As the United States hurtles toward Election Day, Arab and Muslim Americans distraught by the escalating violence in the Middle East are increasingly indicating that they're willing to use their voting power to voice their displeasure with their presidential prospects.
The Arab American Political Action Committee on Monday announced it would not endorse either Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris or Republican former President Donald Trump over what it described as both candidates' "blind support" for Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The move marks the group's first time declining to support a presidential candidate since its founding in 1998.
Osama Siblani, the AAPAC's media director and the publisher of the Arab American News, said that after voting for President Joe Biden in an effort to defeat Trump in 2020, he and other members of his community have felt betrayed as the Biden administration's diplomatic and military backing of Israel has led to carnage in Gaza.
"Look what Biden did in the last 12 months. Do I regret it? Absolutely. Am I gonna do it again? Of course not. We're not gonna do it again," he told Salon in a phone interview. "Let Trump win."
Siblani said that the PAC reached this conclusion after stalled talks with the Trump, Biden and then Harris campaigns throughout this year. The former president's policies made endorsing him a non-starter from the beginning, he explained. But seeing Harris propose a policy on Israel that resembled Biden's unconditional support except for her greater acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering and deaths left the PAC unwilling to endorse her either.
While he does not and "will never support Trump," he said he feels his community will face the same outcomes they've seen under the Biden administration should they actively support the Harris campaign. "We're standing right now in front of the same [choice] that has been made. So do we make the same decision?" he said.
Instead, the PAC has encouraged Arab American voters to refrain from making a selection in the race when casting their ballots and focus their energy on voting for the slate of largely Democratic local and state officials it has endorsed.
Muslim and Arab Americans have been critical members of the Democratic Party's base, boasting significant populations in key battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona that are far larger than Biden's margin of victory in those states in 2020. With polls indicating this year's presidential race will again be tight, it's possible their votes — or lack thereof — could sway the election results.
Trump has had low approval with the voting blocs because of past statements and his infamous "Muslim ban," which barred travel from multiple Muslim-majority nations during his presidency, according to Reuters. The former president has also been a vocal supporter of Israel and its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Arab and Muslim Americans, however, overwhelmingly supported Biden in the 2020 election. His seemingly unconditional backing of Israel as it carried out attacks in the Gaza Strip over the last year has sunk his support among those groups. An early October poll from the Arab American Institute found that Arab American support for the Democratic Party has deteriorated in the face of the Biden administration's handling of the violence in Gaza. Respondents identified as Democrats at the same rate they identified as Republicans at 38%, which is down from the 40% who identified as Democrats in 2020 and 52% in 2016, undoing the traditional party identification that saw the community consistently favoring the Democratic Party. The poll saw Trump and Harris in a virtual tie, at 42% and 41% respectively, with 12% indicating their support for third-party candidates.
A majority of polled Arab American voters also indicated that Gaza greatly influences their vote. Sixty percent of respondents said that they would support Harris if she were to either demand an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian aid to Palestinians or withhold diplomatic and military support from Israel until they implement a ceasefire. If Trump made the same demands, his share of the Arab-American vote would increase to 55%, the poll found.
For her part, Harris has made efforts to regain footing with Muslim and Arab American voters, recouping some of the support Biden lost among the demographics since she became the presidential nominee. A number of Muslim and some Arab American officials and organizations have since endorsed her, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, D, Muslim voter advocacy group Emgage Action, and Reps. Andre Carson, D-Ind. and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. (Omar has remained critical of the Biden administration's handling of the war, in August calling out her colleagues for "refusing to recognize the genocidal war that is taking place in Gaza" and begging "Vice President Harris to not lose democracy by not changing her policy on Israel").
Nasrina Bargzie, the Harris campaign's director of Muslim and Arab American outreach told Salon in a statement that the vice president has been working to earn every vote and unite the nation. She also emphasized Harris' "steadfast support" of the country's diverse Muslim community throughout her career.
"She will continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination," Bargzie said. "She is also working to address the suffering in Lebanon and bring about a diplomatic solution and ensure de-escalation and stability in Lebanon and the region.”
Still, a host of Muslim and Arab Americans have led a year-long charge in indicating they would refuse to cast a vote for the Democratic presidential candidate given Biden's handling of the war. In the process, they've met backlash from Democratic voters warning of a worse reality under Trump and accusations that they'd effectively be handing him the presidency.
Siblani rebuked those claims, arguing that the responsibility for the nation's ultimate choice for president should not fall solely on Arab Americans' shoulders.
"First of all, America has to present better choices. Second, the American people should be blamed for who is going to be the next president — all of us, not Arab Americans," he said, calling arguments that a refusal to vote for Harris will beget another Trump presidency "pathetic."
