Mayor of Muslim-majority Michigan city endorses Trump, in new sign of Gaza war's influence on presidential race

(JTA) - The mayor of Muslim-majority Hamtramck, Michigan, has endorsed Donald Trump for president after meeting with him in private. 

The endorsement comes amid a wave of anger among local Muslims over the Biden-Harris administration's support for Israel. A recent poll from the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that Kamala Harris has the support of just 12 percent of Muslim voters in Michigan, compared to 18 percent for Trump and 40 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, a harsh critic of Israel.

Amer Ghalib made his endorsement Sunday on Facebook, and Trump quickly shared it on his own Truth Social platform. Michigan is a swing state that has been awarded to presidential candidates on razor-thin margins in the past and that both candidates are waging a fierce battle for this time.

"President Trump and I may not agree on everything, but I know he is a man of principles," Ghalib wrote. "I'll not regret my decision no matter what the outcome would be, and I'm ready to face the consequences."

A working-class Detroit suburb with large Yemeni and Bangladeshi populations and an all-Muslim city council, Hamtramck has been a municipal leader on several prominent pro-Palestinian positions since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023. In March, a major thoroughfare was renamed Palestine Avenue, and in May the council approved a resolution to divest from Israel - one of only four cities in the United States to do so. 

Ghalib backed both proposals. He also supported the "Uncommitted" movement during Michigan's Democratic primary this spring, intended to pressure President Joe Biden to reduce his support for Israel; the protest vote, which was also supported by Andy Levin, the Jewish Democratic former congressman from Michigan, wound up winning more votes than Biden in Hamtramck. 

Last week the Uncommitted movement announced it would not be making a presidential endorsement, while also urging its followers not to vote for Trump.

A Yemeni immigrant, the 44-year-old Ghalib was elected mayor in 2021, unseating a longtime Polish-American mayor from what used to be a heavily Polish enclave. He has supported other controversial policies in Hamtramck, including backing a policy that banned LGBTQ and other flags from city property. Ghalib's predecessor, Karen Majewski, has backed Harris.

Ghalib and his staff have promoted antisemitic ideas online in the past. A few years ago the mayor "liked" a Facebook comment that referred to Jews as "monkeys." In November he declined to discipline an appointee's post suggesting that the Holocaust was cosmic punishment for Oct. 7.

Ghalib did not mention Israel in his endorsement, but the Detroit News reported that he discussed the possibility of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip when he met with Trump last week in Flint. His endorsement also came as Michigan Democrats were engaged in their own civil war over Israel: Jewish Attorney General Dana Nessel accused Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib of antisemitism after Tlaib accused her of "bias" in her handling of Gaza protesters. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declined to back either figure.

Some pockets of metro Detroit's large Muslim and Arab-American communities have shifted rightward in recent years, owing both to anger with Democrats over Israel and an increased social and religious conservatism, particularly on LGBTQ issues, even as Trump himself called for a ban on Muslims entering the country during his first campaign. They have made for strange bedfellows in the Republican party with hardline pro-Israel Jews who gravitate toward Trump's promises to protect and secure Israel and let Israeli forces "finish the job" in Gaza. 

The GOP has also shown an interest in using Israel to court Muslim and Arab voters in the state - at least stealthily. A line of ads in Michigan markets, paid for by a conservative PAC, emphasizes that Harris is pro-Israel and has a Jewish husband.

Yet even before Oct. 7, Ghalib had shown signs of embracing Trump, including by inviting the former president's ally Michael Flynn to speak in Hamtramck last year. Flynn has a history of antisemitic rhetoric and has called for America to have "one religion."

Trump himself told right-wing Breitbart News that the mayor "was a very big fan of the Trump administration because he saw no wars," adding, "There was no October 7. There was no Russian attack on Ukraine. He sees that and he told me he saw a world that was at peace."