While Israeli commandos rescued a 70-year-old man and 60-year-old man who were being held hostage in Gaza, Hamas supporters in America were taking an 81-year-old man hostage in D.C.
Hamas may be losing in Gaza, but it's winning in Michigan.
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib is now the latest Michigan Muslim terror activist to urge Hamas supporters in the state to reject Biden in the primary by casting an "uncommitted" vote.
According to Tlaib, who became the only member of Congress to refuse to vote to condemn Hamas rapes of Jewish women, her goal is to "create a voting bloc" to stop Israel's campaign to take down the Islamic terror group.
The campaign, misleadingly titled "Listen to Michigan," to pressure Biden into saving Hamas, is being run by Layla Elabed, Tlaib's sister, and its spokesman is Abbas Alawieh, who had served as Tlaib's legislative director and then as US Rep. Cori Bush's chief of staff.
The leading signatory of "Listen to Michigan" is Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud, who, after the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7, had addressed a pro-Hamas rally, declaring that Dearborn was "the city of resistance".
That same rally featured Osama Siblani, the publisher of the Arab American News weekly, with whom Biden officials had met in an attempt to end the pro-Hamas pressure campaign, and who told the Washington Post in 2003:
"Mr. Bush believes Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian factions are terrorists, but we believe they are freedom fighters."
The Dearborn mayor had spoken at a previous pro-Hamas rally at which Osama Siblani had threatened:
"We are the Arabs that are going to lift Palestinians all the way to victory. Whether we are in Michigan, and whether we are in Jenin. Believe me. Everyone should fight within his means. They will fight with stones. Others will fight with guns. Others will fight with planes, drones. And others will fight with rockets. And others will fight in their voice."
Michigan Muslims have decided to fight by taking Biden hostage while playing the victim.
Hammoud had recently convinced Biden to condemn a Wall Street Journal op-ed by a MEMRI counterterrorism researcher which exposed the level of terror support in Dearborn.
Hammoud then repaid Biden by doubling down on fighting to save Hamas from Israel.
The number two signatory is Michigan State Assembly Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash out of Hamtramck, the first all-Muslim governed city in the country, who has accused Israel of "genocide" and promoted a message urging "context" for the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7.
The Hamtramck politician was rapidly elevated by the Democratic Party to one of the top positions in the state after first being elected in 2020. Aiyash abused that power to first block a resolution condemning the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7 because it did not also criticize Israel, and complained that it neglected "the conversation around the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip, who for decades have endured mistreatment."
He has now decided to repay the Democratic Party by taking Biden hostage for Hamas.
Also signing on to the campaign is State Rep. Alabas Farhat, newly elected in the 2022 midterms, who claimed that asking him to condemn Hamas was a "racist dog whistle," and who has accused Israel of "apartheid", "occupation" and the "systematic murder of Palestinians."
Also listed is "Bill" Bazzi, Dearborn Heights' first Muslim mayor, as well as Dearborn Councilman Mustapha Hammoud, the son of Abed Hammoud.
Abed Hammoud, a Lebanese immigrant and an "old family friend" of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, had headed the Congress of Arab American Organizations alongside Osama Siblani, and had complained that a government crackdown on the Hezbollah Islamic terrorist group was "smearing the whole community".
"Now people are scared to even say 'I want Hezbollah to defend Lebanon,'" he had objected.
Despite that, the Obama-Biden administration had made Hammoud an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Hammoud is currently listed as the lawyer for Hezbollah financier Mohammad Bazzi: a "specially designated global terrorist" who has been described as "a player for senior Hezbollah operatives and senior Iranian leadership".
Hammoud, the other Hammoud, Farhat, Aiyash and multiple other Muslim officials from Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and across Wayne County, benefited from significant Democratic Party funding outlays. But they did not run for office or take power for the party, the country or for anyone or anything except members of their tribal group and its ideology of Islam.
Given a chance, they demonstrated that their only loyalty was to Islam and Muslim terrorists, not America or even the Democrats who brought them here, nurtured them and funded them.
At a recent speech, US Rep. Ilhan Omar, speaking in her native language, hailed Somalis as "people of one blood" and "people who know they are Somalians first".
"The US government will only do what Somalians in the US tell them to do," the translation describes the Somali Muslim congresswoman as saying. "They will do what we want and nothing else. They must follow our orders."
"Sleep in comfort knowing I am here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside the US system," Omar assured them.
That is the "Listen to Michigan" campaign writ large.
"We are on the road to a great victory here in D.C. and there in Palestine," Osama Siblani, who had openly expressed his support for Hamas and Hezbollah, boasted at the same rally at which Dearborn Mayor Hammoud spoke and at which other "Listen to Michigan" signatories were present.
To the Hamas caucus in America, they are fighting one war, whether it's in Israel or America.
And Democrats are learning the hard way that their new Muslim constituency has no loyalties or allegiances to anything except, as Omar put it, "people of one blood" and, as has been made clear in Dearborn, people of the same religion. And the issue goes far beyond Israel.
Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, the first all-Muslim governed city in America, is one of the "Listen to Michigan" signatories. Democrats squirmed when Ghalib banned flying gay pride flags, compared black people to animals and attacked Christians. He praised Saddam Hussein and Iran.
These are a few of the other things that Democrats have to accept from their new electorate.
"Listen to Michigan" and you can hear the mayor of the first all-Muslim governed city thanking a Sheikh and celebrating the "young people from the Salafi stream who came out with great enthusiasm and elected me." Salafis, like the Al Qaeda group, are a Jihadist movement.
"Listen to Michigan" and you can hear the Dearborn mayor hailing his city as a "city of resistance" at a pro-Hamas rally.
"Listen to Michigan" and you can see Michigan being taken hostage by Islamic terrorists. And that same movement is now bent on hijacking the 2024 presidential election. With Biden polling poorly, the Hamas supporters in Michigan are betting that they can either force Biden to save Hamas by imposing sanctions on Israel or that they can take credit for his election defeat.
The emerging narrative is that the Democrats aren't turning out voters because the party hasn't come out strongly enough in support of Hamas and against Israel. If the Democrats lose in 2024, that narrative will solidify and future Democratic Party presidential candidates will be warned to support Islamic terrorism and oppose those like Israel who resist it, or lose.
A handful of Muslim settlers in Michigan built up their state within a state, they've taken the Democratic Party hostage, and now intend to take the United States of America hostage.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
Eliot Schickler