Michigan Muslim, Arab leaders rebuff Biden campaign team over Israel-Gaza response

Muslim and Arab American leaders in Michigan canceled a meeting with President Joe Biden's campaign team amid increasing opposition to his administration's response to the Israel-Hamas war, multiple people told ABC News.

«We're dumbfounded,» the National Executive Director of The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Abed Ayoub, told ABC News. «Why does this administration still believe that we're just going to be willing to meet with them with no movement on their part on our demands? And they've been the same demands since October, and nothing's changed.»

Deputy Wayne County Executive Assad Turfe, who had organized the planned meeting between the campaign and the community, was the one who canceled it, a person familiar with the decision told ABC News.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the Biden administration has faced calls for the U.S. to support a permanent cease-fire as emphatic protests over its staunch support of Israel persist.

On Tuesday, as Biden delivered a major campaign speech in Virginia on abortion rights, he was interrupted some 14 times by pro-Palestine demonstrators chanting, «Genocide Joe,» and «Cease-fire now!»

Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez traveled to Michigan on Friday to meet with elected officials in the Detroit-area. However, initial plans were for her to meet with 10 to 15 Muslim and Arab American leaders after her staff approached them to discuss growing discontent in their community, Ayoub said.

«We are aware that she is meeting with different individuals,» Ayoub said. «It's not a group setting … It's upsetting that they thought they had the right to go ahead and schedule this. They don't speak on behalf of the community.»

Several local leaders invited to meet with