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Black Muslim Leaders Call on Supporters Not to Vote for Kamala Harris Due to Gaza, Israel Policy
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US, Aug. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Erica Dischino
Black Muslim leaders across the United States are calling on their supporters to withhold their vote from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, accusing the incumbent US vice president of facilitating a so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
In a letter published by the Middle East Eye on Monday, 50 black Muslim leaders called on members of their community to embrace the legacy of “black liberation” by only voting for candidates who support a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms blockade on Israel. The coalition of Muslim leaders urged their followers to reject the notion that Harris would be better on domestic issues and that a Donald Trump presidency would pose greater danger to Palestinians.
“As black Muslims, we also know that the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza is a war on Islam,” the letter read. “The Israeli government and its unhinged army of cowardly criminals have filmed themselves destroying mosques, burning Qurans, and slandering our sacred religious figures. The supremacist Israeli government has also destroyed churches and attacked the Palestinian Christian community.”
The black Muslim leaders condemned the Biden administration for supporting Israel’s defensive military operations against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. The coalition also slammed Harris for not taking a more adversarial position against the Jewish state since she replaced US President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket.
“All of this has occurred under the watch of the Biden-Harris administration, which has provided steadfast military, financial, diplomatic, and rhetorical support for the Israeli government’s war crimes for four years, including at least $18 billion since the start of the genocide,” the group wrote.
The Muslim leaders lambasted Harris over her repeated refusals to implement an arms embargo against Israel. In recent months, anti-Israel activists have attempted to pressure Harris into agreeing to block weapons transfers to the Jewish state. In August, the her campaign released a statement denying any support for such a move and affirming Harris’s commitment to ensuring “Israel is able to defend itself.”
“Vice President Harris has explicitly opposed an arms embargo on the Israeli government even though US law requires it. She has refused to lay out any plan whatsoever to force [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire deal in Gaza that ends the genocide,” the letter stated. “She has validated the Israeli government’s efforts to spark a regional war with Iran, leading to instability in the region and the world at large. Just this week, she said that she would not have done anything differently than President Biden over the past four years.”
The coalition attempted to draw a parallel between the experience of black Americans and Palestinians, arguing that the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank are subject to brutal racial discrimination.
“As Muslims obliged to uphold justice and as black Americans whose ancestors experienced the worst of crimes, genocide must be our red line,” the letter added.
“There’s a false narrative that is being pushed that the majority of Muslims who are black are Kamala Harris supporters,” Imam Dawud Walid, a Muslim leader from Michigan, told the Middle East Eye. “There’s this narrative that is trying to divide the community to say that the majority of Muslims who aren’t black are supporting third party, but the majority of Muslims who are black are somehow divided from the rest of the community, and that’s not true.”
In the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election cycle, the Harris campaign has scrambled to coalesce support among Muslim voters. Despite aggressive overtures toward the Muslim American community, recent polls indicate that the vice president could experience a collapse of support among the demographic. Some polling data has shown Green Party nominee Jill Stein leading Harris among Muslim voters in the critical swing state of Michigan, while other polls show Harris and Trump tied with Muslim voters across battleground states.
Moreover, many Arab American leaders have continued to urge their community to withhold their votes from Harris, arguing that the Democratic party deserves “punishment” for supporting Israel. Groups such as “Abandon Harris” have encouraged Arab American voters to only throw their support behind anti-Israel candidates. Other groups such as the “Uncommitted Movement” have also pushed voters, especially in the Arab and Muslim communities, to refuse to cast a ballot in favor of Harris.
The post Black Muslim Leaders Call on Supporters Not to Vote for Kamala Harris Due to Gaza, Israel Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump, Harris Tied 47%-47% in Final CNN Poll
Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump points towards Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris, during a presidential debate hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Kamala Harris are tied at 47% each among likely voters, according to CNN’s last nationwide poll before the Nov. 5 election.
The poll, conducted by telephone Oct. 20-23 among 1,704 registered voters and released on Friday, had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points among likely voters and plus or minus 3.2 percentage points among the full sample of registered voters.
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2 Dead, Several Seriously Wounded After Hezbollah Rocket Hits Arab Israeli Town
The attack’s victims. Photo: i24 News
i24 News – Two Arab Israelis were killed by rocket shrapnel following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah on the Galilee town of Majd al-Krum.
