Black Muslim groups shun Harris for US president over Gaza war

The new statement, first reported by Middle East Eye, is the latest effort from Muslim community leaders – from imams to scholars, to activists to politicians – telling voters not to choose Harris in the upcoming November election over her unwillingness to commit to policy changes that would hold Israel accountable for its ongoing war on Gaza and now Lebanon, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese people.

“Although some Muslim Americans have nevertheless argued that our community must support Vice President Harris because of her positions on domestic issues or their belief that Donald Trump might be even worse on issues like Gaza, we respectfully disagree with their conclusion,” the statement said.

“As Muslims obliged to uphold justice and as Black Americans whose ancestors experienced the worst of crimes, genocide must be our red line.”

It adds that “we simply cannot support a candidate who participated in a genocide and now refuses to lay out any plan to end that genocide”.

The statement comes after a series of different statements and letters from leading figures and organisations in the wider Muslim-American community were published in recent weeks endorsing or shunning candidates for the US 2024 election.

On 20 September, a coalition of leading Muslim organisations in the US released a statement calling on voters to vote for candidates that both support a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo against Israel.

Then, on 30 September, dozens of imams from across the country signed a letter endorsing a call for Muslims to vote third-party in the election, with the goal of sending the Democratic Party a message about their outrage over the Biden-Harris administration’s steadfast support for Israel’s war on the besieged enclave. That letter has more than 130 signatories.

A week later, the Muslim-led Abandon Harris movement endorsed the Green Party’s Jill Stein for president.

“We call on Muslim voters to support only a pro-ceasefire and pro-arms embargo presidential candidate, as well as candidates down the ballot who support other just policies, including economic justice, religious freedom, healthcare for all, humane immigration policy, reforming the criminal justice system, and racial equality,” the statement from Black Muslim leaders read.

A copy of the statement was shared with MEE and organisers say they plan to share it on the same website hosting the previous letter from leading imams.

So far, 47 people from 17 states and Washington DC have signed the letter, and organisers of the effort say they are working to gather additional signatures.

While some Black Muslim leaders have expressed support for Harris, recent polling by the Yaqeen Institute has shown that only 32 percent of Black Muslims plan on voting for her in this upcoming election.

Many leading Black American activists and intellectuals throughout the past several decades have supported Palestinian rights and spoken against Zionism and US support for Israel, including Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, James Baldwin, and Angela Davis.

While media reports have claimed Harris has shown greater sympathy to Palestinians than President Joe Biden, Harris advisors recently stated that any sympathy shouldn’t be confused with a break from US foreign policy towards Israel.

For two decades, a majority of the faith community voted Democrat in presidential elections.

In 2020, 69 percent of Muslims voted for Biden over Trump. However, polling from the Council on American Islamic Relations showed that this past summer, Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, was tied with Harris among Muslim voters.

Yaqeen Institute’s polling conducted between 27 August to 8 September found that more than 50 percent of Muslims were voting for someone other than Harris or Trump. In that poll, Harris only received 14 percent of Muslim voters, while Trump got four percent.