The letter comes as polling within the Muslim American community shows a major departure from the Democratic Party over the Biden-Harris administration’s unfettered support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which they along with rights groups and legal experts view is a genocide against Palestinians.
The letter calls on Muslims to instead vote for any of the third-party candidates, including the Green Party’s Jill Stein whose support has swelled among the Muslim American community in recent weeks.
“We want to be absolutely clear: don’t stay home and skip voting. This year, make a statement by voting third party for the presidential ticket,” the letter said.
“Equally important, vote all the way down the ballot for candidates and policies that stand for truth and justice, ensuring your voice is heard at every level.”
The letter, written and released in collaboration with the Abandon Harris campaign, was signed by more than three dozen religious leaders from all around the country, including Dawud Walid, Dr Shadee Elmasry, Imam Omar Suleiman, Dr Yasir Qadhi, and Imam Tom Facchine.
The imams who have signed the letter say the calls for Muslims to uncritically support Harris is fear-mongering.
“None of this is an endorsement of Donald Trump’s vile, racist agenda, which includes advancing the apartheid and genocidal interests of a foreign state while falsely claiming to put America first,” the letter said.
Endorsement means you like them. This makes it clear they do not.
No, it do not mean liking something. Endorsement is an act of acceptation and/or support. Saying “voters should not cast their ballot for any other candidate but her” is an explicit endorsement.
Except that the people saying this are making a distinction between the two. Do you want to interpret what they are trying to say or do you wanna play word games? Disingenuous.
How in the world does the original statement not count as disingenuous word games to avoid saying “we support blue genocide”?
By specifically acknowledging that no matter the choice, the genocide will continue and purposely putting that concept at the front while also acknowledging between the two options, one will be better than the other. I mean, your currently providing GDP toward genocide. If it was so all encompassingly important to you, you would be more radical than to argue on Lemmy. Put your life on the line soldier, or accept that there is only so much us western haters of genocide can do in this specific case at this specific point in time.
You see communists on lemmy argue constantly that political action can and must extend far past voting, this isn’t the own you think it is, though your position of “Oh, you think genocide is unacceptable? Go die for it while I do nothing” has been noted as your not at all convenient conservative position.
Them palastinians will sure appreciate your direct action of not voting. That’ll fix them right up.
That is plainly not what I said, and again your insinuation is “Oh, you think genocide is unacceptable? Go die for it while I do nothing” because you are happy to embrace genocidal ghouls as long as they aren’t orange. Stop excreting shut-up lines like a fucking middle schooler.
Incidentally: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/middleeast/gaza-students-thank-columbia-protests-intl-latam/index.html
Oh look, we are both misunderstanding each other, posting protests as if I am against them. Look friend, neither of us like genocide. We both recognize it as a genocide. We both think action against the state in protest of the genocide to be a good thing. We both have probably participated in similar forms of action to that effect. Let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt on that front. My argument is that voting does not diminish any of those actions. But not voting does nothing but increase the chance of a worse outcome overall both in relation to the genocide of palastinians and the harm that would come domestically to other at risk folk.
Terms like “it legitimizes electoral politics” or similar are nice self justifications for ignoring that choice, but you and I both know regardless of choice in the matter, the genocide will continue. So keep protesting. Keep direct actioning up the place. But also, take the half second to engage in a wee bit of lesser evilism, even if it hurts our pride to do so.
There. I didn’t do any shut up middle school lines. I made an argument.
Yeah sure, they want to eat cake and still have it. That’s a gutter level sophistry nobody would ever eat except people wanting hard to believe it like you. And you call me disingenous, lol.
Also that cake is shit with poison topping, so bon apetit.