The letter comes as polling within the Muslim American community shows a major departure from the Democratic Party over the Biden-Harris administration’s unfettered support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which they along with rights groups and legal experts view is a genocide against Palestinians.
The letter calls on Muslims to instead vote for any of the third-party candidates, including the Green Party’s Jill Stein whose support has swelled among the Muslim American community in recent weeks.
“We want to be absolutely clear: don’t stay home and skip voting. This year, make a statement by voting third party for the presidential ticket,” the letter said.
“Equally important, vote all the way down the ballot for candidates and policies that stand for truth and justice, ensuring your voice is heard at every level.”
The letter, written and released in collaboration with the Abandon Harris campaign, was signed by more than three dozen religious leaders from all around the country, including Dawud Walid, Dr Shadee Elmasry, Imam Omar Suleiman, Dr Yasir Qadhi, and Imam Tom Facchine.
The imams who have signed the letter say the calls for Muslims to uncritically support Harris is fear-mongering.
“None of this is an endorsement of Donald Trump’s vile, racist agenda, which includes advancing the apartheid and genocidal interests of a foreign state while falsely claiming to put America first,” the letter said.
That is plainly not what I said, and again your insinuation is “Oh, you think genocide is unacceptable? Go die for it while I do nothing” because you are happy to embrace genocidal ghouls as long as they aren’t orange. Stop excreting shut-up lines like a fucking middle schooler.
Incidentally: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/middleeast/gaza-students-thank-columbia-protests-intl-latam/index.html
Oh look, we are both misunderstanding each other, posting protests as if I am against them. Look friend, neither of us like genocide. We both recognize it as a genocide. We both think action against the state in protest of the genocide to be a good thing. We both have probably participated in similar forms of action to that effect. Let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt on that front. My argument is that voting does not diminish any of those actions. But not voting does nothing but increase the chance of a worse outcome overall both in relation to the genocide of palastinians and the harm that would come domestically to other at risk folk.
Terms like “it legitimizes electoral politics” or similar are nice self justifications for ignoring that choice, but you and I both know regardless of choice in the matter, the genocide will continue. So keep protesting. Keep direct actioning up the place. But also, take the half second to engage in a wee bit of lesser evilism, even if it hurts our pride to do so.
There. I didn’t do any shut up middle school lines. I made an argument.