Arab Americans despair as Trump says US will ‘take over’ Gaza

When Euronews spoke to Faye Nemar and Albert Abbas soon after Donald Trump clinched a second term in the White House back in November, they were upbeat. 

The Lebanese American founders of the MENA American Chamber of Commerce (MENACOC) had just hosted an “iconic” meeting with Trump at Abbas’ restaurant in Michigan, where Trump signed a “peace plaque”.

“We saw the sincerity in his platform,” Nemer told Euronews at the time. “He was a very genuine individual, very committed to ensuring peace in the region” — by which she meant the Middle East.

Three months later, things look very different. During a press conference on Tuesday at the White House with a smiling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump announced his intention to “take over the Gaza Strip,” forcibly displacing Gaza’s 2 million residents.

In a letter addressed to the president and shared with Euronews, Nemer reminded Trump of his visit to Michigan, contrasting it with his latest comments. 

“(Your) vision of peace requires a commitment to a sovereign Palestinian state and must not be confused with policies that are tantamount to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians—a notion alarmingly reflected in your recent statements,” she wrote.

Another Palestinian American activist and co-founder of the Arab American Democratic Caucus in North Carolina (ACNCDP), Dr Burhan Ghanayem, was more blunt.

“Our community is in disarray,” he told Euronews.

Warning signs?

Not everyone is surprised by Trump’s ideas about Gaza, given his long history of outlandish statements and policies towards Muslims in general.

In 2016 Trump vowed “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” and as president signed an executive order suspending migration from several Muslim-majority countries. He also relocated the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognising the contested city as the Israeli capital, and formally recognised the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights — an area viewed by international law as occupied Syrian territory.

More recently, in March 2024, Trump’s influential son-in-law, Jared Kushner — who served as Trump’s de-facto Middle East envoy during his first term — posited an eerily similar idea to the president’s current plan, suggesting that Israel displace Gazan residents from the territory while they “clean it up”.

“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable,” he said.

All of this led Egyptian-American human rights activist Nancy Okail to conclude that “Trump sees the region as one giant real estate deal.”

Speaking after the election in November last year, she pointed to Trump’s appointment of property mogul Steve Witkoff as Middle East envoy, suggesting he would “further legitimise Israeli annexation efforts”.

A Palestinian peace activist in the West Bank was equally unsurprised, telling Euronews that “Trump works like a bulldozer: nothing stands in his way and he will go on with his plans”.

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Even Nemer and Abbas have started to express “concern” with some of the president’s actions in the transition period and the first days of his presidency.

Abbas cited an executive order allowing the deportation of students Trump accuses of being “Hamas sympathisers”, including “aliens who joined in the protests”. Nemer, meanwhile, was unhappy with comments made by Trump’s pick for Israeli ambassador, Mike Huckabee, who refers to the occupied West Bank by its biblical name “Judea and Samaria” — a rallying cry also used by the Israeli far-right.

Then there was Trump’s inauguration.

“One issue that I had with the inauguration was the lack of representation of Muslim and Arab Americans,” Nemer said. “They were front and centre during the campaign trail, on stage with President Trump … But those same iconic individuals were nowhere to be seen during the inauguration.”

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A Trump-supporting imam from the same town as Nemer was slated to speak at the event, but was “inexplicably” removed at the last minute.

“Representation is critical, not just during the campaign process, but also as you implement your administration,” Nemar added, admitting that the Trump campaign hadn’t reached out in recent months despite promising “monthly meetings”.

Blame on all sides

Although Arab American voters from all sides of the political spectrum have expressed “concern and criticism” about Trump’s announcement, many still remember feeling they had no choice but to vote for him.

After over a year of Israeli bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon with US military and diplomatic support under President Joe Biden, many voters were infuriated to see the party they had traditionally voted for declining to withdraw military support from Netanyahu’s government. Support for Democrats among Muslim and Arab American voters halved between the 2020 and 2024 elections. 

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Reflecting on the Democrats’ poor performance within the community, Ghanayam said, “the party failed. The party failed the constituents. The party lost.”

The co-founder of ACNCDP lost close friends in Gaza. He also has family in Tulkarm in the West Bank, which is currently the focus of intense Israeli bombardment, causing what Ghanayam describes as the “destruction and ethnic cleansing of my hometown” — actions which he sees the previous Democratic leadership as “completely complicit in”.

Echoing Ghanayem’s rhetoric, Congresswoman Tlaib suggested Trump was able to break with established foreign policy convention “because of bipartisan support in Congress for funding genocide and ethnic cleansing”.

Ghanayem said that his party desperately needed to change, but when asked how likely change was, he was downbeat. “If I wanted to put it from one to 10, I would say the chances are three, four,” he told Euronews.

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Despite their increasing reservations, the MENACOC founders certainly aren’t ready to abandon Trump yet.

“It’s just a matter of now giving the new administration time to become more acclimated and to engage communities,” Nemer concluded.

Both she and Abbas also still credit Trump with the fragile ceasefires negotiated in Gaza and Lebanon and Nemer is hoping to establish local Republican outreach in the community.

In North Carolina, Ghanayem also won’t be changing sides anytime soon, concluding the call with a lacklustre endorsement of the Democrats. “We really do not see an alternative.”

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“Yeah,” He sighs. “This is the only game in town”.