I resigned because of US support for genocide, but we’re voting for Harris

Since then, we have used our platform to support the unprecedented Palestinian solidarity movement that has erupted over the past year and to push for an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo. I advocated before members of Congress, in the press, and on college campuses across the country. Lily joined the National Non-Aligned Movement at the Democratic National Convention to push for a Palestinian speaker on stage. We both engaged members of the Harris campaign about the inadequate handling of genocide.

Of course, there has been no material movement from Vice President Kamala Harris on the issue. Despite the well-polled preferences of his base, the Harris campaign believes he can win Tuesday despite the genocide — or maybe he’d just rather gamble it 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 that civilian deaths in Gaza are justified and that Israeli ​“they were there first”?

The best thing Harris could do before Election Day is call for an immediate arms embargo. It would motivate thousands of disaffected Americans, including many young people and swing state voters, to go to the polls.

We understand that some feel that voting against Harris is the strongest way to hold Democrats accountable — but we don’t think it’s our best chance to end the U.S.-backed violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon that they are still spreading around the world. region.

We’re not defending the two-party system whose flaws are blindingly clear — but in this election, if Kamala Harris loses, then Donald Trump wins.

We hoped that this election would become a referendum for Gaza. For us, that hope rested on the assumption that President Joe Biden, or at least Harris, would reconsider his stance on Israel if it looked like it would cost the election, either by alienating voters or instigating a bigger war. We were wrong.

If we were fundamentally wrong to imagine that an end to the Gaza genocide could ever be on the ballot 2024? While the horror we are witnessing is incomparable, it is also a culmination of policies that sustained apartheid, occupation and war that long predate the national political careers of Harris or Trump. WE 26 and 35 years and we never had the chance to elect a president who did not oversee the random slaughter and degradation of innocent Arabs in the region.

Former President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a catastrophic regime change-turned-civil war in Libya and began US support for Saudi Arabia’s blockade, starvation and bombing of Yemen, which has expanded under Trump. Before Biden sponsored Israel’s genocidal blockade, starvation and bombing of Gaza, he was a vocal supporter of 2003 the invasion of Iraq.

The United States has been at war in the Arab world for decades. We worry that our sincere hope to push Harris to confront decades of bipartisan militarism and dehumanization will end in disappointment. As she might say, ​“You exist in the context of everything you live and everything that came before you.” But that reality does not absolve Harris of responsibility, which is a necessary and just demand of anyone who proudly asserted his intention to arm Israel during its genocidal open war in Gaza.

Trump and Harris have both pledged unconditional support for Israel if elected. Unlike Trump, however, Harris leads a coalition with a growing number of lawmakers calling for an end to unconditional support for Israel, including several senators. co-sponsorship legislation to block arms transfers to Israel. Under a 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 a serious impact on many marginalized communities, and his allies are open about their vision, which includes many aspects of the Bill. 2025 such as mass deportations. Many will die because of restrictions on abortions, even in medical emergencies, and contraception and other reproductive health services will be limited. Legal protections for queer people would be undermined, and a Trump administration would support attempts to gut labor protections and attack unions.

While some Democratic leaders have a enthusiasm to criminalize pro-Palestinian protest, a Trump presidency would use all the tools of the state to oppress organizers and activists fighting the genocide. Authors of the Project 2025 recently released ​“The Esther Project,” a plan to infiltrate, surveil and criminalize pro-Palestinian organizers. It aims to delete all ​“anti-Israel sentiment,” which he equates with anti-Semitism, in the next two yearslabeling right-wing organizers, government officials and members of Congress ​“Hamas Support Network” and threatening them with prosecution, deportation, imprisonment or impoverishment.

For those who say it’s a sign of privilege to risk electing Trump given the dire threat he poses to American democracy and civil liberties, we agree. But it’s 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 in tandem and have no interest in shaming those who cannot bring themselves to vote for an administration with so much blood on its hands.

It would be disingenuous to promise that the election of Harris will save Gaza. Even if pressure within the Democratic Party mounts beyond our wildest dreams, it may not move Harris before the last Gazan is slaughtered, starved, or imprisoned (and before the last hostage dies). However, unfettered, total annexation and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank — as threatened by the Netanyahu government — is not yet in place and would face fewer obstacles under Trump.

Netanyahu himself knows this, and his own national security minister, an aggressive champion of the annexation of the West Bank, APPROVED Trump this summer. A Democratic administration would give us more time and more hope to move toward annexing the West Bank.

The next president will indeed exist in the context of what came before them: longstanding financial, political, reputational and bureaucratic incentives to make war constantly, usually in the Middle East, most outrageously against the Palestinians. Changing this context and attacking these incentives is not easy. But we know it will be easier under a Harris administration.

The day after Harris wins, we will continue last year’s progress to demand change and build political power with marches, organizing, advocacy, education, fundraising, actions and organizing resources.

We are under no illusions. It’s a long shot under Harris. Under Trump, it’s impossible.

Disclosure: Opinions expressed are those of the writer. Like a 501©3 nonprofit, In these times does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.