In his November 3, 2024 appearance on Al-Hiwar TV (U.K.), Turkey-based Kuwaiti-Palestinian academic Sami Al-Arian discussed the upcoming U.S. elections, advising American Muslims to "punish" American politicians by voting for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. He expressed hope that Kamala Harris would win, "because she will not be as fierce as Trump," but emphasized that she should earn Muslim votes and not take them for granted. Al-Arian also suggested that while a second Trump presidency might be harmful in the short term, his foreign policy would ultimately benefit Muslims by hastening the collapse of the American empire through reduced military presence abroad and weakened ties to NATO.
Sami Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida and political activist, was deported to Turkey in 2015 after criminal proceedings found him guilty of links to Palestinian terror groups.
Sami Al-Arian: "There is no 'lesser of two evils' [in the U.S. elections].
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"Therefore, in my article, I advised not to vote for either candidate, because each one is worse than the other. At least Trump is well known to us and is very bad. He will be a catastrophe for the Arabs and the Muslims in America, and his policies in the region will also be catastrophic on many issues.
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"Trump will support Netanyahu in everything he does. He will not rein him in. As for Harris, the massacres have taken place during her term in office, so the Muslims and the Arabs cannot vote for her. So my advice to the Muslims was to teach the politicians in America a lesson by voting for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein, whose entire campaign revolved around Gaza and stopping the war there, and she denounced the American and Israeli position. If this is impossible, because she is not on the ballot in all the states, they should write 'Gaza' on the ballot.
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"I hope that Harris wins, because she will not be as fierce as Trump, who will pave the ground for Netanyahu, but let her sweat to get votes other than those of the Arabs and the Muslims, because of the following reason: In the long run, if the votes of the Arabs and Muslims are always in the pocket of the Democrats, because the alternative is worse, their votes will be taken for granted, and they will get nothing in return.
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"Trump might be worse for us on the Palestinian issue and on Iran, and maybe worse in other areas, like democracy, human rights, and supporting tyrannical regimes, but in general, he will hasten the collapse of the American empire, because he does not care too much about the presence of the U.S. military bases everywhere, about NATO, and so on. In the long run, he may hasten to collapse of the U.S. empire, which will also benefit us, but this is in the long run."