“After extensive consultation, discussion, and deliberation, the American Muslim 2024 Election Task Force has decided to encourage American Muslims to vote for any presidential candidate of their choosing who supports a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a US arms embargo on the Israeli government, such as candidates Dr Jill Stein, Dr Cornel West or Chase Oliver,” read the statement, obtained by Middle East Eye.

The statement was written by the American Muslim 2024 Election Task Force, an umbrella group formed this year that consists of a number of prominent Muslim organisations including the political arms of Americans for Justice in Palestine (AJP), Cair, and the US Council of Muslim Organizations.

“We cannot endorse Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy because of her refusal to even consider imposing the arms embargo on the Israeli government required by US laws and her failure to promise any other changes whatsoever to President Biden’s failed policy of steadfast financial, diplomatic and military support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the statement read.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    And if they bleed away enough people from Harris, that guarantees a Trump win. A 3rd party cannot win. The only alternative to Harris is Trump.

    You know, the guy who wants Israel to kill people faster:

    https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-israel-pr-hugh-hewitt-21faee332d95fec99652c112fbdcd35d

    “They’re losing the PR war. They’re losing it big. But they’ve got to finish what they started, and they’ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.”

    Who wants to revoke the citizenship from Americans:

    https://www.aclu.org/documents/trump-administrations-plan-strip-citizenship-thousands-americans

    Detain them in concentration camps:

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-does-not-rule-out-building-detention-camps-mass-deportations-2024-04-30/

    And do the same thing to Mexico that Israel does to Lebanon:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern_Lebanon

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/donald-trump-mexico-military-cartels-war-on-drugs-1234705804/

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      23 hours ago

      Sounds like Harris needs to try to win back disaffected Muslim-Americans turned away by her promise to continue genocide.

      • Philo@lemmy.ca
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        23 hours ago

        No, it sounds like disaffected people need to stop helping Trump win and start thinking.

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            3 hours ago

            It’s funny that by voting for anything other than the democratic party the US Muslim groups are urging voters to vote for Project 2025 and Christian Nationalism. I wonder where that will leave Muslims and other non-Christians?

        • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          22 hours ago

          It sounds like the Democrats need to stop aiding and abetting genocide if they want their votes.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          23 hours ago

          Easy to say when you aren’t the target. It is the job of a politician to win over voters they are shedding.

          Your line of thinking is that over half of Muslim-American voters simply “aren’t thinking,” which borders on racist. Instead, think about why they are doing what they are doing, and how that can change.

          • jaaake@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            Saying that people aren’t thinking isn’t how we should be having this discussion. The Israeli government, military, and many of its citizens are acting as a terrorist nation. Palestine should be a free country instead of one oppressed and murdered by its neighbors. These attacks should not be supported, funded, or supplied by any country, especially one that claims to value democracy (and yet continually acts against those values). The UN overwhelmingly supports all of the above. The US is wrong here. The US needs to change its stance.

            The US is political system is a two party system. It truly truly sucks that we do not have a ranked choice voting system. Currently, voting in national elections for a third party is only effectively denying a vote to one of the two major parties. (Local elections are a different story and the only way to possible route to national change of our two party system is to start locally.)

            Neither viable candidate has a good stance on Palestine. Of the two viable candidates, it should be obvious which one will have less negative impact on racial and religious minorities. It should also be obvious which candidate could possibly change their incorrect stance on Palestine once reaching office. I’m not saying there’s a large possibility, I’m saying ANY possibility.

            If all Americans were required to vote, and could only vote for one of the two major parties, which candidate do you think the vast majority of Muslim-Americans would vote for? In the world where you can choose to not vote, or support a candidate that literally has no chance of winning, all you’re doing is lowering the total number of votes for the candidate who closer aligns with your values. Yes, that’s the lesser of two evils. Yes, that does mean voting for someone who hasn’t taken a stance against the genocide currently happening. Yes, it feels awful to support someone that you don’t agree with on such an important topic. The alternative is worse.

            When protesting against our country’s stance on Israel and Palestine (which I will do until people are free from the river to the sea), I would much rather be protesting against someone with a shred of empathy rather than someone who is likely to engage the military to use deadly force and brutal repression against us who protest.

            • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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              2 hours ago

              The Israeli government, military, and many of its citizens are acting as a terrorist nation. Palestine should be a free country instead of one oppressed and murdered by its neighbors. These attacks should not be supported, funded, or supplied by any country, especially one that claims to value democracy (and yet continually acts against those values). The UN overwhelmingly supports all of the above. The US is wrong here. The US needs to change its stance.

              Why does the US support Israel, and why has it for so long? The answer will show the course we need to take.

              The US is political system is a two party system. It truly truly sucks that we do not have a ranked choice voting system. Currently, voting in national elections for a third party is only effectively denying a vote to one of the two major parties. (Local elections are a different story and the only way to possible route to national change of our two party system is to start locally.)

              It does more than that, it signals where people are willing to vote.

              Neither viable candidate has a good stance on Palestine. Of the two viable candidates, it should be obvious which one will have less negative impact on racial and religious minorities. It should also be obvious which candidate could possibly change their incorrect stance on Palestine once reaching office. I’m not saying there’s a large possibility, I’m saying ANY possibility.

              Neither candidate has any possibility of changing unless they fear losing the election because of it. The genocide isn’t a moral choice, but economic.

              If all Americans were required to vote, and could only vote for one of the two major parties, which candidate do you think the vast majority of Muslim-Americans would vote for?

              If we lived in such a dictatorship, then I believe Muslim-Americans would join Leftists in organizing outside of the electoral system and help build up Dual Power.

              When protesting against our country’s stance on Israel and Palestine (which I will do until people are free from the river to the sea), I would much rather be protesting against someone with a shred of empathy rather than someone who is likely to engage the military to use deadly force and brutal repression against us who protest.

              Neither have a shred of empathy, and Tim Walz sent in the National Guard to disappear BLM protestors under Trump. Neither are good, both are evil, neither care.

              • jaaake@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                So what are you going to do about it, and why is that better than making a choice between one of the two candidates that will definitely be in office in less than 4 months?

                • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                  2 hours ago

                  Organize with my fellow leftists and continue to push for Revolution, which we know factually works, rather than trying to push for reform, which we know factually doesn’t work.

                  I’ll probably end up voting for Claudia De La Crúz of PSL.

                  • jaaake@lemmy.world
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                    2 hours ago

                    I’m all for revolution. It’s not going to happen at the scale needed before the upcoming presidential election. Depending on where you live, that vote is either going to do nothing, or make a revolution more likely to be stomped out by authoritarianism before it can reach the critical mass needed to enact change.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Problem: She’s not advocating for continued genocide:

        https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-face-black-journalists-questions-philadelphia-2024-09-17/

        Speaking in Philadelphia to the National Association of Black Journalists, she called for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants, a two-state solution and Middle East stability in a way that does not empower Iran.

        Repeatedly:

        https://www.npr.org/2024/08/23/g-s1-19232/kamala-harris-israel-gaza-dnc

        She and President Biden are still pushing for a cease-fire deal that sees the hostages released, the fighting in Gaza to end and so “Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self determination.”

        https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0lx2xgn55o

        Ms Harris said “far too many” civilians had been killed "yet again"and reiterated calls for a hostage deal and a ceasefire, echoing comments made by the White House.

        None of that is “pro-genocide”.

        • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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          19 hours ago

          The Biden admin has corrupted “ceasefire” to mean “pause in the fighting to get the hostages back”. Biden has made a big show of cursing out Bibi on the phone and other performative bullshit, but he has not strayed from Israel’s side even as they’ve betrayed him and promoted Trump. Harris is the same, giving lip service to human rights activists and bombs to genociders.

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          18 hours ago

          How do you achieve those things without a weapons embargo? Harris has said that there will never be an embargo.

          She hasn’t even given the vaguest clue as to what her plan is. She’s just “working on it”. “24/7”, she says, and yet she somehow still has time to go to rallies.

          To add insult to injury, the Democrats wouldn’t even allow a Palestinian-American to speak during their convention. They allowed a bunch of Republicans to speak, but not a single Palestinian-American Democrat.

