has made it very clear: She believes it is time to end the war in Gaza, bring the hostages home and end the suffering once and for all – while keeping Israel safe and that Palestinians can exercise their right to dignity, freedom and self-determination,” Khaldi added.

    Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, made a series of comments about Muslims during an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan on Wednesday. Rogan referred to a group of Muslim activists who are trying to “outdo everyone who isn’t Muslim.”

    “It scares the hell out of me,” Vance responded during the three-hour interview.

    “An actual real religious tyranny is increasingly seen in Western societies where there has been a large influx of immigrants who are not necessarily assimilating to Western values ​​but are, in my opinion, trying to create a religious tyranny on a local level,” Vance added .

    Trump's visit to Michigan on Friday came four days before Tuesday's presidential election. This fall in Michigan, he was in an exciting race with Harris, a former U.S. senator from California. On Sunday she will make a series of stops in Michigan.

    Vance campaigned in Kalamazoo County on Friday, while Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, held rallies in Detroit, Flint and Traverse City.

    A late October poll of 600 likely voters in Michigan commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4) showed Harris defeated Trump by three percentage points, 46.7% to 43.7%, with 7.3% of participants saying they planned to vote for a third-party candidate. Another 2.1% said they were undecided.

    The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

    Four years ago, Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in Michigan by 154,188 votes, or 3 percentage points, 51% to 48%.

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