News Release

Muslim and Arab American Support for Sanders

Share

FAIRFAX, VA - OCTOBER 28:  Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) hugs Muslim student Remaz Abdelgader during a "National Student Town Hall" at George Mason University October 28, 2015 in Fairfax, Virginia. Sen. Sanders continued to campaign for the Democratic nomination.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

AlterNet reports: “Mainstream media pundits appeared flabbergasted when Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly won (64-36) Dearborn, Michigan — the city with the largest concentration of Arab-Americans and Muslims in the country — because the presidential hopeful is Jewish. …

“While the mainstream media invoked the mythical age-old enmity with Muslims and Arabs on one side and Jews on the other, people who are actually from Dearborn took offense at this stereotype.

“’The media narrative in America is one that conflates Arabs and Muslims as anti-Semitic and conflates Zionism with Jews,’ Mohamad Naim, who lives in Dearborn and is a math teacher in Detroit, told AlterNet. ‘But you must not do that.'”

“Dearborn went to Sanders, who runs advertisements in Arabic, because ‘Arabs and Muslims are disgusted with continuous war overseas, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya,’ said Naim. ‘Hillary Clinton endorsed the war in Libya, and Obama was heavily influenced by her. Since it’s our people dying abroad, we want someone who understands that enforced regime change does not bring a positive change. We want a president who is not overtaken by corporations and driven by wars overseas.'”

RANIA KHALEK, [in D.C. area] , raniakhalek at gmail.com, @RaniaKhalek
Associate editor with the ElectronicIntifada.netKhalek tweeted: “Hillary losing Dearborn is very satisfying considering disgraceful treatment of Arab-Americans throughout her career.” Khalek wrote the piece, “When Hillary Clinton threw Arab and Muslim Americans under the bus,” which states: “Back in 2000, during a heated U.S. Senate race in New York, Clinton came under attack for accepting political contributions from Muslim groups whose members were targets of a smear campaign generated by one of the Islamophobia industry’s most discredited operatives.

“Without hesitation, Clinton condemned her Muslim supporters, returned their donations and refused to meet with Arab and Muslim Americans for the remainder of her campaign, all in the spirit of ‘wooing Jewish voters,’ as The New York Times put it.”

Khalek has also noted that “Hillary Clinton received more money from weapons makers than all other candidates, including Republicans.” See her piece “Bernie Sanders and the question of Palestine.” Khalek also co-hosts the radio program “Unauthorized Disclosure.”