Hassan Abdel Salam, co-founder of the “Abandon Harris” campaign, speaks at an event with Workers Strike Back during an event endorsing Green Party candidate Jill Stein at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center in Dearborn, MI on Friday, Oct. 6, 2024 [Getty]
A coalition of Muslim and Arab-American leaders known as Abandon Harris expressed satisfaction on Wednesday over the electoral defeat of US Vice President Kamala Harris, attributing it to the Biden-Harris administration’s pro-Israel policies and inaction on securing a ceasefire to stop Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.
Posting on X, Abandon Harris said that they had repeatedly sought meetings with Harris’s campaign to discuss a ceasefire, only to be met with “ridicule, evasion, and condescension.”
In a statement, the coalition said: “A Trump presidency didn’t have to be inevitable. The Democrats had every opportunity to win this election with ease.”
“But instead, they chose to betray their base, abandon the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and align themselves with some of the darkest figures in American history- like [former Vice President] Dick Cheney,” the group added.
They argued that the Democrats made a deliberate choice, bearing sole responsibility for the outcome and the consequences for the country.
While Abandon Harris voiced serious concern over Trump’s past pro-Israel stance, they called on him to immediately implement an arms embargo on Israel and advocate for a permanent ceasefire in the Middle East.
Trump has historically positioned himself as a pro-Israel leader, infamously declaring in 2019 that he was “history’s most pro-Israel US president.”
Abandon Harris, which endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein in this election, promoted third-party voting as a means of elevating new voices.
Dr. Hassan Abdel Salam, director of the campaign, told independent news site Scheerpost on Tuesday that this election was “just the beginning” and expressed hope that their movement could disrupt the two-party system by presenting a “bulwark of conscience” that could ultimately influence party platforms toward more progressive policies.
“At Abandon Harris, we want policies to end genocide and torture, to bring an agenda of universal health care, an agenda to end racism in our country, an agenda for us to have economic equality,” he added.
The coalition’s efforts seemed to resonate with key communities, particularly in Dearborn, Michigan, home to America’s largest Arab-American population.
Preliminary results showed Trump narrowly winning in Dearborn, a significant shift from 2020, when outgoing President Joe Biden won the area decisively.
This shift suggests that voter anger with the Biden-Harris administration’s Middle East policies and Trump’s late-campaign pledge to reduce conflict there played a role in reshaping voter preferences in these communities.
