Gathering at the annual MAS/ICNA convention, Muslim leaders from across the United States have urged voters to drop their support for President Joe Biden because of his administration’s unlimited support to Israel as it continued to massacre the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The annual convention of the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which takes place in Chicago every December, drew more than 30,000 to McCormick Place over the weekend.
Saturday’s rally by Muslim leaders culminated efforts by #AbandonBiden campaign, which has been urging voters of all faiths to “abandon him because he’s abandoned us” as Palestinian deaths mount since October, Chicago Sun Times reported.
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“Chicago really is the center of Muslim America,” said organizer Hassan Abdel Salam, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota.
“We’ve found a lot of reception in actively campaigning against Biden for violating a key promise of the Democratic Party: that we would respect life domestically and abroad, and that all lives matter.”
More than 21,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israeli bombardment since last October, according to Gaza Health Ministry.
Betrayal to American Muslims
Muslims saw the Biden White House’s decision to push back against international cease-fire as a “betrayal to Muslim Americans” who supported his 2020 presidential campaign win, according to Jaylani Hussein, another lead #AbandonBiden organizer.
“We never expected the president would have this paralysis around an issue that is so clear,” said Hussein, who also leads the Minnesota’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The chapter is not involved in the #AbandonBiden campaign.
Currently, hundreds of supporters are advancing the political effort in battleground states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, where narrow Democratic majorities elevated Biden to the White House.
“The Muslim community in the US as a whole may be small, but it is well-connected,” Hussein said.
“We helped vote him in, and we’ve been betrayed in such a significant way that we must help vote him out.”