Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday trekked to Muskegon Heights, where he claimed Arab and Muslim voters are making a “mistake” by walking away from the Democratic Party.

“When I read that people in Michigan are thinking about not voting because they’re mad at the Biden administration for honoring its historic obligation to try to keep Israel from being destroyed, I think that’s a mistake,” the 42nd POTUS told dozens at Christ Temple Apostolic Faith Church.

Bill Clinton criticized Michigan Muslims who are refusing to vote for Kamala Harris, calling it a “mistake” during an appearance in Muskegon Heights: pic.twitter.com/MYbealR0oG

— The Midwesterner (@Th_Midwesterner) October 31, 2024

“Because Donald Trump has shown what he wants,” Clinton continued. “And he claims it’s good for Israel, but I don’t think it is. I think we still have to find a way to share the future. We cannot kill our way out of conflicts.”

Clinton’s comments came as a Global Youth Movement launched a hunger strike campaign on Wednesday in an attempt to apply pressure toward peace, and secure more humanitarian aid to northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

In Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, lifelong Democrats have shifted to back Republicans and third party candidates over frustrations with the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of Hamas’ war against Israel.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

Walid Fidama, a Yemeni American who faithfully backed Democrats since gaining his citizenship in 1994, told The Midwesterner party leadership has ignored the concerns of Muslim and Arab Americans about the bloodshed in their homelands. Fidama helped found the Yemeni Democratic Caucus and for decades enjoyed close relationships with the state’s top Democrats, from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, to Attorney General Dana Nessel, to U.S. representatives and senators.

But at the Michigan Democratic Party’s convention it quickly became obvious Muslim and Arab Democrats were unwanted, he said, with party leaders generally ignoring folks like Fidama, and once-influential groups, including the Arab American Democratic Caucus.

“We got the message,” he said. “We’re going to give them the message in the way we like.”

In February, more than 100,000 Democrats voted “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary to register their frustrations with the Biden-Harris administration, and to demand the president call for a permanent ceasefire and halt all military aid to the nation’s closest ally.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

In the months since, groups including a now national Uncommitted Movement, and associated Abandon Harris campaign, have rallied at least 700,000 voters nationwide to do the same. The groups’ leaders reached out repeatedly to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to discuss the issue, but were largely rebuffed and blocked from addressing their concerns at the Democratic National Convention.

Others have been tossed from Harris events in Michigan and elsewhere.

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes made it clear Democrats have no actual solution to win back those supporters, relying instead on painting Trump as a racist in a misleading comparative analysis.

“We talk a lot about the truth of who Donald Trump is. We use his own words a lot of the time to remind folks about the things he’s said about immigrants, the things he said specifically about Muslims, the things he said about he would encourage Netanyahu to double and triple down on the work, the hateful work, that he’s already doing in the region,” Barnes told Forbes.

The focus, she said, is “just to let them know that while you may not be happy with where the Biden administration is and you may not yet be comfortable with where a Harris administration would be, either of those are much better for this community and for the world than Donald Trump.”

The Abandon Harris campaign endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, while the Undocumented Movement and other Arab and Muslim leaders are urging followers to vote third party.

And then there’s folks like Fidama and other high-level Muslim and Arab leaders who are casting their lot with former President Donald Trump, for precisely the same reason Clinton cited in Muskegon Heights: peace.

“We, as Muslims, stand with President Trump because he promises peace, not war!” Imam Belal Alzuhairi said at a Trump rally in Novi.

“We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine,” Alzuhairi said. “The bloodshed has to stop all over the world, and I think this man can make that happen. I personally believe that God saved his life twice for a reason.”

Other Trump supporters include Bill Bazzi, the first Muslim and Arab American elected mayor of Dearborn Heights, as well as Amer Ghalib, mayor of the nation’s only Muslim majority city – Hamtramck.

Polling from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in September found 69.1% of American Muslims generally vote for Democrats. In Michigan, 40% plan to vote for Stein, 18% for Trump, 12% for Harris, and 4% for independent candidate Cornel West.

Trump won Michigan in 2016 with a 10,704 vote margin, and Biden shifted the state into the blue column with a 154,000 vote margin in 2020, when the state’s Muslim voter population was 206,050, according to an Emgage report.

The post-election report showed Michigan’s Muslim voter population swelled by 27% between 2016 and 2020, meaning the number could be as high as 261,683 if that population continued growing at the same pace.

If the CAIR polling is accurate, it would suggest about 31,401 of those votes would go to Harris, and at least 162,243 Muslim votes would go to other candidates, including about 47,103 to Trump.