More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.

“We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads.

“Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones,” the letter continued. “As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities.”

  • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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    22 days ago

    We should protest and take action, but vote for those who will make things less bad.

    The Biden-Harris administration is committing this genocide. “Less bad”, friend, they are doing the worst thing.

    Our system is fucked, but making yourself effectively invisible doesn’t help.

    Given the extent to which Dem voters rely on personal moralism, I think that “don’t vote for genocidera” should be enough. You are complicit if you vote for a person doing genocide.

    But if you prefer to think this is about strategy, what do you think makes your interests more relevant? Being a loudly guaranteed lever pull for the party even when you acknowledge they are doing a genocide, or someone that will, at least some of the time, actually withhold their vote on a stated principal?

    It is actually your logic that leads to irrelevancy. It is logic handed down by party PR ghouls and they repeat it because it works: it means they don’t need to listen to you, they can just convince you to disempower yourself!

    If your vote doesn’t got for one of the two parties you are worth as much as someone who doesn’t exist.

    I disagree, but even if I didn’t, a vote complicit in genocide is worse than not voting at all.

    • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      They’re not doing the worst thing. Doing Genocide AND the 2025 Trump agenda is worse.

      • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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        22 days ago

        Genocide is the worst thing and should be a red line. Please do your best to not help erase that red line.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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          22 days ago

          Question: Is genocide in Xinjiang a red line for you?

          I already know what your answer’s going to be, I’m just asking to highlight what your real goal here is.

          • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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            22 days ago

            I do not live in China and cannot do any advocacy related to Xinjiang. Though I will point out that there is not a genocide there. By now you should be able to recognize the differences. The mass killings, the videos, the diaspora, the intense censorship. We could discuss the ridiculous think tank and fake university apparatus that sold that lie with the US State Department, but to be frank, it is disgusting to distract from opposition to the genocide of Palestinians with this lazy attempt at a gotcha. Personally, I think you should apologize.

            I already know what your answer’s going to be, I’m just asking to highlight what your real goal here is.

            My real goal is to advocate against normalization of genocide in the US. I have organized actions and protests to this effect for over a year.

            Do your best to at least not believe your own bullshitting.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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              22 days ago

              Okay, so you’re okay with genocide in Xinjiang, just not in Gaza. And your strategy for solving the genocide in Gaza is to let someone come into power who’s even more pro-genocide that the tepid pro-genocide stance of the current Democrats. Dooming millions of innocent people who can’t fight back to a catastrophe beyond even their present catastrophe.

              So you’re okay with certain genocides. And you don’t want strategies that will avoid a huge escalation of the existing genocide in Gaza.

              It honestly doesn’t sound like you’re very anti-genocide.

              • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                22 days ago

                Okay, so you’re okay with genocide in Xinjiang

                This is a lie and I will not respond until it is retracted.

                • zbyte64@awful.systems
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                  22 days ago

                  You’re right, technically you’re okay with denying the genocide in Xinjiang, the genocide itself must cause some uncomfortable dissonance.

                  • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                    22 days ago

                    I’m happy to continue this discussion in another thread or via DM, as I would prefer to center Palestinians and their plight and not your interest in finding fictitious hypocrisy. Let me know if you make a thread.

              • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                22 days ago

                The genocide itself cannot be made more maximalist. You mean there is another category.

                I reject that argumentation as well, as genocide should be a red line. You don’t get to come back from that. You cannot put salve on that wound so easily. Look at yourself in the mirror and see if you can withstand it. And if you can, ask yourself why anyone should look to you for solidarity and what you would be doing in Germany 1930, in the US in 1855. Would you be the abolitionist? Would you be the person fighting against fascists? Or would you be the “pragmatist” supporting regulation of slavery, the Whigs, and compromise with monarchists and liberals?

                • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  21 days ago

                  The genocide itself cannot be made more maximalist.

                  This is so idiotic and completely ahistorical. You’re giving away the game here. Again.

                  Please, tell me more about Germany in the 1930s and how, after they murdered the trans folks, and the gays, and then the socialist (yeah, they were pretty high up on the list), the genocide just could not have gotten worse.

                  Please, I’d love to hear more.

                  • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                    21 days ago

                    Please, tell me more about Germany in the 1930s and how, after they murdered the trans folks, and the gays, and then the socialist (yeah, they were pretty high up on the list), the genocide just could not have gotten worse.

                    Palestine is already being ethnically cleansed and Israel is bombing 3 of its neighbors and invading one. All of this happens with the permission and necessary support of the Biden-Harris administration and it is maximalist.

