Although Hesham El-Meligy is making a pilgrimage to Mecca, 6,400 miles from New York, he finds his mind shifting from spiritual to political matters.
With Election Day upon us, El-Meligy, an Egyptian-American community organizer from Staten Island, has led the campaign in New York to push Muslims to vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
“Why am I voting for Stein? Because she is the only one speaking up for human rights in general and Palestinian rights in particular,” he said over the phone.
El-Meligy is not alone in his sentiment. Muslims across the country have rejected the Democratic Party, the Biden administration, and Vice President Kamala Harris for their failure to end “undeniable complicity” in what many regard as genocide in Gaza. About 60% of Muslim voters regard the war on Gaza as their top concern according to data collected by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding this past summer.
“This year the Democrats are on notice,” said El-Meligy. “They have snubbed us [at] every possible turn and continued to fund and arm a live-streamed genocide.”
Historically, Muslims, by and large, have been a solid Democrat voting block. But with Israel’s unrelenting wars on Gaza and Lebanon showing no end in sight, that soon could be changing. A recent poll by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indicates that Stein and Harris are neck to neck when it comes to securing the Muslim vote. Of the 1,478 Muslim Americans surveyed, 42% said they would vote for the Green Party, while only 41% said they would vote for the Democratic Party.
CAIR conducted the poll through a randomized list of 40,000 registered Muslim voters across the country as well as Puerto Rico, and military members stationed abroad. Of the 1,478 who responded, 1,076 of the responses were verified and matched to the national voter file.
In key swing states like Michigan, the data showed that 40% of Muslim voters plan to vote for Stein, compared to just 12% who plan to vote for Harris. Stein, whose growing popularity among Muslim voters is due in part to her pledge to stop the genocide in Gaza, is also leading among Muslim voters in Wisconsin and Arizona. With its large and organized Muslim population, Muslims’ lack of support for Harris in Michigan could potentially cost her the election.
The Detroit metro area is home to the country’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, both Muslim and Christian. During the 2020 election, Biden won Michigan by the skin of his teeth, by a mere 154,000 votes. Michigan’s overall Arab-American population, which numbers 221,631 strong, was instrumental in Biden’s slim victory.
“We very much value the Muslim support our campaign has generated,” said Sam Pfeifle, co-press director for Jill Stein 2024, in a statement.
For El-Meligy, not voting for the Democratic Party is a way to demonstrate political strength, he said. “It’s time to flex some political muscle and show them that we could make you lose,” he said. “If we don’t, why would they ever listen to us?”
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Between his pilgrimage and responding to off-hours WhatsApp messages because of the time difference, El-Meligy has had little sleep. He has been coordinating with organizers on the ground in New York to get out the vote for Stein. A longtime Democrat who has previously run for New York City Comptroller, El-Meligy is currently an elected Democratic Party Committee member.
But over the past few years, he has grown increasingly disillusioned with Democrats, citing continued aid to Israel and their ongoing destruction of the Gaza Strip. During the last primary, El-Meligy spearheaded the Leave It Blank NY campaign, bringing the national “uncommitted” movement to New York. The campaign urged Democrats to “turn in a blank ballot for Palestine” to pressure the Biden administration to call for a ceasefire.
Now with the general election coming to a close, El-Meligy has continued the push for Muslims to make their voices heard and exit the Democratic Party entirely.
“The voters have been choosing the lesser of two evils for decades,” he said. “Choosing [Democrats] as the lesser of two evils over and over, but [it] doesn’t work and we ended up with Genocide Joe.”
Although El-Meligy said he deplores former president Donald Trump, he believes that the Democrats have taken the Muslim vote for granted by failing to do anything meaningful to end the war in Gaza. As he sees it, a Harris loss would send a message to the Democratic party that Muslims can no longer be ignored.
Also Read: New York City High School Students Walk Out to Demand Ceasefire In Gaza
“I want Harris and the Democrats to lose, and I want the margin that goes for Jill Stein to be bigger than the difference between Trump and Harris,” he said. “That is the ultimate power. Showing that because of your position, whether it be Harris or Trump, you lost because of this number of votes that they could have had.”
That message has gotten the support of other community leaders. Abdul Aziz Bhuiyan, 66, serves as the Chairman of the Muslim Advisory Council of Nassau County as well as the chairman of the Hillside Islamic Center in New Hyde Park. An immigrant from Bangladesh, Bhuiyan is among the most influential Muslims on Long Island. Since the war on Gaza broke out last year, Bhuiyan has acted as his community’s conscience and has urged them to vote using their conscience come Election Day.
“Muslims are part of the American fabric,” he said. “For us, we are voting on principle. Both candidates are bad for America and both are bad for Muslims.”
Bhuiyan rejects any assertion that he would be wasting his vote if he voted for the Green Party or that a vote for Stein is an implicit vote for Trump. For him, he is voting for what he believes in, he said.
“Trump’s rhetoric and the way he did the Muslim ban and spewed out all the hatred made Muslim life really at risk during his time,” he said. “But what Biden and Harris are doing, giving money and ammunition to support genocide in Palestine, and right now Lebanon give Israel a free hand. As Muslims, we can’t allow that.”
The Muslim vote isn’t unanimous. In late October, during a rally in Michigan, the former president invited several Muslim leaders who proudly claimed that Trump would bring “peace in the Middle East.”
To Bhuiyan, this goes against everything the uncommitted movement stands for.
“Unfortunately, it’s very short-sighted,” he said. “If Trump can convince them he is for peace, peace for who? He is the one who wanted to do away with Muslims. I would not have done what they have done.”
El-Meligy echoes that sentiment.
“I’m not saying to vote for Trump, but the fear tactics against Trump are more about his rhetoric than his actual acts, but still I won’t vote for someone that says Muslims hate America. That’s against our fundamental principles.”
The movement, for El-Meligy, fundamentally comes down to exercising Muslim political power.
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“This year is the year to have an impact because if we don’t use this opportunity that’s it, we are done for a couple of generations,” he said. “The vote should be for a third party so we can register our numbers, our power, our voice in a meaningful manner. Voting for Trump or Harris, I consider it a betrayal.”
Bhuiyan doesn’t concern himself with what a Harris loss might mean. What concerns him is voting based on what he believes and the present circumstances.
“At the end of the day, we have no idea what is going to happen the day after, only God knows,” he said. “As a Muslim that is what our faith is. We dont ask about the future, we ask about the decisions we make based on what is in front of us.”