          I heard the speech that the Palestinian-American rep wanted to give. There was nothing in it that should’ve upset the DNC. It didn’t even mention an embargo!

          If the Democrats keep spitting in your face, how long do you keep giving them your votes?

        • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          22 hours ago

          No, Harris and the Biden administration are pretending to push for a ceasefire deal, and Harris is pretending to give a shit about Palestinian civilians. They could have stopped this at any time with a phone call; it’s been done before.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          23 hours ago

          This is a continuation of Biden’s genocidal policies, not a new promise to end the genocide. The DNC is losing heavily in optics, so they are trying to fight optics with empty promises while maintaning unending support for Israel’s “Right to Defend Itself.” If you have any knowledge of Israel’s existence as a settler-colonial apartheid state, or why the US will always support it, then you know that Harris’s promises are hollow and empty, and signify continued genocide.

          Here’s a simple thought experiment: why has the US historically supported Israel, and how would that change?

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlM
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              20 hours ago

              If you can’t understand how holding candidates accountable is important, then what else is there to tell you. This isn’t about Trump making anything better, it’s about withholding vote from a candidate that does not represent you.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          Starts off saying Trump is worse and then turns to straight up lying and misinformation. Classic.

        • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          22 hours ago

          Problem: She’s not advocating for continued genocide

          Have you seen the vassal state comment up thread? He thinks the US has absolute control over Israel and that the war in Gaza is an expression of Biden and Harris’ will.

          This is not a productive conversation.

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            22 hours ago

            Have you seen the vassal state comment up thread? He thinks the US has absolute control over Israel and that the war in Gaza is an expression of Biden and Harris’ will.

            Not quite.

            Israel is a vassal state. It requires US support to continue genocide. The US supports Israel because Israel serves as a Bulwark for Imperialism in the Middle East to help ensure US Interests are respected. The genocide in Gaza is specifically a result of the entire Zionist project of Settler-Colonialism. It isn’t an expression of Biden and Harris’ will, but of their undying loyalty to the economic interests of the US Empire.

            Consider reading To stop Marx, they made Zion. Zionism is Antisemetic, fascist, and predicated on genocide.

            • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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              18 hours ago

              Zionism is Antisemetic, fascist, and predicated on genocide.

              An ethno-state is fascist? Who would’ve thought?

              As far as being antisemitic…if you love people, you don’t want to ship them off to some faraway country in the middle of the desert. It’s basically saying “Hey, we don’t want to deal with antisemitism in our country, so could you all just move to this other country instead? K thanx.”

              White supremacists and other racists love ethno-states. They think that every country should be like Israel. In fact, they want to turn the US into a country like Israel, except based around whiteness instead of Jewishness.

    • anarcho_blinkenist@lemmy.ml
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      16 hours ago

      You know, the guy who wants Israel to kill people faster:

      Biden sidestepped around congress twice to shovel guns and bombs to them faster than even the bloodthirsty Zionists in Congress could — who were already themselves bipartisanly moving to do the same. He 100% wanted Gazans wiped off the face of the earth before the elections hit. The only difference between them here is that Trump is being honest (dig that, your “lesser evil” is somehow being more duplicitous and dishonest than Donald Trump). You fixate on rhetoric and ignore tangible actions. Palestinians have said that both parties are the same for them. We can see it in policy. They’re the same for us in most cases, only difference being Trump doesn’t rely on working class margins to be given a mandate like the Democrats do.

      Detain them in concentration camps:

      So does Biden… In fact, so did Obama. In fact Obama was known amongst immigrant rights groups as the “Deporter-in-Chief” because of how draconian he was in both detainment and deportation policy. And Biden not only didn’t shut down the concentration camps, but deregulated them and allowed for and advertised with state money the private subcontracting of these concentration camps for private profit. Which is somehow worse than Trump was.

