Trump’s Role in Gaza Ceasefire Fuels Arab-American Anger at Biden | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Washington, DC – When Samraa Luqman voted for Donald Trump in November, she believed that even if there was a one percent chance that the former president would push for a cease-fire in Gaza, he would be a better option than the Democrats who failed to stop the war.

Trump ended up winning that race and is set to re-enter the White House on Monday. Ahead of his inauguration, Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas agreed to end hostilities in Gaza, where more than 46,700 Palestinians have been killed in the past 15 months.

But Luqman says he doesn’t feel vindicated, even though Trump has taken credit for pushing a ceasefire deal across the border.

Instead, she is furious with outgoing United States President Joe Biden for failing to finalize the deal months earlier.

“I’m just more angry because Trump, who is not even in office yet, twisted his arm a little bit and the ceasefire agreement was reached immediately,” Luqman told Al Jazeera. “This could have happened earlier. It’s so sad, all those extra lives lost.”

She added that the way the deal was reached “cemented Biden’s legacy as Joe Genocide,” a moniker that links the Democratic leader to Israeli abuses in Gaza.

After overwhelmingly supporting the Democrats in the previous election, many Arab American voters turned against the party and its candidate, Vice President Kamala Harrisin the race in November because of their support for Israel’s war.

While many Arab voters say it is too soon to celebrate the fragile ceasefire agreement, they stress that Trump’s intervention shows they were right to abandon Harris.

The shift in Arab American voting preferences was particularly evident in the swing state of Michigan.

In predominantly Arab neighborhoods on the east side of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Harris received less than 20 percent of the vote. Most residents voted for either Trump or the Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

While Harris claimed that she and Biden worked “tirelessly” to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the vice president also vowed to continue arming Israel without any conditions.

The Biden administration too vetoed four United Nations Security Council resolutions that would call for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Trump’s role

Amer Ghalib, the Yemeni American mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, was among those who supported Trump last year, he even appeared at his rallies.

He explained that negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza was the main demand of Arab and Muslim supporters of the former president.

“He knew it was a fair and humane request,” Ghalib said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

“We supported him and demanded a ceasefire, peace, fight against Islamophobia, fair representation of Muslims in his administration and promotion and protection of religion and family values ​​and safe education for our children. He has shown some signs that he is moving forward to fulfill each of his promises.”

Both Trump and Biden took credit for Wednesday’s ceasefire deal, with the president-elect saying the “epic” deal wouldn’t have been reached if he hadn’t won elections in November.

However, it is difficult to assess the extent of Trump’s role in behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

But several Israeli media reports indicated that Trump was determined to get Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the pact, which would lead to the release of Israeli prisoners in Gaza as well as hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Last week, Trump sent his envoy, Steve Witkoff, to meet with mediators in Qatar and Netanyahu in Israel.

On Thursday, the US president-elect appeared to confirm Israeli claims that Witkoff was pressuring Netanyahu to accept the deal.

He divided on social media a Times of Israel article quoting an unidentified Arab official as saying, “Trump’s envoy swayed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did all year.”

Namely, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani thanked Witkoff by name announcing the deal on Wednesday.

‘Hell’ breaks loose

Trump warned earlier this month that “all hell would break loose” if Israeli prisoners were not released by the time he takes office on January 20.

Some analysts saw the message as a threat to Hamas. But the Palestinian group has repeatedly said it will accept the cease-fire agreement he put in place Biden in Maywhich included an exchange of prisoners and a permanent cessation of hostilities.

It was Netanyahu who publicly stated on several occasions that his government intended to continue the war.

Still, Biden administration officials — including Secretary of State Antony Blinken — insisted that Hamas had blocked the deal.

Hall Rharrita former US diplomat who resigned last year over the Biden administration’s handling of the war, said the deal announced Wednesday was the same proposal that had been on the table since May.

Rharrit told Al Jazeera that the Biden administration’s months-long failure to finalize the deal was “a matter of political will.”

“Had there not been a change in administration, I think we would have continued to hear exactly the same rhetoric of ‘We are working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire,'” Rharrit said.

She added that there would have been no progress had Harris been elected, but Trump’s victory created an impetus to reach a ceasefire agreement.

Concerns about the deal

Although Wednesday’s announcement sparked jubilation in Gaza, Arab-American advocates are cautious about the celebrations so far.

It is not clear whether Israel will honor the deal, which does not come into effect until Sunday. IN neighboring Lebanona US-brokered ceasefire agreement in November has failed to halt daily Israeli attacks.

Israel was also killing dozens of people in Gaza, including at least 21 children, since the deal was announced.

Suehaila Amen, an advocate for the Arab-American community in Michigan, said she hopes a truce will materialize, but stressed that it is difficult to take American and Israeli politicians at their word.

Still, she said the agreement reached after Trump’s intervention was a further indictment of Biden’s unwillingness to get Israel to end the war.

“For many within the community, pushing away against the Biden administration for its continued funding of genocide — as well as turning a blind eye to proven and documented human rights violations — remains something we stand behind,” Amen told Al Jazeera.

Amen said voters are “well aware” that Trump helped broker a ceasefire deal.

“As Biden leaves with a bloody legacy of genocide to his name, our work continues to ensure that our rights are protected and that there is no further harm or harassment to the Arab and Muslim American community, from the White House on down,” she said.

‘We hope it won’t be temporary’

As Walid Fidama sees it, the former president made “concrete promises” to end the war in Gaza when he met with Arabic and Muslim advocates before the elections. A lifelong Democrat, the Yemeni-American finally cast his vote for Trump in November.

“We are happy that he helped with the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and we hope that it will not be only temporary,” Fidama told Al Jazeera.

“We want the agreement to enter into force and allow displaced people to return to their homes.”

But some members of the Arab-American community are skeptical that Trump will bring lasting peace to the Middle East, as he promised on the campaign trail. After all, Trump has filled his incoming cabinet with staunch pro-Israel aides, including Senator Marco Rubio, his nominee for secretary of state.

And during his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump made a series of policy changes that strengthened Netanyahu’s government, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Luqman said she had no illusions that the Republican establishment would distance itself from Israel, but that ending the atrocities in Gaza “immediately to save more lives” was her main concern.

“I will not support Marco Rubio. But at the same time, I’m really aware that there aren’t many good options,” said Luqman.