During the recent International Al-Quds Day rally, Tarek Bazzi (pictured above), a Michigan-based activist associated with the Hadi institute, urged rally-goers to "pour all of [their] shouts upon the head of America."
"Death to America" was the crowd's response.
Nicholas Fondacaro of the Media Research Center (MRC) says it may be normal to hear that kind of thing in Baghdad or Syria, but when those shouts are coming from the streets of Dearborn, Michigan, one would think U.S. news outlets would be all over the story.
Instead, there has been silence.
"Most of the media still really don't want to cover this because it's all about the election to them," Fondacaro submits. "These are the people that they've spent the last few weeks telling Biden he needs to listen to in order to get their votes to secure the election in November."
When questioned about the rally by Fox News, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden condemned the chant.
"Peaceful protests are something that the president has … been very clear that it's important to give folks space to peacefully protest," she relayed. "But any type of violent rhetoric, we are going to denounce."
The war in Gaza seems to have the increasingly unpopular Democrat incumbent caught between the Left and far Left of his party.
"The pro-Palestinian side is so vocal, so out there, the media wants him to appeal to these people more," the media watchdog observes. "What they're not really taking into account is that you have the people like who Senator [John] Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) represents, who are taking that strong pro-Israel stance and pro anti-terrorist stance."
Fondacaro says the press sees the bind Biden is in.
"They want him to keep his distance; nobody wants to ask him the questions, bring it up to have him on the record making some sort of statements about this," he says.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) has been silent since the rally, but Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (D) publicly denounced the chants, calling them "unacceptable and contrary to the heart" of Dearborn.
International Al-Quds Day, an annual pro-Palestinian event that is held on the last Friday of Ramadan, enjoys significant support in Dearborn, which has the highest proportion of Muslim residents in the country.
