Mayor of Dearborn: Aid will not enter Gaza until after the ceasefire (social networking sites)

On sleepless nights, I often wondered what kind of America my daughters would grow up in: Is it the America that makes excuses for killing innocent men, women, and children, or is it the America that chooses to restore hope? I pray that my colleagues in Michigan will harness this power and amplify this hope, by holding President Joe Biden accountable.

This is how Abdullah Hammoud, the Democratic Mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, summed up his feelings in an article in the American New York Times, saying that the phrase “Dearborn never sleeps,” which he said to a visitor from outside the city in expression of its hectic activity during the month of Ramadan, gained a new meaning after 130 years. A day of genocide in Gaza.

Dearborn is not sleeping today and we have not slept - says the mayor - because our entire city is haunted by the images, videos and stories pouring out of Gaza, so much so that life seems wrapped in a fog of sadness, fear, helplessness and even guilt, and now we are trying to understand how those we elected could use The tax money we pay to slaughter our relatives abroad.

Feeling betrayed

What compounds the constant fear and mourning is the deep feeling of betrayal. In the past three federal elections, Arab American voters in Michigan became a decisive and reliable voting bloc for the Democratic Party, and we were part of the wave that was delivered to President Joe Biden 4 years ago.

But our candidate seems to have forgotten this fact, and has come asking for our votes again while selling the bombs that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's army is dropping on our family and friends.

The mayor expressed his regret that his worst fears about his country’s government are true, as peaceful protests, no loudness, nor the number of calls it makes to government officials will change anything, stressing that Biden, who saved American democracy, may only remember being the president who sacrificed it for... Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024.

Dearborn is not the only city calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, as an opinion poll showed that 66% of Americans and 80% of Democrats want a ceasefire. However, the president and our elected representatives in Congress seem content to ignore the will of the American people.

The mayor recalled that two years ago, when Americans rallied across the country to provide support and assistance to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, “we did, too.” There are still blue and yellow flags flying on the facades of homes and businesses throughout my city (referring to the Israeli flag). But when Dearborn residents raised the Palestinian flag last fall, they were met with threats, “as if our president and members of Congress had turned their backs on us, and even the Democratic Party had turned its back on us as well.”

I choose hope

This month, she agreed to meet with senior political officials in the Biden administration; Provided they are open to withdrawing their support for the right-wing Israeli government that is now bombing Gaza - says the mayor - and “as I told the officials I met, words are not enough.

He added, "The only way to ensure unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza is through an immediate ceasefire. The only way to establish a just and legitimate Palestinian state is through an immediate ceasefire."

Four days after our meeting in Dearborn, the United States government watched Israel, which had besieged innocent Palestinian civilians in Rafah, one of the last safe havens in Gaza, besiege the city overnight, killing dozens, and I, like many of my fellow Americans, I cannot in good conscience support the continuation of genocide.

This has weighed heavily on my heart, especially with Michigan's presidential primary approaching, which is why I will be checking the box next to the word "uncommitted" on next Tuesday's presidential primary ballot, and in doing so, I am choosing hope.

I choose to hope that Biden will listen, and that he and those in Democratic leadership will choose to save our democracy, rather than aiding and abetting Netanyahu's war crimes. I choose to hope that our families in Gaza will have food, clean water to drink, health care, internet, and, above all, a just country. Where they have the right to decide their future, the hope that one day Dearborn will be able to sleep again, he said.

Source: New York Times