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Mayor of Muslim-Majority US City Officially Endorses Trump for President
Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump points to his ear as he speaks at the Economic Club of New York in New York City, Sept. 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The mayor of the only Muslim-majority city in the United States endorsed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the weekend, potentially boosting the former US president’s chances of winning the critical swing state of Michigan this November.
Amer Ghalib, mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, released a statement on Facebook on Sunday, praising Trump’s character and urging his residents to vote for the former president on Election Day. Ghalib also posted a photo of himself standing alongside Trump, claiming that the pair met in person just days before.
“I believe he is the right choice for this critical time,” Ghalib said of Trump, praising him as a “man of principles.”
“I’ll not regret my decision no matter what the outcome would be, and I’m ready to face the consequences,” Ghalib added.
The mayor told The Detroit News that Trump was already familiar with him prior to the sit-down.
“He knew a lot about me before the meeting,” Ghalib told the outlet.
“We talked about various topics including the debates, the polls updates, the statistics of votes in Michigan and Wayne County, the Arab American concerns and the Yemeni Americans in particular. We also talked about the situation in Yemen,” the mayor continued.
The mayor added that during their private 20-minute meeting, Trump asked for an endorsement from him as he seeks to win the presidency and defeat Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
“He asked me if I can endorse him and ask people to vote for him? I told him: ‘I’m here to talk about that and how we can make it happen,’” the mayor said. “I then handed him an official letter with some details about our concerns and to invite him to come to Hamtramck if possible.”
Ghalib did not specify whether he and Trump discussed the ongoing war in Gaza or placing an arms embargo on Israel, a demand that anti-Israel activists have made of Harris.
Ghalib has a history of making racist and antisemitic statements online. He liked comments on social media that referred to African Americans as “animalistic” and “subhuman.” He also condemned Arab leaders as being covert “Jews.”
In a 2021 Facebook post defending Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, Ghalib told his Arab American followers to compare Trump with “the leaders of your countries, who are willing to become Jewish if the president is Jewish and to abandon all national and religious reproach if ordered by the directorial dictator!”
Nonetheless, the mayor’s endorsement could prove to be an asset for Trump as he continues to spar with Harris for votes in the hotly-contested swing state of Michigan.
Moreover, many Arab American activists have expressed disillusionment and anger with Harris over her refusal to adopt hardline anti-Israel stances. The “Uncommitted movement” — a coalition of Democratic delegates opposed to the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza — issued a statement last week announcing that the group would not endorse a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. The group criticized Harris for not agreeing to withhold weapons from Israel and slammed the Democratic National Convention (DNC) for not allowing a Palestinian-American speaker on the main-stage of the event.
On the polling front, Harris has also struggled to coalesce the Arab American vote, an issue that could potentially puncture her chances of winning November’s election. Recent polls suggest that Jill Stein, the presidential nominee for the Green Party, holds a staggering lead over Harris among Arab American voters in Michigan. Stein, a Jewish woman, has repeatedly accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza and has defended Hamas’s slaughter of roughly 1,200 people on Oct. 7 as an act of “self-defense.”
The post Mayor of Muslim-Majority US City Officially Endorses Trump for President first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.