WASHINGTON: US Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his Cabinet picks, they tell Reuters.
“Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his Secretary of State pick and others,” said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump.
Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.
Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel for Secretary of State. Rubio said earlier this year he would not call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy “every element” of Hamas. “These people are vicious animals,” he added.
Trump also nominated Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and staunch pro-Israel conservative who backs Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has called a two state solution in Palestine “unworkable,” as the next ambassador to Israel.
He has picked Republican Representative Elize Stefanik, who called the UN a “cesspool of antisemitism” for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza, to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations.
Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), said Muslim voters had hoped Trump would choose Cabinet officials who work toward peace, and there was no sign of that.
“We are very disappointed,” he said. “It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement.”
Nazarko said the community would continue pressing to make its voices heard after rallying votes to help Trump win. “At least we’re on the map.”
Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and co-founder of the Abandon Harris campaign, which endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, said Trump’s staffing plans were not surprising, but had proven even more extreme that he had feared.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” he said. “We were always extremely skeptical...Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Several Muslim and Arab supporters of Trump said they hoped Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, would play a key role after he led months of outreach to Muslim and Arab American communities, and was even introduced as a potential next secretary of state at events.
Another key Trump ally, Massad Boulos, the Lebanese father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, met repeatedly with Arab American and Muslim leaders.
Both promised Arab American and Muslim voters that Trump was a candidate for peace who would act swiftly to end the wars in the Middle East and beyond. Neither was immediately reachable.
Trump made several visits to cities with large Arab American and Muslim populations, include a stop in Dearborn, a majority Arab city, where he said he loved Muslims, and Pittsburgh, where he called Muslims for Trump “a beautiful movement. They want peace. They want stability.”
Rola Makki, the Lebanese American, Muslim vice chair for outreach of the Michigan Republican Party, shrugged off the criticism.
“I don’t think everyone’s going to be happy with every appointment Trump makes, but the outcome is what matters,” she said. “I do know that Trump wants peace, and what people need to realize is that there’s 50,000 dead Palestinians and 3,000 dead Lebanese, and that’s happened during the current administration.”
Muslims who voted for Trump upset by his pro-Israel cabinet picks
https://arab.news/2nnsm
Muslims who voted for Trump upset by his pro-Israel cabinet picks
- Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe
- Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota said Trump’s staffing plans were not surprising, but had proven even more extreme that he had feared
Youth voters take center stage in Bangladesh election after student-led regime change
- About 45% of Bangladeshis eligible to vote in Thursday’s election are aged 18-33
- Election follows 18 months of reforms after the end of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule
DHAKA: When he goes to the polls on Thursday, Atikur Rahman Toha will vote for the first time, believing that this election can bring democratic change to Bangladesh.
A philosophy student at Dhaka University, Toha was already eligible to vote in the 2024 poll but, like many others, he opted out.
“I didn’t feel motivated to even go to vote,” he said. “That was a truly one-sided election. The election system was fully corrupted. That’s why I felt demotivated. But this time I am truly excited to exercise my voting rights for the first time.”
The January 2024 vote was widely criticized by both domestic and international observers and marred by a crackdown on the opposition and allegations of voter fraud.
But the victory of the Awami League of ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was short-lived, as a few months later the government was ousted by a student-led uprising, which ended the 15-year rule of Bangladesh’s longest-serving leader.
The interim administration, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, took control in August 2024 and prepared a series of reforms to restructure the country’s political and institutional framework and organize the upcoming vote.
About 127.7 million Bangladeshis are eligible to cast their ballots, according to Election Commission data, with nearly a third of them, or 40.4 million, aged 18-29. Another 16.9 million are 30-33, making it a youth–dominated poll, with the voters hopeful the outcome will help continue the momentum of the 2024 student-led uprising.
“We haven’t yet fully transitioned into a democratic process. And there is no fully stable situation in the country,” Toha said. “After the election we truly hope that the situation will change.”
For Rawnak Jahan Rakamoni, also a Dhaka University student, who is graduating in information science, voting this time meant that her voice would count.
“We are feeling that we are heard, we will be heard, our opinion will matter,” she said.
“I think it is a very important moment for our country, because after many years of controversial elections, people are finally getting a chance to exercise their voting rights and people are hoping that this election will be more meaningful and credible. This should be a fair election.”
But despite the much wider representation than before, the upcoming vote will not be entirely inclusive in the absence of the Awami League, which still retains a significant foothold.
The Election Commission last year barred Hasina’s party from contesting the next national elections, after the government banned Awami League’s activities citing national security threats and a war crimes investigation against the party’s top leadership.
The UN Human Rights Office has estimated that between July 15 and Aug. 5, 2024 the former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with “violent elements” linked to the Awami League, “engaged systematically in serious human rights violations and abuses in a coordinated effort to suppress the protest movement.”
It estimated that at least 1,400 people were killed during the protests, with the majority shot dead from military rifles.
Rezwan Ahmed Rifat, a law student, wanted the new government to “ensure justice for the victims of the July (uprising), enforced disappearances, and other forms of torture” carried out by the previous regime.
The two main parties out of the 51 contesting Thursday’s vote are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat, which in 2013 was banned from political participation by Hasina’s government, heads an 11-party alliance, including the National Citizen Party formed by student leaders from the 2024 movement.
“I see this election as a turning point of our country’s democratic journey … It’s not just a normal election,” said Falguni Ahmed, a psychology student who will head to the polls convinced that no matter who wins, it will result in the “democratic accountability” of the next government.
Ahmed added: “People are not voting only for their leaders; they are also voting for the restoration of democratic credibility. That’s why this election is very different.”
