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Jewish, Pro-Israel Democrat Edges Out Senate Race Victory in Michigan
US Rep. and candidate for US Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) looks on near a polling station in the 2024 US presidential election on Election Day in Detroit, Michigan, US, Nov. 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
US Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Jewish lawmaker from Michigan, prevailed in her Senate race in the Mitten State, representing a bright spot for Democrats in an election cycle characterized by the defeat of presidential hopeful Kamala Harris and landslide losses in congressional elections across the country.
Slotkin, a moderate Democrat and former CIA analyst, narrowly defeated former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) on Wednesday by a margin of 48.6 percent to 48.3 percent. Slotkin will replace Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), who announced she would not seek a new term in 2023.
“THANK YOU, MICHIGAN! I am so honored to be the next Senator from the great state of Michigan and to follow in the footsteps of the great [Debbie Stabenow],” Slotkin wrote on X/Twitter.
“This would not have happened without the hard work and support of so many: my family, our volunteers, donors, and of course — everyone who voted in this election. I promise I will do everything in my power to be the principled leader you deserve,” Slotkin continued.
Slotkin’s victory came as Harris was defeated in the traditionally liberal state by Republican nominee Donald Trump. In an election season animated by public furor over inflation, migration, and the economy, many observers perceived Slotkin’s electoral odds as uncertain.
Moreover, Slotkin faced intense criticism within the state over her support for Israel. Pro-Palestinian activists have pressured politicians within Michigan — a state with a large Arab American community — to adopt more adversarial positions against the Jewish state.
Slotkin has accepted donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States. The lawmaker has also voted in favor of providing military aid to Israel, sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its prosecutor’s decision to request arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, and banning the State Department from citing casualty figures provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
Slotkin has also condemned Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, calling the attacks “an indiscriminate massacre defined by sheer hate.”
The lawmaker’s stridently pro-Israel voting record and public support for the Jewish state rankled many members of Michigan’s Arab American community.
“This year, I’m not going to be voting,” an Arab American citizen of Dearborn, Michigan told the New York Times last month. “Everybody’s taking the wrong position on what’s going on overseas.”
In the year following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Arab American communities within Michigan have transformed into a launching pad of protests against the Jewish state. Many of these protests have openly endorsed the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians as legitimate “resistance” and called for the destruction of the Jewish state altogether. Anti-Israel activists within Michigan have also organized demonstrations to show support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and mourn the death of terrorist kingpins such as Hassan Nasrallah.
Dearborn Mayor Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (D-MI) cautioned that Slotkin’s chances in her Senate race were jeopardized by her position on the ongoing war in Gaza. Hammoud suggested that frustration over Israel’s defensive military campaign could deflate voter enthusiasm among the Arab American community.
“Apathy is obviously growing, and apathy is very dangerous for down-ballot seats,” Hammoud told the Times. “For the control of the US Senate and for the White House, it’s the people who sit at home who more than likely will determine the outcome of this election.”
In the final weeks of the campaign, Slotkin appeared to temper her support of Israel, citing “deep concerns” over its military operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah Lebanon.
“It is not hard for me as someone who’s served three tours in Iraq, who watched the American military fail in places like Anbar Province and Ramadi and Falluja, to have deep concerns about what’s going on with the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and now in Lebanon,” Slotkin said. “You can express empathy and concern and nuance, even when conversations are difficult.”
Despite outsized media attention on the Israel-Hamas war, few Michigan voters cited foreign policy as a top concern. Around 40 percent of Michigan voters indicated jobs and the economy as their most important issues, according to AP VoteCast. The same poll showed that around 20 percent and 10 percent of voters cited immigration and abortion as their top issues, respectively.
The post Jewish, Pro-Israel Democrat Edges Out Senate Race Victory in Michigan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.