                    Under the Nazis in WWII, the “final solution” was actually fairly ad hoc. It was not the original plan, of which there were several that they scrambled around for, some of which were simply made unfeasible, like The Madagascar Plan. There were also plans to create reservations, modeled after the US system. Oppressing their primary scapegoat was the consistent plan, but it’s exact form was easily negotiable among them, it was not seen as a core necessity to run an extermination campaign or complete expulsion. Presumably you, someone being very condescending to me about history because I tell you not to support genocide, is aware of this.

                    Israel is actually different in thus regard. It’s existence has always been premised on the displacement and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population. Its founders spoke and wrote openly of this and participated in pogroms of Palestinians. The Zionist entity is not suddenly doing genocide, it has been for decades, it has just dialed it up to a maximalist degree given its capabilities and interest in self-preservation. But do not forget that it has never stopped expanding and engaging in settler-colonialism, never stopped engaging in pogroms, never stopped dividing The West Bank into concentration camps, districts smaller than those in Apartheid South Africa, never stopped considering Palestinians subhuman.

                    Be on the right side of history.

                • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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                  22 days ago

                  When there aren’t any Palestinians left when Trump gets elected I hope you revisit your opinions and I hope you you can’t look yourself in the mirror. I know it feels great acting morally superior, but your not sacrificing your own life. Your sacrificing others lives for that feeling. It doesn’t hurt you, so you can keep pretending like you’re better than others for “drawing a line” but you’re not the people who are being killed and Trump is saying to finish.

                  • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                    22 days ago

                    When there aren’t any Palestinians left when Trump gets elected I hope you revisit your opinions and I hope you you can’t look yourself in the mirror.

                    The Biden-Harris administration is genociding Palestinians. I am not supporting any genociders. I work against them instead of attempting to support one or the other. I can easily look myself in the mirror, I am satisfied with my work.

                    I know it feels great acting morally superior, but your not sacrificing your own life. Your sacrificing others lives for that feeling.

                    Oh? Tell me more about what I do and what I risk, anonymous internet stranger. You have, presumably, doxxed me. Let’s see the deets.

                    It doesn’t hurt you, so you can keep pretending like you’re better than others for “drawing a line” but you’re not the people who are being killed and Trump is saying to finish.

                    Should I tell this to my Palestinian compatriots that are nothing but contemptuous for those justifying supporting genociders?

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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      22 days ago

      I understand your stated idealist position, “I won’t vote for someone engaged in genocide”.

      … but the reality is that Trump win, which is likely without every possible Dem vote, will cause the worst possible genocide.

      So by withholding your vote you’re not complicit in Harris-supported genocide, but you’re complicit in Trump supported genocide, which everyone understands to be worse.

      As I often say in these threads, withholding your vote is precisely what the republicans want you to do.

      Seriously, will your ideals be much comfort when Trump supported Netanyahu is grinding Gaza to dost?

      • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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        22 days ago

        I understand your stated idealist position, “I won’t vote for someone engaged in genocide”.

        I don’t think it’s particularly idealist, though it is formulated to appeal to those with empathy. If they won’t listen to “genocide is a red line”, what do you think they will listen to? A long-winded explanation of political organizing, realignments, game theory, economics? Just saying “don’t support genocide” elicits a flurry of bad-faith insults and absurd lies.

        … but the reality is that Trump win, which is likely without every possible Dem vote, will cause the worst possible genocide.

        There is no bigger gun to threaten people with. There is already genocide with maximalist support from the United States and a deftly subjugated Europe. It even gets support from alleged “good guys” that vote for Democrats. No resistance except from those with personal connections, a stronger connection to empathy, or the politically educated.

        So by withholding your vote you’re not complicit in Harris-supported genocide, but you’re complicit in Trump supported genocide, which everyone understands to be worse.

        That’s funny, I don’t think I told anyone to vote for Trump, either. Instead, I do work against genocide, organizing actions, politically educating those who don’t just sit on their computers and justify supporting genocide to one another.

        As I often say in these threads, withholding your vote is precisely what the republicans want you to do.

        Of course it is, because the GOP and Democrats are competing for votes for an election. Do you believe this to be revelatory?

        Seriously, will your ideals be much comfort when Trump supported Netanyahu is grinding Gaza to dost?

        That is already happening under the Biden-Harris administration that forwarded this genocide for over the last year. Have you not seen the destruction, mass murder, burning of children alive? Do you not know where those weapons come from, how they are donated, what logistical support they receive, how the US attacks all opposition to the genocide?