Muslims have long been second class citizens in America. This was made evident in the post-9/11 years, in the lead up to the Iraq War, and the systematic surveillance of Muslim Americans in mosques across the country. It was only in the last few years that many of us had begun to let our guards down; we could finally breathe a communal sigh of relief when liberals denounced Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim Ban.
With Trump in office, it seemed like Democrats were finally ready to commit to a diverse coalition of Americans that included Muslims and to combat the bigotry that was spreading quickly across America. Joe Biden’s election was welcomed by many, as Muslim organizations like the Council of American-Islamic Relations had worked tirelessly to win the Muslim American vote. This was despite legitimate concerns about Biden’s political record, which included enthusiastically backing the Iraq War. “Trump is worse,” they said.
The illusion of solidarity and acceptance that many Muslim Americans came to believe has come crashing down in the days since October 7, when Hamas launched a cross-border attack into Israel. As Israel declared war on the militant group, Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip have been caught in the crosshairs once more and have quickly become the majority of the casualties in the latest outbreak of violence.
The largely unconditional and uncritical US support of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in the face of concern from international humanitarian organizations, including the UN, has shattered whatever trust might have remained. Mainstream media journalists from CNN and MSNBC have roundly condemned Hamas but were not fazed by graphic images of dead Gazan children or by Israeli officials’ use of genocidal language, such as “human animals” when referencing Palestinians. American politicians have also used aggressive rhetoric in live television interviews, such as Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley suggesting that Netanyanhu “finish them, finish them … finish them!” and Senator Lindsey Graham declaring that “we are in a religious war here. … Do whatever the hell you have to do … Level the place.”
Unsurprisingly, Islamophobic hate crimes immediately began to spike at home. For many of us too young to remember 9/11, our parents gingerly warned us, “Be careful. Avoid eye contact, cover your face, and don’t go out if you don’t need to.” Almost overnight, there was a chilling effect; all of us understood that our presence was suddenly no longer welcome.
Muslims have long warned against the rhetoric used to demonize us. “Barbarians.” “Savages.” “Terrorists.” Such dehumanizing language, espoused by Israelis, condoned by Americans, and parroted by Western media talking heads is what killed 6-year-old Palestinian Muslim American Wadea Al-Fayoume. Stabbed 26 times, Wadea was just the latest Palestinian child to lose his life. This time though, thousands of miles from Gaza, in the safety of his parent’s apartment in Chicago. Condemnations of Islamophobia and renewed statements of solidarity with Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities have come too little too late. For little Wadea as well as Muslim Americans who trusted Biden in 2020.
The collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and genocide that is being carried out in Gaza has sparked international backlash and protests. The Biden Administration’s apparent apathy regarding Israeli war crimes against civilians in Gaza, even in the face of a mounting death toll that includes at least 3,500 children, could prove the final nail in the coffin for Biden’s reelection bid. In terms of Muslim support, it may also cost many Democrats who have, for the most part, toed the party line in supporting military aid to Israel.
Muslims, like other minorities in America, have long been held hostage by the illusion of choice that is the two-party system. Democrats bank on our votes simply because Republicans are a party, by and large, for conservative, Christian, white men. Democratic strategy has grown lazy, the DNC’s calculus believing that the minority vote was automatically guaranteed for any Blue candidates. And, indeed for sometime, it was. But it was this overconfidence that ultimately cost Democrats in 2016. And it may very well cost them again in 2024. If it does, I’m sure liberal pundits will no doubt blame Muslim and Arab Americans, just as some blamed Black and leftist voters in 2016.
As a Muslim American, as a woman of South Asian descent, and as a daughter of immigrants, I cannot, in good conscience, vote for a man who has greenlit genocide against the Palestinian people. We can hand wring all day about who is at fault for the current war, but the truth remains that Palestinian men, women, and children are being wholesale slaughtered in Gaza as I write this. One can argue that Israel does not target civilians, but their bombs do kill them. And they have routinely killed them for decades now. Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank are under assault as well, with 120 killed since October 7 alone.
America does not care about Palestinians, no matter how much politicians pretend they do. Where was America when Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen, was murdered by Israeli soldiers? Why did Western media not challenge the many lies that Israel told in the months after her death, even as Arab journalists provided testimony of her killing? If America could not even stand up for an American citizen shot dead abroad, or for the Palestinian Americans who currently find themselves stuck in Gaza with no way out, what assurances can Democrats actually provide Muslim voters at home?
For many of us, these last few weeks have been a wake up call. No matter how American, how “moderate,” nor how liberal we present ourselves, Muslims have once again been relegated to second class citizens at best, and terrorists at worst.
