WASHINGTON — A swing-state activist coalition called on Muslim voters Monday to punish Vice President Kamala Harris for “overseeing” the Israel-Hamas war and turn out to back Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein instead.
The organization formerly called Abandon Biden released its anti-Harris endorsement on the anniversary of Hamas terrorists massacring an estimated 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapping roughly 250 others — and one day after Harris’ campaign released an endorsement of her candidacy from 25 Islamic religious leaders.
“A vote is not just a political act; it is, more profoundly, a moral one. With this in mind, the Abandon Harris campaign officially endorses Dr. Jill Stein and her running mate, Dr. Butch Ware,” said the group, now called Abandon Harris.
“We are not choosing between a greater evil and a lesser evil. We are confronting two destructive forces: one currently overseeing a genocide and another equally committed to continuing it. Both are determined to see it through. We call on Muslim-Americans and all those who stand firmly against genocide to vote for the Green Party in 2024.”
Stein’s name will appear on ballots in most swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — where Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck-and-neck in polls.
Stein is the only Jewish candidate on most state ballots, but is a fervent critic of the Israeli government and its ongoing invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Ware, Stein’s running mate, is Muslim and teaches Islamic and African history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has touted his swing-state connections as a former University of Michigan professor and student at the University of Pennsylvania.
Stein, a former Boston-area medical doctor, told Reuters Sunday: “The Democrats have lost the Muslim American and the Arab American vote. They’re going to be losing enough swing states that they will not win and they cannot win.”
Stein campaign manager Jason Call welcomed the endorsement, telling The Post: “We hold common cause regarding the genocide in Palestine.” Hudhayfah Ahmad, a spokesman for Abandon Harris, added that “we had asked multiple times from the Democratic Party for some concessions. We’ve had a list of demands and we were ignored. We were cast aside.”
Ahmad said the group chose Oct. 7 to make the endorsement because “we wanted it to be a Monday … and October 7th just happened to land on a Monday.” Another prominent third-party candidate, Cornel West, who is running as an independent, is critical of Israel but will appear on fewer state ballots.
Before President Biden ended his campaign for a second term on July 21, polling showed that he risked wide-scale abandonment by America’s 3.5 million Muslims and 2 million Arabs, who largely vote Democrat.
The intensity of protests against Biden, whom anti-Israel activists furiously denounced as “Genocide Joe,” weakened after Harris, 59, became the presumptive Democratic nominee in late July.
The substitute nickname “Killer Kamala” never gained as much traction and heckling has been less common against the vice president, who largely has maintained a pro-Israel stance with sharper rebukes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war.
In response to a rare instance of heckling, Harris scolded activists in Detroit in August, saying: “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
The 25 Muslim leaders who endorsed Harris on Sunday said in their announcement: “Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure.”
That group also called Harris “a committed ceasefire [sic] candidate too and is the best option for ending the bloodshed in Gaza and now Lebanon.”
It’s unclear how much sway Abandon Harris actually has and many of the coalition’s leaders have drawn poor press for their own conduct — with organizers including men accused of spousal abuse, ties to Hamas and advocacy of whipping as a form of punishment.
