Discouraged by the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, Palestinian-American Samia Assed found a “tiny ray of hope” in the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris — and her running mate.
He said that hope was dashed at last month’s Democratic National Convention, where a request for a Palestinian-American speaker was denied, and listening to Harris left him feeling that the Democratic presidential nominee would continue US policies that have angered many in the anti-war struggle. camp.
“I couldn’t breathe because I felt invisible and erased,” said Assed, a community organizer in New Mexico.
Under different circumstances, Assed would have enjoyed the groundbreaking rise of a woman of color as her party’s candidate. Instead, he teases his ballot box options.
For months, many Palestinian Americans have struggled with the double whammy of increased Palestinian death and suffering in Gaza and their own government’s support for Israel in the war. Along with pro-Palestinian allies, they have mourned, organized, lobbied and protested when the killings and destruction appeared on their screens or touched their own families. Now they are also grappling with difficult, deeply personal voting decisions, including in battleground states.
“It’s a very difficult time for Palestinian youth and Palestinian-Americans,” Assed said. “There’s a lot of pain.”
Without meaningful change, voting for Harris would feel “like a stab in the heart” to him, he said. Meanwhile, Assed, a lifelong Democrat and feminist, would like to help prevent another Donald Trump presidency and stay engaged with Democrats “to hold them accountable,” she said.
“It’s a really tough place to be.”
He is not alone.
In Georgia, the bloodshed in Gaza has haunted Ghada Elnajjar. He said the war claimed the lives of more than 100 members of his extended family in Gaza, where his parents were born.
He saw the DNC as a missed opportunity to connect with voters like him. In addition to the rejection of the request for a Palestinian speaker, Elnajjar found a connection between US policy and Harris’s claim that he and President Joe Biden were working to broker a cease-fire and hostage deal.
“This will not end without US economic and military support for Israel,” said Elnajjar, who campaigned for Biden in 2020. “I’m an American citizen. I’m a taxpayer…and I feel betrayed and neglected.”
He will continue to seek policy changes, but will remain “non-committal” if necessary, leaving the top of the ticket blank. Harris needs to earn his vote, he said.
Harris said in his DNC speech that he and Biden are working to end the war so that “Israel is safe, the hostages are freed, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinians can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
He said he would “always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself”, but described the suffering in Gaza as “heartbreaking”.
While his recent rhetoric about Palestinian suffering has been seen as empathetic by some of those wounded by Biden’s war, the lack of concrete policy change appears to have increasingly frustrated many of those who want the war to end. Activists calling for a permanent ceasefire have called for a US arms embargo on Israel, whose military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
The war began with an October 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages.
Layla Elabed, a Palestinian-American and co-director of the Uncommitted National Movement, said there is still a demand for policy change. Nationally, the “unaffiliated” has garnered hundreds of thousands of votes in the Democratic primaries.
Elabed said Harris and his team have been invited to meet before September 15 with “non-aligned” movement leaders from key swing states and Palestinian families whose relatives have been killed in Gaza. After that date, he said, “we have to make a decision if we can really mobilize our base” to vote for Harris.
Without a change in policy, “we cannot make an endorsement” and instead continue to talk about the “dangers” of a Trump presidency, leaving voters to vote their conscience, he added.
Some other anti-war activists are taking the issue further, advocating withholding votes from Harris if there is no change.
“There is pressure to punish the Democratic Party,” Elabed said. “Our attitude is still taking up space in the Democratic Party” and pushing for change from within.
Some of the tensions surfaced at a rally in Michigan in August when anti-war protesters interrupted Harris. At first, Harris said everyone’s voice matters. As the chanting continued, with protesters chanting that they were “not voting for genocide,” he took a sharper tone.
“If you want Donald Trump to win, say so,” he said.
Nada Al-Hanooti, deputy national organizing director for Emgage Action, an American Muslim organization, dismisses as unfair the claim by some that traditionally Democratic voters who refuse to vote for Harris are actually helping Trump. He said the onus should be on Harris and his party.
“It’s a struggle right now to be Palestinian-American,” he said. “I don’t want a Trump presidency, but at the same time, the Democratic Party needs to win our vote.”
Although Al-Hanooti was dismayed that no Palestinian speakers were allowed on the DNC stage, he said he was inspired by how “unaligned” activists engaged Palestinians in the convention’s discussion. Activists were given space there to hold a forum on the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza.
“Our community must continue to push Harris for conditional aid and a cease-fire,” he said. “The fight is not over.”
She said she has never felt the kind of sadness she has experienced in the past year. In the girls of Gaza, she sees her late grandmother, who at the age of 10 was displaced from her homeland during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel and lived in a Syrian refugee camp, dreaming of returning home.
“It just completely tears me apart,” Al-Hanooti said.
He’s trying to channel his pain into pressuring elected officials and encouraging community members to vote, despite what he says has been an increase in indifference, with many feeling their voices don’t matter. “Our mission at Emgage right now is to get our Muslim community to vote because our power is collective.”
In 2020, Emgage — whose political action committee endorsed Biden — and other groups worked to maximize voter turnout among Muslim Americans, particularly in battleground states. Muslims make up a small portion of the American population, but activists hope that in states with sizable Muslim populations, such as Michigan, adding them will have an impact on nearby races — and show the community’s political strength.
Some voters want to send a message.
“Our community has given our voice cheaply,” argued Omar Abuattieh, chief of pharmacy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “When we can begin to understand our voice as a bargaining tool, we have more power.”
For Abuattieh, whose mother was born in Gaza, that means she plans to vote third-party “to demonstrate the power of a newly activated community that deserves future consultation.”
A Pew Research Center survey in February found that American Muslims are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than many other Americans, and that only 6% of American Muslim adults believe the United States is striking the right balance between Israelis and Palestinians. According to the study, almost two-thirds of registered Muslim voters identify with or lean on the Democratic Party.
But American Muslims, racially and ethnically diverse, are not monolithic in their political behavior; some have publicly supported Harris this election cycle. In 2020, 64% of Muslim voters supported Biden and 35% supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast.
The Harris campaign said it has appointed two people to reach out to Muslims and Arabs.
Harris “will continue to meet with leaders of the Palestinian, Muslim, Israeli and Jewish communities, as he has throughout his term as vice president,” the campaign said in response to questions, but did not specifically comment on the Non-Aligned Movement’s request for a meeting before Sept. 15. .
Harris is being scrutinized by those who say the Biden-Harris administration has not done enough to pressure Israel to end the war, and by Republicans who want to label him insufficient in his support for Israel.
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said Trump “will once again use force to ensure peace to rebuild and expand the peace coalition he built in his first term to create long-term safety and security for both the people of Israel and Palestine.”
Many Arab and Muslim-Americans were angered by the ban, which affected travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, and was reversed by Biden during Trump’s time in office.
In Michigan, Ali Ramlawi, who owns a restaurant in Ann Arbor, said Harris’ nomination initially helped him on various domestic issues, but the DNC let him down on the Palestinian issue.
Before the convention, he expected to vote Democrat, but now says he’s considering supporting the Green Party at the top of the ticket or leaving it blank.
“Our vote should not be taken for granted,” he said. “I won’t vote for the lesser of two evils.”
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