The victims were named as Hassan Suad, 21, and Arjwan Manaa, 35.
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Israel and Hezbollah Trade Fire Across Lebanon Border, Blinken Calls for Urgent Resolution
A view shows damage at a site hit by an Israeli strike that killed a few journalists and wounded several others as they slept in guesthouses used by media, Lebanon’s health ministry and local media reported, in Hasbaya in southern Lebanon, October 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
An Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon on Friday, Lebanese officials said, while Israel said Hezbollah killed two people in a strike in its north as Washington pressed for a ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was an urgent need to get a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, a day after he said Washington did not want to see a protracted campaign in Lebanon by its ally Israel.
Israel launched its major offensive in Lebanon a month ago, saying it was targeting the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah group to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from the north due to cross-border rocket attacks.
Beirut authorities say Israel’s Lebanon offensive has killed more than 2,500 people and displaced more than 1.2 million, sparking a humanitarian crisis.
Friday’s strike killed two people in Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, according to Israeli media, and followed a statement from Hezbollah saying that it targeted the northern Israeli town of Karmiel with a large missile salvo.
“The world must stop Iran now – before it’s too late,” Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on X.
The conflict was sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered Israel’s offensive in Gaza, where Palestinian officials said Israeli strikes had killed at least 72 people since Thursday night.
The journalists killed in south Lebanon were Ghassan Najjar and Mohamed Reda of the pro-Iranian news outlet Al-Mayadeen and Wissam Qassem, who worked for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar, the outlets said in separate statements. Several others were wounded.
They had been staying at guesthouses in Hasbaya, a town not previously targeted, when it was hit around 3 a.m. (midnight GMT).
Five journalists have been killed in previous Israeli strikes while reporting on the conflict, including Reuters visual journalist Issam Abdallah on Oct. 13, 2023.
“This is a war crime,” Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said. At least 18 journalists from six media outlets, including Sky News and Al-Jazeera were using the guesthouses.
“We heard the airplane flying very low – that’s what woke us up – and then we heard the two missiles,” Muhammad Farhat, a reporter with Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed, said.
His footage showed overturned and damaged cars, some marked “Press.” There was no immediate comment from Israel, which in general denies deliberately attacking journalists.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said Israeli forces had fired at their troops in an observation post in southern Dhayra on Tuesday, leading them to leave the post though they remained at the base.
Israel has denied deliberately targeting the force but says Hezbollah has built strongholds in close proximity to UNIFIL sites. Its previous strikes on UNIFIL posts have drawn international condemnation.
BORDER CROSSING STRUCK
Israel has used airstrikes to pound southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs, and has also sent ground forces into southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.
The military said it struck weapon production sites and Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut as well as Hezbollah targets around the Jousieh border crossing in the northern Bekaa Valley.
It said Hezbollah used the crossing, controlled by the Syrian military, to transfer weapons into Lebanon.
Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh said the Israeli strike had knocked the Jousieh crossing out of service, leaving the northern route as the only way to Syria.
The UN refugee agency said the strikes were hindering refugees’ attempts to flee. UNHCR spokesperson Rula Amin said some 430,000 people have crossed to Syria since Israel’s campaign started. Lebanon has previously been a major destination for refugees from the Syrian civil war.
“The attacks on the border crossings are a major concern,” Amin said. “They are blocking the path to safety for people fleeing conflict.”
‘REAL URGENCY’
The Israeli campaign spiraled out of a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah, which opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, a day after it launched the Oct. 7 attack.
“We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along border between Israel and Lebanon,” Blinken said in London.
He said it was important so “people at both sides of the border can have the confidence to… return to their homes”.
Hezbollah has kept fighting despite heavy blows, including the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel said five of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, after announcing on Thursday the deaths of five others.
The Israeli military said it had uncovered an underground command center in a village close to the border with Israel and a site concealed in wooded terrain where Kornet anti-tank missiles, launchers, hand grenades and rifles were stored.
Washington has expressed hope that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks, could provide an impetus for an end to fighting.
Officials said on Thursday that US and Israeli negotiators will gather in Doha in the coming days to try and restart talks toward a deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who met Blinken in London, said “ethnic cleansing” was taking place in northern Gaza. Israel denies such accusations, saying it is separating civilians from Hamas terrorists and moving them to safer areas.
Safadi said: “We are at the moment now where nothing justifies the continuation of the wars. Guns have to go silent.”
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