Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declined to endorse Kamala Harris at a union rally in Detroit, where the war in Gaza is the top issue for the largest block of Arab American voters in the country.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, is the only one of the so-called leftist “Squad” that has not endorsed the Democrat candidate. The other three members – Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – endorsed Harris in July.
“Don’t underestimate the power you all have,” Tlaib told a get-out-the-vote United Auto Workers rallygoers. “More than those ads, those lawn signs, those billboards, you all have more power to turn out people that understand we’ve got to fight back against corporate greed in our country.”
Tlaib’s non-endorsement of Harris comes as a voter survey published on Friday suggested that 43% of Muslim American voters support the Green party candidate, Jill Stein.
After Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in 2016, Democrats blamed Stein voters for the loss of Michigan and Wisconsin to the Republican candidate. Some Democrats fear that the same scenario could play out again next week.
Earlier this year, during the presidential primary campaigns, about 100,000 Michigan voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” as a mark of protest against the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s invasion of Gaza after the cross -border Hamas attack in October last year that killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages, mostly civilians.
Israel’s attack on Gaza has since killed more than 40,000 people, with many of them women and children. In Lebanon, where Israel has now invaded to fight with Iran-backed Hezbollah, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded, the country’s health ministry reports. A quarter of those killed were women and children.
The US has been a staunch ally of Israel during the fighting, continuing to send arms to the country and limiting its public criticism of Israeli actions.
Tlaib has been critical of the Democratic party’s position on the growing and bloody conflict, saying it was “hard not to feel invisible” after the party did not include a Palestinian American speaker at its convention in Chicago in August.
In an interview with Zeteo, the news organization founded by former MSNBC host (and Guardian contributor) Mehdi Hasan, Tlaib said the omission “made it clear with their speakers that they value Israeli children more than Palestinian children”.
“Our trauma and pain feel unseen and ignored by both parties,” she added. “One party uses our identity as a slur, and the other refuses to hear from us. Where is the shared humanity? Ignoring us won’t stop the genocide.”
Harris has faced continued protests on the trail, as demonstrators call for her to break with President Joe Biden and support an arms embargo on Israel. Harris has said Israel “has right to defend itself”, and that Palestinians need “dignity, security”.
Confronted by a protester in Wisconsin two weeks ago who accused the Jewish state of genocide, Harris said: “I know what you’re speaking of. I want a ceasefire. I want the hostage deal done. I want the war to end.”
At a rally in Dearborn earlier on Friday, Tlaib the criticized Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who has been endorsed by the Muslim mayors of Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck.
“Trump is a proud Islamophobe + serial liar who doesn’t stand for peace,” Tlaib posted on X. “The reality is that the Biden admin’s unconditional support for genocide is what got us here. This should be a wake-up call for those who continue to support genocide. This election didn’t have to be close.”
