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Many Palestinian Americans, in recent months, have been reeling from the double blow of the rising Palestinian death toll and suffering in Gaza and their own government’s support for Israel in the war. Alongside pro-Palestinian allies, they’ve grieved, organized, lobbied and protested as the killings and destruction unfolded on their TV screens or affected their own families. Now, they are also wrestling with tough, deeply personal voting decisions ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
In some ways, Samia Assed — a community organizer from New Mexico — epitomizes the frustrations felt by many Palestinian Americans. Demoralized by the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, she found in Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascension — and her running mate pick — “a little ray of hope.”
That hope, she said, was shattered during last month’s Democratic National Convention, where a request for a Palestinian American speaker was denied and listening to Harris left her feeling like the Democratic presidential nominee will continue with the U.S. policies that have outraged many in the anti-war camp.
“I couldn’t breathe because I felt unseen and erased,” said Assed.
In Georgia, the bloodshed has been haunting Ghada Elnajjar, who said the war claimed the lives of more than 100 members of her extended family in Gaza, where her parents were born.
She saw in the DNC missed opportunities to connect with voters like her. Besides rejection of the request for a Palestinian speaker to take the stage at the event, Elnajjar found a disconnect between U.S. policies and Harris’ assertion that she and President Joe Biden were working to get a cease-fire and hostage deal done.
“Without stopping U.S. financial support and military support to Israel, this will not stop,” said Elnajjar who in 2020 campaigned for Biden. “I’m a U.S. citizen. I’m a taxpayer ... and I feel betrayed and neglected.”
She’ll keep looking for policy change signals, but, if necessary, remain “uncommitted,” potentially leaving the top of the ticket blank.
Layla Elabed, a Palestinian American and co-director of the Uncommitted National Movement, said the demand for a policy shift remains. Nationally, “uncommitted” has garnered hundreds of thousands of votes in Democratic primaries, and movement representatives have taken their advocacy to the DNC.
Harris, in her DNC speech, said she “will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself,” while saying the scale of suffering in Gaza is “heartbreaking.”
While her acknowledgement of the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza has been viewed as empathetic by some of those who had soured on Biden over the war, the lack of a concrete policy shift commitment appears to have increasingly frustrated many of those who want the war to end. Activists had called for a permanent cease-fire and an embargo on U.S. weapons to Israel, whose military campaign in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health officials.
The war was sparked by an Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.
Some of the tensions were displayed at an August rally in Michigan when protesters interrupted Harris. At first, Harris said that everybody’s voice matters, but as the shouting continued with demonstrators chanting that they “won’t vote for genocide,” she took a sharper tone. “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,” she said.
Nada Al-Hanooti, national deputy organizing director with Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action, rejects as unfair the argument by some that traditionally Democratic voters who withhold votes from Harris in protest are helping Trump, saying the burden should be on Harris and her party to do better.
“Right now, it’s a struggle being a Palestinian American,” she said. “I don’t want a Trump presidency, but, at the same time, the Democratic Party needs to win our vote.”
She said Emgage is working "to get our Muslim community to vote because our power is in the collective.”
A Pew Research Center survey in February found that U.S. Muslims are more sympathetic to the Palestinian people than many other Americans are and that only 6% of U.S. Muslim adults believe that the U.S. is striking the right balance between the Israelis and Palestinians. Nearly two-thirds of Muslim registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic party, according to the survey.
But U.S. Muslims, who are racially and ethnically diverse, are, also, like others, not monolithic in their political behavior, and some have publicly supported Harris. In 2020, among Muslim voters, 64% supported Biden and 35% supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast.
The Harris campaign said it appointed two people for Muslim and Arab outreach.
Harris “will continue to meet with leaders from Palestinian, Muslim, Israeli and Jewish communities, as she has throughout her vice presidency,” the campaign said in response to questions.
Asked about their outreach efforts to Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Americans and the U.S. policy concerns of anti-war voters, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, said the former president “will once again deliver peace through strength to rebuild and expand the peace coalition he built in his first term to create long-term safety and security for both the Israeli and Palestinian people.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.