American Muslims face a real predicament this election. On the one hand, both the Democratic and Republican parties have failed the Palestinians. Although more Democrats than Republicans have distanced themselves from America’s sponsorship of Israels’ “Mighty Vengeance”, the Biden-Harris administration is running the show. 

Many Muslims are urging the community to abandon Harris to send the message that staunch support of Israel is a political liability.

On the other hand, many of the same Muslims understand that the Republican presidential candidate poses a unique threat to Muslims and American democracy. But they reason that having survived one Trump administration, Muslims and America can survive another. That would seem to underestimate the Trump threat.

Imam Tom Facchine has a good grasp of the nature of political power: for any group to wield such power, it must be feared or respected, not liked. And he maintains that Muslims must make sure Harris loses this November, by voting for a third party candidate. Those Muslims who choose instead to vote for Harris to avert a Trump presidency, he sees fit to call “sell outs”.

Sami Hamdi specifically urges Muslims to vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, and believes that together with their allies Muslims can garner five percent of the vote and thereby qualify for federal and state funding in future elections. This, Hamdi asserts, will break the two party system, and demonstrate that caving to the Israel lobby does not pay. 

Hamdi has a powerful delivery which is intended to Wow us, which may obscure the merits of his argument. But he is careful not to resort to name-calling.

Tom Faccine and dozens of fellow Imams have signed a letter calling on American Muslims to reject both Harris and Trump and vote third party instead. Their concluding paragraph contains this sentence: “The Democratic Party’s ongoing refusal to show any intention of reform, even as we witness the greatest catastrophe in modern history, along with the Republican promise to only worsen this evil, leaves us no choice but to take this step.”

And yet, growing numbers of Democrats are calling for the conditioning of American military aid to Israel, and as the sentence states, Trump’s policy promises even worse. (As a sidenote, as awful as it is for the Palestinians, the on-going bloodshed in Sudan is arguably worse.)

It is notable that the Uncommitted Campaign is not abandoning Harris.

I would like to propose another strategy for Muslims and their allies who are intent on changing U.S. policy regarding Israel and Palestine. Let’s start challenging any AIPAC-endowed incumbent legislators we can, with credible candidates in up-coming primaries. It is not too soon to organize and announce our purpose and begin searching for articulate and studied individuals willing to get in the public eye and make the case for a balanced policy on Israel and Palestine, among other foreign and domestic topics candidates should be versed on.

Muslims don’t owe Democrats anything. But politics will remain the art of the possible, and they would be wise to exploit the growing discontent within the party, rather than voting Green this election and handing the Oval Office to an insurrectionist and mentally unfit individual.