The city of Dearborn, Michigan has been bestowed with the title of “America’s Jihad Capital”, and has fallen into civil war with itself over the war in Gaza, the Daily Mail reported last week. 

Dearborn, near Detroit, Michigan, hosts the largest Arab American community in the U.S. As the death toll in Gaza rises with no political solution in sight, local sentiment has shifted.

Residents feel American political leaders are complicit in the ongoing Middle East conflict, diminishing their interest in the upcoming election.

The Mail interviewed Abu Bilal, owner of Oriental Fashion on Warren Avenue, who questioned the lack of humanity regarding the deaths of 90 Palestinian civilians.

Another man, at Al-Rehab Barber Shop in Dearborn, expressed apathy toward the upcoming presidential election, saying it wouldn’t make a difference to him.

His barber, who didn’t vote in 2020, echoed this sentiment. 

As the Daily Mail notes, the implications for the upcoming election in Michigan could be enormous. 

Joe Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 154,000 votes, with Dearborn’s turnout 10 percent higher than in 2016.

However, local enthusiasm has waned, with many Arab American voters protesting Biden’s support for Israel.

In the Democratic primaries, 6,432 Dearborn voters chose ‘uncommitted.’ Despite a recent campaign rally near Dearborn, Arab Americans are rejecting Biden’s bid for their votes, according to the Daily Mail. 

Jenin Yaseen, an artist whose family is from a village outside Nablus in the occupied West Bank told the Mail: “The whole community was aware [that the administration had sent campaign officials to meet with the community], and I think it says a lot, that he sees us as no more than votes and that it’s been normalized for our people back home to be killed.”

She added: “Dearborn is made up of people from Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere that have been directly impacted by American imperialism.”

In January, Biden’s campaign team visited Dearborn, but Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and two other Arab American state representatives refused to meet them, as the meeting focused on elections rather than the war.

Hammoud criticized President Biden’s remarks on an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, delivered while he was eating ice cream, and later voted ‘uncommitted’ in protest of Biden’s stance.

In April, Muslim protesters in Dearborn chanted “death to America” and “death to Israel” during a rally supporting Palestinians and opposing Israel.