November Newsletter: America Votes

Welcome to Kawaakibi Foundation’s November newsletter! This month we've collated some opinions from Middle East observers on the upcoming U.S. elections, and its implications on Palestine, Lebanon and both Muslim and Arab voters.

Kawaakibi will also be hosting an online event on November 12th on the outcome of the U.S. elections and its implications on the MENA region. Keep an eye out for our announcement soon.

The last few months have been nothing short of traumatising. It goes without saying that a regional war compounding the existing situation in the Middle East has upturned our lives. On a personal level, one of our team has been displaced from his home in southern Lebanon, with his wife and young children. Meanwhile, other team members of ours from Palestine, Syria and Sudan are living continuously through the horrors of their contexts as images of death and destruction continue to fill our screens and feed. Executive Director Ahmed Gatnash wrote an editorial dispatch on our struggle as a MENA-centred human rights organisation.

Our colleague, Marco, also wrote about his experience evacuating Lebanon with his family - and ironically, how his work as a Bitcoin educator aided him through the process.

Kawaakibi's Network on America Votes

America Votes: For Arab and Muslim Americans, this election isn't only about Palestine - it's about finding power, Iyad El-Baghdadi

"Among Arab and Muslim Americans, the question of how to respond electorally has already led to some very passionate and polarising conversations. While on the surface these disputes are about who to vote for, I sense a far deeper question.

Contrary to the common criticism, those refusing to vote for the Democrats in protest of their Palestine strategy are not "single issue voters" - but are a voting block concerned about power and influence within American politics. Decades of political work by the Muslim American community has not achieved tangible positive change to U.S. foreign policy towards the MENA or larger Muslim world - instead, we got successively terrible administrations, culminating in genocide. 

There is a real question worth asking: What can and should the community do?"

America Votes: For Arab and Muslim Americans, this election isn’t only about Palestine - it’s about finding power

Many are asking how this U.S. election cycle impacts Palestine—but perhaps a more fitting question is how Palestine is impacting this U.S. election. Still, both questions merit an answer. The choice is between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Trump, whose foreign policy in his previous term laid

Kawaakibi FoundationIyad El-Baghdadi

America Votes: Stagnant policies and community resilience, Jasmine El-Gamal

"A new Trump administration is likely to show unconditional support towards Israel, as he did during his time as President, whereas a Harris administration, while not fundamentally altering U.S. policy toward Israel, might adopt a somewhat more diplomatic approach to regional conflicts and attempt to pressure Israel to do more to address humanitarian issues and adherence to international law in Gaza and Lebanon. 

Domestically, this lack of a significant difference between the two candidates’ policies, as well as deep frustration with the entrenched two-party system in the US, has catalysed a "protest vote": A deliberate decision to vote for a third-party candidate despite the futility of doing so, or not voting at all."

America Votes: Stagnant policies and community resilience

Ever since the George W. Bush-era wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the so-called “War on Terror,” successive US presidential candidates, both Republican and Democrat, have campaigned on a promise of reducing the US footprint in the Middle East. Whilst different candidates outline different pathways to achieve that

Kawaakibi FoundationJasmine El-Gamal

America Votes: The cost of accountability is our future, Karim Safieddine

"Any election is about tough choices and costs. There is a cost for a Trump presidency. There's also a cost for Harris winning. With Trump, the battle for particular domestic rights becomes tougher. Certain institutional and democratic norms will be violated. With Harris, the world will know that those actively complicit in a genocide can be re-elected. The murder of 50,000 people will be trivialised and cast aside. With Trump, it’s arguable we will have an even more aggressive pro-Israel or Netanyahu administration, but how much does that even matter given the incredible leeway offered to Netanyahu by much of the members in Congress and other officials within a variety of U.S. institutions? How does it matter when every red line has already been crossed? 

While elections are about costs and wins, I argue that the biggest defeat today is one which allows us to lose accountability."

America Votes: The cost of accountability is our future

If we lose the ability to hold accountable, we lose the future. The US election presents a crushing reality: Kamala Harris’ administration is actively complicit in a genocide, whilst Donald Trump competes with her on doubling down on “finishing the job”, accusing her of obstructing an already accelerated machine of

Kawaakibi FoundationKarim Safieddine

Team Updates

Kawaakibi Foundation is now officially a registered non-profit organisation in the US, as well as Norway. We’re working in extending our programmes, political advocacy and trainings in these two contexts. Are you interested in working with us? Contact us on contact@kawaakibi.org.

Executive Director Ahmed Gatnash recorded a podcast with The Blockchain Socialist podcast, on Islamic economics and solving wealth inequality.