What do Dearborn, Michigan, and the town of Rochdale in Britain’s rainy north have in common? Turns out that’s a lot, despite the 3,600 miles separating them.
Stuck in the post-industrial economic slump, they each have around 110,000 inhabitants, many of whom are Muslim. Which largely explains the disproportionate role played by the war in Gaza in national politics on both sides of the Atlantic.
As elections approach in the United States and the United Kingdom, many questions weigh heavily on voters’ minds.
Immigration, in the form of illegal boats crossing the English Channel into Britain and America’s porous southern border; inflation; health care; employment and the economy.
But the Gaza war is perhaps the one that tops them all, not because it is important to the majority, but because it is fetishized as a super-issue by an increasingly militant minority.
As for the Jewish state, the July 4 British elections could be seen as a dry spell for the November American elections.
Just take a look at Mexico, where the Israeli embassy was literally burned down this week, in the run-up to the June 3 presidential election, in which Jewish candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is expected to triumph.
That’s why over the next month, American political strategists will be closely watching the race for number ten, particularly the role of towns like Rochdale.
The town has been left-wing since 1958. In February its Labor MP died, forcing early by-elections, a sort of dry run for July 4th.
Enter George Galloway, leader of the British Workers’ Party, known for his fedora hat as well as his friendship with Hamas.
Three of Galloway’s four wives are Muslim, and the leftist has long allied himself with radical elements of his faith. In 2009 he gave £25,000 to Hamas.
He attempted to declare Bradford, another heavily Muslim northern city, an “Israel Free Zone” and refused to debate former Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy in 2013 when he learned that Levy held an Israeli passport.
Galloway ran to represent Rochdale in March and won. His victory caused shock waves within the Labor Party. For months, party leader Sir Keir Starmer had resisted calls from the progressive-Muslim alliance for a ceasefire.
Galloway secured an almost entirely Muslim base. It was a form of revenge.
Is Rochdale predicting trouble for Labor on July 4? Is Dearborn a bad omen for Democrats? Last week, Labor broke with the United States to support the International Criminal Court’s trial against Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense chief.
This week, a leaked video showed Angela Rayner, the Labor vice president who leads another heavily Muslim constituency, begging a group of Islamic leaders to support her in the general election, promising to recognize a state of Palestine.
Back to Dearborn. In April, during Iran’s annual Al Quds Day rally, local firebrands delivered incendiary speeches and encouraged crowds to chant “death to Israel” and “death to America.”
Imam Usama Abdulghani praised Ayatollah Khomeini for calling Israel an “evil colonization project” and a “cancer.”
Dearborn’s citizens are 54 percent Arab-American, and the city served as a focal point for Rashida Tlaib’s “no-strings-attached” campaign against Prez. Biden in February.
Rochdale has a 36% Muslim population, but is just one of many northern towns where radical Islam has a foothold. While only 1% of Americans are Muslim, in Britain there are six times as many.
A photograph sums up the situation well: in front of an abandoned building there was a billboard promoting Akhmed Yakoob as mayor, with the slogan: “lend your vote to Gaza”. A recent survey found that 46% of British Muslims supported Hamas.
In my country and in yours, Muslim minorities, which themselves contain significant fundamentalist minorities, are not numerous enough to determine elections by brute force of numbers.
But they matter in battlegrounds like Dearborn, as well as in terms of party unity, which is crucial when it comes to winning elections.
After October 7, President Biden sent two aircraft carriers to support Israel – then faced increasing pressure from the left wing of his party.
With an eye on the upcoming election, he threw bones at the progressive-Muslim alliance, starting by saying Israel was going “overboard” and ending by withholding arms shipments.
Labor leader Starmer followed a similar pattern, resisting pressure to demand a ceasefire but pledging to end small quantities of British arms sold to Israel.
Recently, a British website called “The Muslim vote” appeared, which presents itself as “pro-democracy” and “anti-genocide.”
Supported by several dubious groups, he encouraged Muslims to vote for the party that defended their collective interests.
This increased pressure on Labor to comply with Islamist demands.
They may be few in number, but the dynamic of Muslim fundamentalists is such that they shape the politics of the international left far beyond any other major campaign theme.
Through social media, factions are guiding the course of popular culture – and perhaps the future of our two great nations.
Jake Wallis Simons is the editor of the Jewish Chronicle and the author of “Israelophobia.”
New York Post