"It's not [just] us who are going to get Trump. It's America," he added. "It's the Democrats who made us get Trump, so why don't they take some responsibility?"
The Biden administration's support for Israel also sparked the creation of the anti-war Uncommitted Movement earlier this year. The protest campaign, which began as a Michigan-focused effort, encouraged distraught voters to choose "uncommitted" or "no preference" when voting in their states' Democratic primaries to apply pressure on the Biden administration for an arms embargo and to press Israel for a permanent ceasefire.
By the end of the presidential primary races in June, the movement had amassed over 750,000 "uncommitted," "uninstructed" or "no preference" votes, including write-in and blank-ballot protests in states without such options.
The movement sent some 30 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, which held a panel on Palestinian human rights for the first time. However, the delegates' relations with DNC leadership soured after the convention denied their request to allow a Palestinian-American to take the main stage.
Democratic Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, one of the Palestinian leaders recommended to speak at the DNC, said that the convention "felt like a massive vibe shift in the wrong direction." The shift away from the swell of excitement culminated in Harris' acceptance speech, which voiced support for a ceasefire and recognized Palestinian suffering but proclaimed the government would continue to support Israel and its right to defend itself under her administration, she argued.
With just a few weeks ahead of the election, Romman told Salon in a phone interview she's still hearing from Arab, Muslim and organizing communities that they have no interest in casting a vote for Harris and may skip the election entirely. With Harris appearing to align her approach to handling the war with the Biden administration's, she has nothing to convince them otherwise.
"The reality of the situation is that I don't have anything to go to somebody and say, 'Hey, Vice President Harris said X, Y and Z, that will lead to the end of this genocide.' And that's what I've continued to ask of her campaign," she said. "That's what I've continued to call for, that's what I continue to advocate for."
"People are rightfully and understandably furious and upset and angry that for a year, they've watched dismembered bodies [and seen] shrapnel with our American flag on it next to those bodies," she added, emphasizing that she understands the stakes of the election. "Our government has, literally, in some cases, made up excuses and ignored reporting that would have forced us to stop sending those weapons that are dismembering their bodies."
Israel's war in the Middle East has escalated over the last 12 months. Last month, the nation expanded its war to Lebanon for what it called a limited and targeted group operation against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group.
An Israeli airstrike in a Christian town in northern Lebanon, Aitou, on Monday killed more than 20 people, prompting Hezbollah to fire rockets at Tel Aviv. Another bombing Wednesday of the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in South Lebanon killed the mayor and at least five others.
The violence has also continued in Gaza, with the territory's health ministry reporting that Israeli attacks have killed 65 people and wounded 140 during the latest 24-hour reporting period, according to Al Jazeera.
Israel launched three separate attacks in Gaza on Sunday into early Monday. Israeli airstrikes killed four people taking refuge in a hospital courtyard in central Gaza and 20 people sheltering at a nearby school. The third bombing also killed five children playing on the street in Gaza City’s al-Shati camp, local health authorities said per The Guardian.
Videos of Palestinians being burned alive in the hospital compound fire circulated on social media in the aftermath, sparking more outcry and condemnation of the atrocities committed in the territory and the United States' role in providing the military aid that made it possible.
Israel maintains it is defending itself following the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that it estimated killed around 1,200 people, while 250 were taken hostage. It has denied allegations from the International Court of Justice that it is committing genocide.
The Israeli state has since killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry, displaced almost the entire population of Gaza and entrenched a hunger crisis. In Lebanon, more than 2,000 people have been killed, the Lebanese government said.
What's top of mind as she witnesses the carnage of the last year is "a lot of just anger and frustration and sadness because it doesn't have to be this way," Romman said. "I think that has continued to just come back up over and over and over again. It does not have to be this way, and it is beyond maddening."
Romman said that in order for Harris to make inroads with Muslim and Arab Americans at this point in the election cycle, she should push for the enforcement of U.S. and international war law and pursue an arms embargo that would stop the bombings.
"I think if she says that, it would go a really long way because that's what the community wants to hear," Romman said. "The community wants to hear that she will stop the bombs dropping on their loved ones."
Siblani suggested, however, that he had less faith in the Harris campaign to commit to such action and turn the tide both because of her obligations to Biden as vice president and because she has not made clear whether she actually believes in Biden's policy.
"I said at the beginning ... that we will wait, and we will listen, but there will be a time when we stop listening and we're going to start talking," he said, arguing that that time is now. "This time we are not listening to what they say. We're just going to decide what we're going to do. Whatever the consequences on November 5, we are ready to take."
This article has been updated with additional information and comment from the Harris campaign since it was first published.
