Amid anger over Israel, Harris courts Arab and Muslim voters. Will it work?
Al Jazeera
Critics question US vice president’s meetings with handpicked community members without change in Middle East policy.
Washington, DC – Despite touting her unwavering support for Israel as the country wages war in Gaza and Lebanon, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is trying to garner support in Arab and Muslim communities in the United States before elections next month.
In recent weeks, the US vice president and her team have held meetings with Arab and Muslim “community leaders” while receiving endorsements from Muslim individuals and groups aligned with her Democratic Party.
But many advocates argue that as long as Harris maintains her pledge to continue to arm Israel and refuses to distance herself from President Joe Biden’s unconditional support for the US ally, nothing will help her standing with Arab and Muslim voters.
Moreover, critics have slammed the private meetings by Harris and her top national security adviser with handpicked attendees – whose identities are often not made public – as not representative of the communities her campaign says it is hoping to win over.
“Such groups and faceless individuals are mere tokens for the Democratic Party, paraded by Harris’s campaign to check off a box recommended by an algorithm — a strategy she maintained campaigning on trends and memes rather than impactful policy,” Laura Albast, a Palestinian American activist in the Washington, DC, area, told Al Jazeera.
