Joe Biden's continued support for Israel is tanking his approval ratings among Arab-Americans, but Donald Trump's attempt to divert some of that support into his corner ended poorly on Tuesday when his chosen envoy flopped and offended at a meeting with about 40 Arab-American leaders in Michigan.
A source that attended the meeting told NOTUS, a nonprofit media outlet, that Trump's outreach lead was Richard Grennell, the former Trump administration official who The Washington Post refers to as Trump's "shadow Secretary of State." He did not impress, the source said, describing him bluntly as "clueless on the Middle East."
The meeting took place at an Italian restaurant in Troy, Michigan, a swing state — with an Arab-American population of more than 200,000 — that Biden won in 2020 by 250,000 votes. According to sources at the dinner, Grenell fixated on what Arab-Americans could do for Trump without seriously offering anything Trump could do for them, all while expressing little sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza.
Grenell even doubled down on comments made by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that Israel should remove Palestinians from areas that could be developed as "valuable waterfront property," according to an attendee. “He repeated Jared Kushner’s statement about beachfront property, which I think floated like a lead balloon in the room,” the person said.
Grenell also boasted about Trump's role in the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and some Arab countries. Otherwise, the sources observed, Grenell just said "typical Republican things" about the Israel-Hamas war. Republicans have generally encouraged Israel to prosecute its war in Gaza with even more vehemence than their Democratic counterparts.
Trump, for his part, has said that Israel should "finish what they started."
The Arab-American participants told Grenell that they had three conditions for supporting Trump: support for an immediate ceasefire; funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the primary source of humanitarian aid in Gaza; and passing the Leahy Laws, which prohibit the U.S. from funding foreign military forces that violate human rights laws.
Grenell, who came to make the case for Trump, did not commit to those conditions, and both sides left the meeting unsatisfied, sources said.
That the meeting would take place was reported by The Washington Post on Monday. The outlet said it was scheduled after Grenell contacted a Syrian-American doctor, Yahya Basha, who said he hasn't yet decided who he will support in November.
"It's too early to say Trump is the one," Basha said earlier in the week. "That's the reason we are hosting an event for his representative, to see how he views the community and what kinds of things he will do."
