We publicly resigned from the federal government this summer because we felt complicit in US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We spoke out because we hoped our voices would increase the pressure to end it.
We are not defending the two-party system whose flaws are glaringly obvious – but if Kamala Harris loses in this election, Donald Trump wins.
We have since used our platform to support the unprecedented Palestinian solidarity movement that has erupted over the past year, and to call for an immediate ceasefire and an arms embargo. We have advocated this to members of Congress, to the press, and on college campuses across the country. Lily joined the Uncommitted National Movement at the Democratic National Convention to push for a Palestinian speaker on stage. We both called out members of the Harris campaign for their inadequate handling of the genocide.
There has, of course, been no material movement from Vice President Kamala Harris on this issue. Despite the well-surveyed preferences of her base, the Harris campaign believes she can win Tuesday despite the genocide — or perhaps she would simply rather risk that than give an inch to the pro-Palestinian movement. What other explanation is there for sending former President Bill Clinton to Michigan to tell voters about civilian deaths in Gaza? justified and that Israelis “were there first”?
The best Harris could do before Election Day was to call for an immediate arms embargo. She would motivate thousands of disaffected Americans, including many young people and swing state voters, to come to the polls.
We understand that some see voting against Harris as the strongest way to hold Democrats accountable – but we don’t believe this is our best chance to end US-backed violence in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, a violence that continues to spread around the world. region.
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We are not defending the two-party system whose flaws are glaringly obvious – but if Kamala Harris loses in this election, Donald Trump wins.
We hoped that these elections would become a referendum on Gaza. For us, that hope was based on the assumption that President Joe Biden, or at least Harris, would reconsider their position on Israel if it looked like doing so would cost them the election, either by alienating voters or a bigger war to provoke. We were wrong.
We hoped that these elections would become a referendum on Gaza. For us, that hope was based on the assumption that President Joe Biden, or at least Harris, would reconsider their position on Israel if it looked like doing so would cost them the election, either by alienating voters or a bigger war to provoke. We were wrong.
Were we fundamentally wrong to think that ending the genocide in Gaza could ever be on the agenda? 2024? While the horror we are witnessing is incomparable, it also represents a culmination of policies that supported apartheid, occupation and war and that long preceded the national political careers of Harris or Trump. We are 26 And 35 years old and never had the opportunity to elect a president who did not oversee the casual slaughter and degradation of innocent Arabs across the region.
Former President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a catastrophic regime change-turned-civil war in Libya, beginning US support for Saudi Arabia’s blockade, famine and bombing of Yemen, which expanded under Trump. Before sponsoring the genocidal blockade, famine and bombing of Gaza, Biden was an outspoken supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The United States has been at war in the Arab world for decades. We fear that our sincere hope to push Harris to stand up to decades of bipartisan militarism and dehumanization is doomed to disappointment. As she might say, “You exist in the context of everything you live in and everything that came before you.” But this reality does not absolve Harris of responsibility, which is a necessary and just requirement for anyone who has proudly asserted his intention to arm Israel during the openly genocidal war in Gaza.
An Israeli settlement on the Golan Heights in July 2020 is named after former US President Donald Trump. Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images
Trump and Harris have both pledged unconditional support for Israel if elected. Unlike Trump, however, Harris is leading a coalition with a growing number of lawmakers demanding an end to unconditional support for Israel, including several senators. co-sponsoring legislation to block arms transfers to Israel. Under the Harris administration, we believe there will be a greater gap in the armor protecting Israeli impunity.
Trump’s inevitable assault on civil liberties would have dire consequences for many marginalized communities, and his allies are open about their vision, which includes many aspects of the Project. 2025 such as mass deportations. Many will die as a result of restrictions on abortion, even in medical emergencies, and contraception and other reproductive health care will be limited. Legal protections for queer people would be undermined and a Trump administration would support efforts to destroy labor protections and attack unions.
While some leading Democrats a enthusiasm To criminalize pro-Palestinian protest, a Trump presidency would use every tool of the state to suppress organizers and activists fighting the genocide. The authors of Project 2025 recently released “Project Esther,” a plan to infiltrate, surveil and criminalize pro-Palestinian organizers. The goal is to eradicate everything “anti-Israel sentiment”, which is equated with anti-Semitism in the following two yearslabeling organizers, government officials and members of Congress as the “Hamas Support Network” and threaten them with persecution, deportation, imprisonment or impoverishment.
Those who say it is a mark of privilege to risk electing Trump, given the grave threat he poses to American democracy and civil liberties, we agree. But it is also a privilege to vote knowing that no candidate will send bombs to kill our families – a privilege that a growing number of Arab Americans do not share. We hold these truths side by side, and we have no interest in shaming those who cannot bring themselves to vote for a government with so much blood on their hands.
It would not be fair to promise that Harris’ election will save Gaza. Even if the pressure within the Democratic Party exceeds our wildest dreams, it cannot move Harris until the last Gazan is slaughtered, starved, or interned (and before the last hostage dies). However, the rampant, all-out annexation and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank – as threatened by the Netanyahu government – is not yet in full effect, and would face fewer obstacles under Trump.
Former President Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in 2020. Photo by Kobi Gideon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Netanyahu himself knows this, and his own Minister of National Security, an aggressive advocate of West Bank annexation, endorsed Trump this summer. A democratic government would give us more time and hope to avert the annexation of the West Bank.
We have no illusions. Under Harris, it’s a gamble. Under Trump that is impossible.
Indeed, the next president will exist in the context of what awaited them: long-standing financial, political, reputational and bureaucratic incentives to wage constant war, mostly in the Middle East, in the most outrageous manner against the Palestinians. Changing that context and attacking those stimuli is not easy. But we know it will be easier under a Harris administration.
The day after Harris wins, we will continue the progress of the past year to demand change and build political power with marches, organizing, advocacy, education, fundraising, action and gathering resources.
We have no illusions. Under Harris, it’s a gamble. Under Trump that is impossible.
Disclosure: The opinions expressed are those of the author. Like one 501©3 non-profit organization, In these times does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.