There is some confusion brewing in the Muslim community over which if either of the major party candidates they should support in the upcoming election.
As my colleague Mike Miller posted (see NEW: Embattled Kamala Harris Surprisingly Losing Once-Solid Voting Bloc in Much-Needed Swing State), there is a lot of resistance among Michigan Muslims to voting for Harris. So much so that some consternation has developed over the impact this may have on the outcome of the race in Michigan.
“I personally don’t know anyone who would vote for Harris,” said Imam Hassan Qazwini, who founded the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights. Qazwini said he plans to vote third-party this year after supporting Biden in 2020.
Initially, Qazwini said, according to The Times, that many Arabs hoped Harris would “show some even-handedness and fairness in handling the conflict. But unfortunately, that was wishful thinking.”
“The conflict” being Israel’s two-front war, with one front in Gaza against Hamas and the other in Lebanon against Hezbollah. As I’ve previously asked, what constitutes even-handedness and fairness against radical Islamists who on one side murdered, tortured, and raped Israeli men, women, and children, while on the other side continued to indiscriminately fire hundreds of missiles into the Jewish state?
To shore up Kamala’s standing with Muslims, 51 intelligence professionals 100 ex-GOP officials 25 Islamic religious leaders have released a letter encouraging Muslims to vote for Kamala.
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.”
This letter was in response to an earlier letter signed by 76 “leading Muslim American scholars and imams” that encouraged Muslims to vote third party (they must’ve hired some “conservative” GOP consultants from 2012 to come up with this).
“We may not know what the future holds, but we know this: we will not taint our hands by voting for or supporting an administration that has brought so much bloodshed upon our brothers and sisters,” said the letter, released on Monday and seen by Middle East Eye.
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.
Apparently, this letter rocked the Harris campaign.
There are only 76 notables, but I guess no one told him that math would be used.
If Harris is struggling to lock down a previously captive demographic at this stage of the election, things are grim in other places.
On the macro level, the fact that the Muslim community in America is divided is a good thing. It is a sign that maybe they are developing a political maturity that realizes when you are allied with one party you lose all influence when the other party is in power.
