New York Times reporter Jennifer Medina was the latest reporter to cover the pro-Palestinian rump of Democrats turning against Biden in Michigan, on Tuesday’s front page: “Biden Is Losing Party Loyalists Over Gaza War.” While it’s interesting to see the Times feature prominent coverage of a movement that opposes Biden in an election year, Medina’s unquestioning acceptance of her guest’s callous treatment of Israel and casual relaying of anti-Israel tropes was striking and revealing of a left-wing mindset.
We meet Palestinian-Christian immigrant turned U.S. Democratic Party activist Terry Ahwal at home, showing off her photos of Democratic presidents, but swearing President Biden “will not appear on her wall”:
After a lifetime of work in Democratic politics -- running local campaigns, asking strangers for money, begging acquaintances to vote for candidates -- she is now campaigning against the Democrat in the White House.
A Palestinian American who emigrated from the West Bank more than 50 years ago, Ms. Ahwal is furious over the president’s alliance with Israel in its war against Hamas that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza….
Medina channeled Ahwal’s inflammatory anti-Israel ranting -- again, in a front-page story:
“You want my vote? You cannot kill my people in my name. As simple as that,” she said recently, sitting at the dining room table of her home in Farmington Hills, a Detroit suburb. Photographs of her travels to Jordan, Peru and the Great Lakes decorate her walls. “Everything Israel wants, they get.”
She noted the closeness of the last two presidential results in Michigan, “home to 200,000 Arab Americans.” This one-sided story didn't mention how segments of the Arab-American community in Dearborn were steeped in pro-Hamas hatred of Israel, as the Wall Street Journal noted. Such inconvenient associations weren't allowed to poison the well of Ahwal's left-wing convictions. (Meanwhile, Republicans are constantly associated with the far right and Nazism.)
"In conversations in mosques and coffee shops, there was nearly unanimous agreement that Mr. Biden and his support for Israel’s right-wing government have enabled the devastation. Most shared Ms. Ahwal’s stance against voting for Mr. Biden," Medina warned.
While Israel received an unflattering “right-wing” label, Hamas was never characterized as terrorist or even militant.
Ahwal revealed her twisted priorities, flitting over the murders committed against Israeli citizens, skipping straight to the fears of a backlash: "Ms. Ahwal had an immediate thought as news of Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians came in on Oct. 7: It would not be long before Israel took revenge."
Regarding the collapse of peace negotiations in 1993, Ahwal didn’t blame PLO terrorist Yassir Arafat but forwarded childish anti-Israel insults without rebuttal:
Scholars cite many factors for the demise of the agreement: Arafat’s failure to accept Israeli and American offers. Mr. Rabin’s assassination by a right-wing extremist in 1995. Steady growth of settlements in the West Bank. The second intifada followed by Hamas’s ascent to power. For Ms. Ahwal, the answer is simpler.
“It was just basically a process of delaying, a process of land theft, a process of deception,” she said, blaming the U.S. for not restraining Israel. “What happened is just the Palestinians were snookered.”
A self-described pacifist, Ms. Ahwal recoiled at Hamas’s attacks on civilians on Oct. 7. Still, she saw Palestinians in Gaza in an impossible position, reacting to decades of Israeli control….
Was this vituperative activist really the most articulate voice Medina could find for the anti-Biden-pro-Palestinian cause?
Perhaps channeling her own thinking, Medina let her guest layout hypocritical demands on the Biden Administration, including declaring Israel (a home for Jews that have been kicked out of Arab lands, whose own population was nonetheless 20 percent Arab) an “apartheid state”:
But that doesn’t get close to the policies Ms. Ahwal says could change her mind: labeling Israel an apartheid state, freezing military aid, supporting a peace initiative led by Palestinians. Only the last move seems even remotely likely.