      I wouldn’t use this talking point because this whole presidency and openly now in-campaign has seen Dems try actively to outflank the Republicans on the right of immigration. He issued an executive order to fully close the border, a thing that was egregious enough that the courts blocked it for Trump. But now that it’s Biden it’s okay by you? Where do your political standards lie? Unless you’re just ill-informed, it feels like you’re just concern-trolling. And like the refugees to Europe, they’re fleeing from the bipartisan destruction, terror, debt-crises, and chaos caused by US empire.

      Who wants to revoke the citizenship from Americans:

      That’s something he tried in 2018, and while bad, is not ‘unilaterally revoking citizenship of Americans’ like your non-description insinuates, but was the DHS forwarding more denaturalization cases than used to be to the DoJ, where the actual process takes place, as ICE intended to review a lot more cases. These institutions are bipartisanly this way, and we’re seeing how Biden is increasing this regardless. Besides, the scale of this 2018 thing was very small compared to things right now that you’re distracting from; like the current genocide, homicidal and violent and for-profit border policies stricter than even Trump, homicidal nuclear brinksmanship and proxy wars by the democrats which are much more impactful and serious. And besides, Obama also drone striked US citizens. And more US citizens are in bi-partisan-supported prison than any citizenry in any country in history, imprisoned with a profit incentive, where they are in cases legally (read the 13th amendment) worked as slaves in the mass-incarceration prison-industrial complex, whose architect and primary instigator was none other than Joe Biden and the Democrat Clinton administration of which this campaign, now replacement-headed by Top Cop Kamala Handcuffs is a continuing rightward legacy of.

      Biden also, incidentally, helped create and push the Patriot act and has never stopped expanding funding and power to the DHS, ICE, NSA, CIA, FBI, Pentagon, etc. Kamala has no intention either, as Black organizers have been raided and burned out by the FBI on false ‘espionage act’ charges under Democrat governance. As anti-genocide protestors for Palestine are being violently repressed and arrested en masse and demonized or infantilized by Kamala, Dems and republicans, and corporate media. As poor people are being brutalized and arrested over $1.75 public transit costs in Democrat New York after the deployment of hundreds of cops to sit and watch turnstyles. As domestic workers are increasingly broken and lumpenized under the guns of of the ever-expanding fascistic police state set up and supported bipartisanly by the institutions and increasingly militarized under both parties. I mean Walz sent an army into Minneapolis to crush uprisings and to protect (mostly white-owned) property and institutions after the police murder of George Floyd, with the old “outside agitators” shtick.

      And do the same thing to Mexico that Israel does to Lebanon:

      This is incoherent; an empty comparison with surface level understanding (at most) about these nations and their situations. It’s also empty pandering by Trump and the most unhinged handful of Republicans who ride this kind of rhetoric (MTG, Graham, etc.). Trump’s not going to start a war with Mexico, and neither will the military establishment. Just like noone’s going to nuke Iran because the southern-belle-Holden-Bloodfeast that is Lindsay Graham slams his fist and hollers about it to rile up his base, This is a silly thing to get your underwear in knots over, especially when there’s real things you’re avoiding instead.

      As far as actions: we’re closer to WW3 than ever, with Biden’s nuclear brinksmanship fueled by arms-dealers; we’re witnessing the most televized genocide in history, a continuation of bipartisan genocidal foreign policy

      Biden in his first months of office to keep the region in chaos and suffering after everything they’ve done to keep it so for decades, straight up stole half of Afghanistan’s assets and crushed them with sanctions knowingly killing untellable tens of thousands of Afghan children and counting.

      You fixate on rhetoric and ignore action, and by appeasement you serve to legitimize the “two party” charade for all the billionaire imperialist exploiters, racketeers, murderers, and liars who both parties are funded by, speak for, and work for.

      V. I. LeninPolitical Parties in Russia

      To see what is what in the fight between the parties, one must not take words at their face value but must study the actual history of the parties, must study not so much what they say about themselves as their deeds, the way in which they go about solving various political problems, and their behaviour in matters affecting the vital interests of the various classes of society—landlords, capitalists, peasants, workers, etc.

      The greater the degree of political liberty in a country and the more stable and democratic its representative institutions, the easier it is for the mass of the people to find its bearings in the fight between the parties and to learn politics, i.e., to expose the deception and find out the truth.