It’s a Saturday afternoon at Al Madina Halal market and restaurant in Norcross, Georgia, and the road is 4 individuals deep for shawarma sandwiches or leg of lamb with saffron rice and two sides.
A tv on the wall by a bunch of tables has Al Jazeera correspondents reporting from a number of international locations on a cut up display about Israel’s assault on Iranian navy targets the day earlier than.
Mohammad Hejja is consuming yogurt, surveying the bustle within the retailer he purchased in 2012. There are customers and workers from Sudan, Ethiopia, Iran, Pakistan, Morocco and different international locations – a transparent signal of what makes surrounding Gwinnett county, with almost one million residents, the most numerous within the south-east.
Hejja has Jordanian and US citizenship, however his household is Palestinian. Troopers of the nascent nation of Israel drove his grandparents out of Palestine within the 1948 Nakba – the Palestinian disaster brought on by Israel’s creation.
Requested about how he expects his group to vote when People head to the polls subsequent week, he says: “Everyone is confused about this election.” His No 1 concern is to “cease the battle”, referring to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza and up to date assaults on Lebanon.
The problem is high of thoughts for Arab American voters nationwide. Some polls counsel Arab People may abandon the Democrats in droves over the Biden administration’s help for Israel; elsewhere, advocates and group leaders are urgently organizing to forestall a Donald Trump victory, warning about impacts within the Center East and on home points reminiscent of immigration if the GOP candidate is re-elected.
Lower than every week from 5 November, one factor is definite: “You can’t assess Arabs as a coherent voting bloc,” says Kareem Rifai, a Syrian-American graduate scholar at Georgetown’s Walsh College of International Service. Rifai, who co-founded the College of Michigan College students for Biden chapter in 2020, calls himself a “international coverage voter”, and is sticking with the Democratic candidate this cycle because of the occasion’s “robust stance on Russia”.
Rifai weighed in on the Arab American vote on X not too long ago, saying he was “pulling out my Arab Muslim from Metro-Detroit card” to let non-Arabs know that folks hailing from throughout the Arab world have differing takes on the upcoming election.
“Professional-Hezbollah socially conservative Arab group leaders … will not be consultant of Arab People in the identical method that secular liberal Arabs or Christian anti-Hezbollah Arabs, and so on, and so on, will not be consultant of all Arab People,” Rifai wrote.
On the similar time, earlier than this yr, Arab People have been clearer of their desire for Democrats – right now in 2020, Joe Biden led Trump by 24 factors, and exit polls confirmed that greater than 85% of Arab American voters backed Democrats in 2004 and 2008.
At this time, Arab American voters appear extra prepared to look previous Trump’s ban on journey from sure Muslim-majority international locations – and his vow to reimpose a ban if re-elected – in addition to his staunch help for Israel.
Michigan, Rifai’s residence state, is residence to an estimated 392,000-plus Arab People – one among 12 states by which 75% of the nation’s estimated 3.7 million Arab People stay.
However as if to underscore its swing state standing, dueling endorsements of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have come from Michigan within the final week alone. Over the weekend, a Yemeni-American group upheld Trump as able to “restoring stability within the Center East”. The next day, a bunch assembled on the American Arab Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, to again Harris, calling her “the primary to name for a ceasefire and likewise to name for Palestinian self-determination”. (The assertion additionally famous that “Arab People will not be a single-issue individuals, we care concerning the atmosphere, an existential situation for households and youngsters, staff, rights and a good wage, civil rights, girls’s rights and a lot extra.”)
Additionally within the final week, dozens of “Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Progressive” leaders in Arizona issued a assertion backing Harris, underlining that help for an arms embargo on Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza has primarily come from Democrats. “In our view, it’s crystal clear that permitting the fascist Donald Trump to turn out to be President once more can be the worst potential consequence for the Palestinian individuals. A Trump win can be an excessive hazard to Muslims in our nation, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine motion,” the assertion says.
Arizona is residence to an estimated 77,000 Arab People, based on the Arab American Institute.
In the meantime, again in swing state Georgia – with its estimated 58,000 Arab People – the staterepresentative Ruwa Romman spoke about her option to vote for Kamala Harris.
Romman is the primary Muslim girl elected to the Georgia statehouse and the primary Palestinian to carry public workplace within the state’s historical past. Talking with fellow Muslims and Arabs about this election “appears like speaking about politics at a funeral”, she wrote in a current article for Rolling Stone.
She believes that organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo can be simpler beneath a Harris administration. “I don’t understand how advocating for Palestine would survive beneath Trump,” she mentioned, including that a lot of her constituents – together with immigrants – would endure if he have been re-elected.
Over at Al Madina, proprietor Hejja was arriving at a distinct conclusion. His spouse has aunts in Gaza; she had not been capable of attain them in three weeks. “The minimal factor we are able to do is pray 5 instances a day,” he mentioned.
As for the election, he mentioned: “If the president of the US needs to cease the battle, he can – with one telephone name to Israel. He has the ability.” Hejja believes “if Trump wins, Netanyahu will cease the battle … [Trump] mentioned he needs peace, and I consider him.”
About 12 miles south-west, at Emory College – website of among the harshest police responses to pro-Palestinian protests early this yr – the Syrian-American senior Ibrahim had already despatched an absentee poll to his residence state of Kentucky, marked for the Inexperienced occasion’s Jill Stein. “I see it as an moral choice,” he mentioned of his first time voting for president.
“Voting for an administration that’s supporting genocide crosses an moral pink line,” he added, referring to Harris.
Fellow scholar Michael Krayyem, whose father is Palestinian, mentioned he would “in all probability be voting down-ballot” on 5 November, however not for president. “I can’t help Kamala Harris due to what her administration has carried out to my individuals,” he mentioned.
Romman says she feels this dilemma dealing with fellow Arab People deeply. On the similar time, she says: “Finally, on this election, I view voting as a strategic selection, and not an ethical one.”
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