In April 2017, 44 percent of eligible voters said there is a “natural conflict” between Islam and democracy, according to polling by the Pew Research Centre.
Since then, attacks on U.S. democracy by conservative elected officials have helped persuade Americans that progressive Muslim women may be able to help. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are expected to head to Congress following the November 2018 elections.
Tlaib, Omar and all Muslim candidates were grilled about their positions on Middle East politics. Supporting Palestine is no longer political suicide for U.S. progressives, AlAraby reported.
Tlaib, a Palestinian-American lawyer, won a narrow victory in a crowded field in the Democratic primary in Michigan’s 13th congressional district, which covers Detroit. She is running unopposed in the midterm elections for the seat formerly occupied by John Conyers for more than 50 years. He resigned after allegations of sexual harassment. Tlaib is on track to become the first Muslim woman elected to Congress.
Omar, a Somali immigrant, won a primary in Minnesota to fill Keith Ellison’s congressional seat. Ellison is one of two Muslim men in Congress, along with Indiana’s André Carson, The Economist reported.
Donald Trump’s election brought five progressive Muslim women into politics. Three lost their primaries. These include Fayrouz Saad, who ran in Michigan’s 11th district; Deedra Abboud, who ran in the Arizona Senate primary; and Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, who ran in Massachusetts’s 1st district.
“Many predict a bright future for 34-year-old Ms Saad, the telegenic daughter of Lebanese immigrants.” — The Economist
Muslims represent 3.5-to-5 percent of the population, and two-thirds say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, Pew reported. Twenty-three percent of Americans brought up as Muslims no longer identify with the faith.
Tlaib’s district is the second-poorest in the U.S., so her focus will be on the concerns of her constituents — mainly civil rights and economic inequity. She “is keen to take the focus away from her religion. She also does not want to be drawn into a discussion on a two-state solution for Israel, or on the absence of liberal democracy in Muslim-majority countries,” The Economist reported. “The question she gets most often, she says, is whether she will sell out once she is a member of the House in Washington.”
Most progressive candidates ran on a domestic agenda and focused on economic equality and social justice, including Medicare for all, abolishing ICE, minimum wage, free college tuition, and opposing corporate financing of elections, among others.
“The issue of Palestine/Israel is at the center of conversations and controversies,” AlAraby reported.
For example, before her primary victory, Omar described Israel as an apartheid state and Israeli killing of protestors a “massacre“. Since then, she has spoken out against BDS — the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement that is working to end international support for Israel.
Drawing attention to the apartheid Israeli regime is far from hating Jews. You are a hateful sad man, I pray to Allah you get the help you need and find happiness. https://t.co/SvEXjlxlEN
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) May 31, 2018
. @IvankaTrump smiles, as blood spills on the streets underneath her! Heartbreaking to read 52 Palestinians, including several teenagers, were dead and at least 1,700 were injured in Gaza! #IsraeliCrimes #GazaMassacre #gazaprotests #peace pic.twitter.com/FMNMCVorEM
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) May 14, 2018
The pro-Israel J Street PAC endorsed Tlaib but dropped its endorsement when she came out in support of a one-state solution.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — a member of Democratic Socialist of America — won the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District, beating a 10-term establishment Democratic incumbent. Soon after, Ocasio-Cortez was asked to explain an earlier tweet where she described Israeli killings of Palestinian protesters in Gaza as a “massacre” and used the word “occupation”.
This is a massacre.
I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such.
No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else.
Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore. https://t.co/wJGATOtDsR
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 14, 2018
She backpedaled, saying she is not an expert on Middle East politics and “may not use the right words”.
“It was identity politics that help elect Donald Trump in 2016. As such, it comes as no surprise that these progressive candidates chose to downplay their own identities in their campaigns, and focus on domestic policies.” — Al Arabiya
Identity politics was a defining factor for Ammar Campa-Najjar, a Democratic candidate competing in November in California’s 50th Congressional District. He became a frontrunner in his conservative district after his Republican opponent, Duncan Hunter, was indicted.
Campa-Najjar is the son of a Mexican-American mother and a Palestinian-American father. He spent three years of his childhood living in Gaza.
