Trump or Harris? The Gaza war is driving many Arab and Muslim voters to Jill Stein | News about the 2024 US election

Dearborn, Mich. – On a sunny but cold afternoon, dozens of protesters stood on a street corner in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, chanting slogans against Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump.

“Trump and Harris, you can’t hide, no votes for genocide,” a young woman dressed in keffiyeh chanted into a megaphone. The small but spirited crowd echoed her words.

If not Trump or Harris as the next US president, then who?

The Abandon Harris campaign, which organized the protest, has endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, highlighting the growing divide many Arabs and Muslims from both major parties feel over their support for Israel.

Opinion polls show Stein is becoming increasingly popular among Arab and Muslim communities amid Israel's brutal war on Gaza and Lebanon.

Although it is extremely unlikely that the Green Party candidate will win the presidency, her supporters see the election for her as a decision of principle that can lay the foundation for greater future viability of third-party candidates.

Hassan Abdel Salam, co-founder of the Abandon Harris campaign, said more voters are adopting the group's position of ditching the two main candidates and supporting Stein.

“She best exemplifies our position against genocide,” Abdel Salam said of the Green Party candidate, who has been a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights.

The strategy

Abandon Harris has urged voters not to support the vice president on her promise to continue arming Israel while the U.S. ally's offensives in Gaza and Lebanon have killed more than 46,000 people.

Abdel Salam praised Stein as courageous and willing to take on both major parties despite recent attacks, particularly from Democrats.

For the Abandon Harris campaign, supporting Stein isn't just about principles; it is part of a broader strategy.

“Our goal is to punish the vice president for the genocide, then take the blame for her defeat and send a signal to the political landscape that you should never have ignored us,” Abdel Salam told Al Jazeera.

In addition to supporting the Abandon Harris campaign, Stein has also won the support of the American Arab and Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC), a political group based in Dearborn.

“After extensive dialogues with both the Harris and Trump campaigns, we have found no resolve to address the pressing concerns of our community, particularly the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon,” the group said in a statement last month .

“The need for a ceasefire remains paramount to Muslim and Arab American voters, yet neither campaign has offered a workable solution.”

AMPAC added that it supported Stein “because of her unwavering commitment to peace, justice and the call for immediate ceasefires in conflict areas.”

Democrats are noticing the growing support for Stein in Michigan's Arab and Muslim communities, where President Joe Biden won overwhelmingly in 2020.

Democrats target Stein

The Harris campaign released an ad targeting Arab Americans in southeast Michigan and targeting third-party candidates.

In the commercial, Wayne County Deputy Executive Assad Turfe says Harris would help end the war in the Middle East as the camera zooms in on a cedar tree – the national symbol of Lebanon – hanging from his necklace.

Turfe warns voters in the video that Trump would bring more chaos and suffering if elected. “We also know that a vote for a third party is a vote for Trump,” he says.

However, Stein's supporters categorically reject this argument.

Palestinian comedian and activist Amer Zahr, who is running for a school board seat in Dearborn, argued that Democrats should be grateful that Stein is on the ballot, calling the argument that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump, as “paternalistic”.

“The assumption is that if Stein wasn’t there, we would be out there voting for you,” Zahr told Al Jazeera.

“If there really were two parties and there were no other parties, I think most Arab Americans who vote for Stein would vote for neither. And in fact, if there were really only two choices, many of the people currently voting for Stein out of anger at the Democratic Party might choose Trump.”

Zahr, who was on a short list of candidates that Stein had considered for her vice presidential pick, also rejected the argument that a vote for the Green Party would be “wasted” because she was unlikely to win.

“I mean news flash: voters elect people who speak out on their issues,” he told Al Jazeera, praising Stein for speaking out against Israel and running as an “openly anti-genocide” candidate.

“For me, Jill Stein is a noble vehicle for expressing our deep anger and the mistrust and betrayal that we feel at the ballot box.”

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) released a separate ad last month also proclaiming that “a vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump.”

Stein has pushed back against that claim, calling the Democrats' attacks a “fear and smear campaign.”

She said on Al Jazeera's “The Take” podcast last week that the Democratic Party was after her instead of “addressing issues like the genocide that lost Kamala Harris so many voters.”

“I’m tired of the two-party system”

While foreign policy may not be the top priority for the average U.S. voter, numerous Arab and Muslim Americans interviewed by Al Jazeera last week said Israel's attack on Lebanon and Gaza was their top issue.

And since both major parties' presidential candidates have expressed uncompromising support for Israel, some voters are expecting Stein to break away from the two parties and chart a new course.

“I'm tired of the two-party system and their power politics where both sides on this bipartisan issue unanimously agree that they support Israel,” said Haneen Mahbuba, an Iraqi-American voter.

Wearing a keffiyeh-patterned scarf around her neck that reads “Gaza” in Arabic, the bespectacled 30-year-old mother raised her voice in anger as she described the violence that Israel, backed by the United States, is carrying out in Gaza and Lebanon .

Mahbuba told Al Jazeera that she felt “empowered” by voting for Stein because she did not give in to “fear mongering” about the need to vote for the “lesser of two evils”. She added that it was Harris voters who were wasting their votes.

“You are wasting your voice when you vote for the Democratic Party that has consistently dismissed us, disrespected us, silenced us and viewed us as less important,” Mahbuba said.

'Indistinguishable'

Stein ran for president in 2012, 2016 and 2020, but failed to make much of an impression in the election.

However, Stein's Arab and Muslim supporters say the Greens can improve results this year to show the power of voters who prioritize Palestinian human rights.

Wissam Charafeddine, a Detroit-area activist, said supporting Stein was the right decision both morally and strategically.

“I am the type of voter who believes that voting should be based on values ​​and not politics. This is the core of democracy,” he said.

Charafeddine, who has voted for Stein in the past, added that Arab Americans are fortunate to be concentrated in a swing state where their vote is increasing.

“If we work for Dr. “By voting for Jill Stein, we are not only voting for the right, moral platform that actually best aligns with our values, interests, desires and priorities, but it also takes into account the Palestine vote and the anti-genocide vote,” Charafeddine told AlJazeera.

Bottom line, advocates say the growing support for Stein shows that many Arab and Muslim voters have reached a tipping point with support for Israel from both major parties.

“Harris and Trump are simply indistinguishable to us because they have crossed a certain threshold that we can never assign to the logic of the lesser of two evils,” Abdel Salam told Al Jazeera.

“These are two genocidal parties and we cannot join either of them.”