Muslim drift to Republican Party stalls amid Gaza conflict

WASHINGTON — 

The war in Gaza is shaking Muslim Americans’ political loyalties ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

Disenchanted by President Joe Biden’s embrace of Israel, many Democratic-leaning Muslims who once backed him are now vowing to withdraw their endorsement.

But it’s not just Muslim Democrats abandoning their once-preferred candidate. Some Muslim Republicans are also wavering amidst their own party’s support of Israel.

Mo Nehad, a Pakistani American Republican activist in Fort Bend County, Texas, has seen up close the political effects of the Gaza conflict on Muslim American voting.

In late 2020, Nehad, who is a small-business owner, police officer and military warrant officer, helped found a grassroots group in a bid to engage the local Muslim community with the Republican Party.

Initially focused on opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and mask mandates, the group, called Muslim Americans of Texas, soon found a new cause: a conservative backlash to sex and gender education policies in local schools.

“We were essentially trying to tell the Muslim community, regardless of what has happened in the past overseas, let’s focus on national topics and events,” Nehad said in an interview. “And when you compare what traditionally a Democratic-elected president has done and a Republican-elected president has done [on national issues], a Republican-elected president is much better for the Muslims.”

The advocacy paid off, he said. While the Fort Bend County Muslim community remained solidly Democratic, a small number started crossing party lines, mirroring a pattern seen across the country.

“These are people who go to the same masjid as I do, people who are in the same home-school groups,” he said.

Then the war in Gaza broke out after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, testing the political allegiance of Muslim Democrats and Republicans alike, with both viewing their parties as equally pro-Israel.

FULL ARTICLE FROM VOA NEWS

Iowans respond to Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering U.S.

The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa has condemned statements Donald Trump made Monday calling for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

Trump, a Republican presidential candidate and businessman, said Monday the U.S. should not allow any Muslims to enter the country “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Trump said in a statement.

Connie Ryan Terrell, the executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, said Tuesday the group is “horrified and disappointed” by Trump’s comments.

“It is simply unacceptable for a candidate for the presidency to make such inflammatory statements that are based in bigotry and hatred about people for one religion,” Terrell said in a statement.

Democrat Ako Abdul Samad, an Iowa state representative and practicing Muslim, took to Facebook to express his own thoughts about Trump’s comment.

“Donald Trump’s bigoted words only divide people at a time when we need to be coming together and working as one country to protect and strengthen the ideals we hold dear as Americans,” Abdul Samad wrote. “As a practicing Muslim, and a proud American, I can tell you that the values of Islam are those of love, acceptance, and peace. We are as terrified, if not more terrified, by the terrorist attacks we’ve seen across the world. These violent acts in the name of Islam bastardize our religion–that is the fact.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE DES MOINES REGISTER 

The Republican Attack on Muslims

The Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is drawing criticism over the bigoted comments he has been making recently about Muslims. It is well deserved, and is not a matter of “P.C. culture,” as Mr. Carson has claimed. Nor does Mr. Carson represent some minor fringe element in the Republican Party.

This latest sordid mess to arise from the G.O.P. nomination contest touches on bedrock American values, constitutional principles and American history. It reflects a pernicious habit among the leaders of the Republican Party to play with fire by pandering to an angry, disaffected and heavily white base by demonizing selected minorities. Muslims are just the current target.

Mr. Carson declared Sunday on ”Meet the Press” that Muslims are unfit to run for president because a president’s faith should be “consistent with the Constitution.” Later, he told the newspaper The Hill that Islamic Shariah law isn’t consistent with the Constitution because “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”

Leave aside for a moment the unintentionally funny spectacle of a member of the current Republican Party declaring that religion should be kept out of public life, and that Mr. Carson, as an African-American, is a member of a much belittled minority. The freedom of religion embedded in the First Amendment rules out the very idea of a religious test for public office, as John F. Kennedy so eloquently argued and then proved by becoming the first Catholic president.

As for Shariah law, Catholicism has canon law and Judaism has the Halakha and nobody is painting them as threats to the republic — at least not this year.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES