Two Muslim viewpoints on the US election results in general, and Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed’s victory in particular. -AbAB

Abdul Beat AIPAC, Islamophobia, and Trump

“Thank you AIPAC for the opportunity to beat you twice.”

ALIF MEDIA
NOV 5

Nadia Ahmed and Khaled A. Beydoun

Senator Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.

The name has a distinct and indelible ring to it.

The hour had just passed 1:30am when the emergent candidate with the embattled name appeared on the stage, this time, and for the first time, with the title “Senator-elect” before it.

A blue wave had swept across the nation, and by then Democrats had already taken control of the U.S. Senate. Texas chose James Talarico, its first Democratic senator since 1988, and Troy Jackson ended Susan Collins’s nearly thirty years in the Senate in Maine. Seven Republican seats fell, and the race the whole country was still waiting on was Michigan. Now it was El-Sayed’s time to take the stage.

He not only took the stage; he stormed onto it with the fighting spirit that hallmarked his campaign and foreshadows his vision as Senator.

To cheers of “Abdul! Abdul!” El-Sayed responded by pronouncing his full name in Arabic, a not so implicit jab at the very president who mocked it. He then turned every “inshallah” of the campaign into an “alhamdulillah,” a counterpunch to the Islamophobia aimed at him by Mike Rogers, who asked him on a debate stage whether he was “for America” or for terrorist groups overseas; by JD Vance; and by Donald Trump, who went to Port Huron to paint a Michigan physician as a jihadist and likened stopping him to the passengers who fought back on Flight 93. It was a counterpunch, too, to the corporate donors and super-PACs wed to undermining his campaign, and to Haley Stevens, the Democrat he beat in the primary, who came out for Rogers two days before the election.

They all lost. El-Sayed won.

While the headlines will swoon over the fact that El-Sayed will make history as the first Muslim American to serve in the U.S. Senate, another feat deserves praise.

Abdul, no stranger to plain talk, made it clear minutes into his victory speech.

“To AIPAC, who spent $42 million against us, thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice.”

It was the largest sum the group had ever put into a single race. This, time will tell, will stand as the imprint of his historic run and victory. Michigan was not just another battleground within the landscape of binary party competition, but a litmus test for the future of American electoral politics. AIPAC was more than an electoral hegemon operating in the political shadows; in modern American history it has been a kingmaker and a candidate-killer. While entangled with Stevens and Rogers, Trump and Vance, AIPAC was El-Sayed’s real opponent during the nineteen months of his campaign. He knew it, and as the funds they poured into the Michigan Senate race during the primary and general stages illustrate, they did too.

Read the full article at Alif Media

Is Muslim euphoria over the US midterm election results justified?

Can even well-meaning Muslims make any difference to the scandalously corrupt political system in the US? They are forced to compromise on their core principles of faith and support injustice.

ZAFAR BANGASH
NOV 5

Any development that causes discomfort to the two leading war criminals, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, should be welcomed.

The US midterm elections and a week earlier the Israeli elections are two such developments.

Equally important is the number of Muslims elected to congress and state legislatures.

According to reports, at least 97 Muslims throughout the US have been elected.

This number may increase as other results come in.

Of these Abdul El Sayed (full name Abdul Rahman Mohamed El Sayed) generated the most excitement because he became the first Muslim to win a senate seat.

Another 10 or 11 Muslims have been elected to the House of Representatives.

This is viewed by most Muslims as a great achievement heralding their entry into mainstream politics.

Let us look at these figures in context.

The senate has 100 seats.

How much impact can one Muslim have?

We will consider El Sayed’s outlook shortly.

The House of Representatives is even bigger, with 435 seats.

Is it realistic to expect that 10 or 11 members will have a huge impact on US policy?

Ilham Omar and Rashida Tlib have been there and are now considered veterans of the House.

Can anyone really say that the two Muslim women, no matter how sincere or well-meaning, have made much difference to US anti-Muslim policies?

Beyond the euphoria over El Sayed as the first Muslim senator, we must carefully examine his statements and record.

First, let us be clear about politics in general and American politics in particular.

Politics is a dirty game. Only the most crooked and dishonest thrive.

The US is a cesspool of corruption. Just look at Trump and his scandalous behaviour.

He is a pedophile, a crook and a war criminal.

Almost every US politician is in the pocket of some lobby, primarily the Israel lobby.

Those that escape the lobby’s grip are hounded and vilified.

Let us consider El Sayed’s statements.

He has criticised Israel’s genocide in Gaza and called for an end to funding the zionist entity.

For this, he was accused of being a “jihadist” and “supporter of terrorism”.

His Muslim faith was made a contentious issue.

Such attacks are completely false and unwarranted.

There is, however, another side to El Sayed that is problematic.

Before the midterm elections, he was asked on Fox News what he thought of Ayatullah Ali Khamenei.

El Sayed called him a “terrible person” and said he would never support the “Iranian regime”.

What criterion does El Sayed use to determine whether a person is good or bad?

Did the martyred leader of Iran rob people?

Did he order the bombing of school children as Trump did and, did Iran under his leadership steal any other country’s resources?

Iran is the victim of US-zionist aggression and all El Sayed could say on Fox News was that the war was supposed to be a short military operation and now we are almost into September.

Had the war ended sooner and the Islamic government overthrown, El Sayed probably would have been happy.

Has he bothered to study the life of Imam Khamenei?

The problem with Muslims entering mainstream politics in the west is that they refuse to acknowledge that they are entering into a gutter.

It is inevitable to get filth all over your clothes.

El Sayed and the other Muslims that have been elected will find out that they have to compromise on the core principles of their faith.

Muslim men can pray and the women can wear the hijab but on fundamental issues, they have to toe the American line which is pathologically opposed to Islam and its adherence to issues of social justice.

Welcome to America’s gutter politics.

Courtesy of Crescent International, the longest published English language Islamic newsmagazine in the world. It receives no funding from any government or organization. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber and support independent Islamic journalism.