Uncommitted, the national group of Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and Palestinian rights activists that emerged from primary-season voters protesting President Biden’s Middle East policy, took a big step Tuesday toward encouraging supporters to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a video detailing the plans and suggestions of Trump advisers to expel or displace Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, Lexi Zeidan, a Dearborn, Mich., resident and co-founder of the group, stopped short of endorsing Ms. Harris. But she concluded, “We have to orient less toward who is the better candidate and more toward what is the better antiwar approach in building our collective power.”
But in the video, Ms. Zeidan, a Palestinian American, bluntly said a second term for former President Donald J. Trump would be worse than a Harris victory. She detailed how Mr. Trump tilted U.S. foreign policy strongly toward the Israeli government in his first term and floated plans that “effectively dismantled any pathway to Palestinian self-determination.”
The video takes particular aim at Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a Republican presidency that was crafted in part by allies of Mr. Trump, who has tried to distance itself from its proposals, which include eliminating humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank while stifling pro-Palestinian protests at home.
The video includes clips of David Friedman, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Israel, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, who have proposed expulsions from Gaza and annexation of the occupied territories by Israel. It also shows a top Trump donor, Miriam Adelson, promising that the former president would pursue the Israeli far right’s policy aims without regard to world opinion.
“It’s clear Netanyahu will be doing everything in his power to get Trump elected,” Ms. Zeidan concluded, referring to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. “And we have to do everything in our power to stop him.”
Pro-Palestinian ‘Uncommitted’ Group Comes Out Firmly Against Trump - The New York Times
A group of imams endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in an open letter shared first with NBC News on Sunday, a critical boost as she steps up her efforts to win back disaffected Muslim voters amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The 25 Islamic religious leaders who signed the letter, which comes a year after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked the war, argue that Muslim voters have a duty to think logically about their voting decisions and that backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other options."
“She is a committed ceasefire candidate too and is the best option for ending the bloodshed in Gaza and now Lebanon,” they wrote.
The imams argued that former President Donald Trump is a threat to their community.
“Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure. Particularly in swing states, a vote for a third party could enable Trump to win that state and therefore the elections,” they wrote.
“Given [Trump’s] well-documented history of harming our communities and country, as well as what he has promised he will do to Muslims and Palestinians should he return, it is incumbent upon us not to allow our high emotions to dictate our actions to our detriment,” the letter reads.
The letter argues that the leaders have “a responsibility, an Amana, not to place our community in harm’s way."
Mohamed Elsanousi, a Muslim community leader who helped organize the pro-Harris letter, noted that most of the 25 signers are permanent imams with sizable congregations, including some from swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.
He said he hopes the support from religious leaders will make conflicted Muslim voters feel more comfortable voting for Harris, despite some prominent Muslim voices’ intense opposition to her.
“I am really hopeful that with this letter a lot of people will change their minds,” Elsanousi said. “The momentum [for Harris] in the community is growing.”
Muslim Faith Leaders Endorse Kamala Harris
Asked in Michigan what is his message to Muslim voters there who have lost multiple family members in Gaza and Lebanon, @JDVance says that Israel should be able to do whatever it wants and without Biden or Harris "micromanaging" them.
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 9, 2024
Sheesh. https://t.co/8Wjs5F0xit
