‘There were no new wars when he was president’: Arab Michigan mayor explains Trump endorsement

DEARBORN, Michigan — Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi explains his decision to endorse Donald Trump, arguing that the Middle East was a much calmer region when the former US president was in office.

“During his administration, there were no new wars, and he worked to pull the US out of wars that previous administrations started,” Bazzi says in an interview with The Times of Israel on the sidelines of an election watch party in Dearborn hosted by Arab Americans for Trump.

Bazzi’s town of Dearborn Heights is home to roughly 70,000 people outside of Detroit — most of whom are Arab American, he says.

Bazzi is one of two Arab mayors to endorse Trump ahead of Tuesday’s election, demonstrating widespread frustration in the minority community over the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

The Lebanon native says his frustration extends to US President Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Ukraine.

“I don’t like seeing our tax dollars being used to fund war machines — both in Israel and in Ukraine. We just keep funding them, but there’s no diplomacy,” he argues, as excited chatter continues picking up at the Dearborn watch party, given the initially favorable results for Trump.

The US has sought to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, but has blamed Hamas for refusing to engage in negotiations and for rejecting repeated offers, while also expressing frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for adding conditions to previous Israeli proposals.

Bazzi says the US hasn’t used its leverage over Israel to end the war, and failing to do so will lead to the conflict spreading further throughout the region.

He recognizes that the US will always support the State of Israel, “but you still have to hold that government accountable for some of the atrocities being committed against both Palestinian and Lebanese people.”

Asked about Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants and the ban he instituted against Muslim-majority countries, Bazzi argues that the former president’s policy only targeted seven of the world’s 40-plus Muslim countries in order to prevent the entry of former ISIS fighters.

A soft-spoken military veteran, Bazzi recalls growing up in southern Lebanon during a civil war in the 1970s, which also featured aerial bombardments from Israel.

“I remember sleeping under a stairwell when our village was getting bombed. We could feel the earth shake,” he says.

“I was a product of war myself, and I don’t want to see other kids go through what I went through,” Bazzi adds.