Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib tells fellow Democrats: reject Biden in primary

The progressive US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on her fellow Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary election – at the expense of the party’s incumbent, Joe Biden – in late February.

Appearing in a video posted to X on Saturday by Listen to Michigan, a political campaign to encourage the state’s voters to vote “uncommitted” in the 27 February primary, Tlaib justified her stark display of displeasure with Biden by alluding to Israel’s military strikes on Gaza, which local authorities say have killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians since last October.

Tlaib – Congress’s only Palestinian American lawmaker – also criticized the Biden White House’s support for Israel, which launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks that killed about 1,200 Israelis.

Speaking in front of the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, which has one of the US’s largest populations of Arab Americans, Tlaib said: “It is important … to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local elected [officials], and passing city resolutions all throughout our country. It is also important to create a voting bloc, something that is a bullhorn to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”

Tlaib added: “We don’t want a country that supports war and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza … This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government.

“If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted” rather than in support of Biden, the Democratic party’s