The tens of thousands of keffiyeh-wearing radicals who have gathered to protest outside the Democratic National Convention in the streets of Chicago this week might seem to have very little in common with the Islamists who have, among other things, worked to politically isolate gays and lesbians in places like Hamtramck and Dearborn, Michigan. But as the leftist protesters work to bring chaos to Chicago just as they disrupted life on college campuses this past spring, Islamists will be cheering them on and praying for their success for one simple reason: Both groups view the Democratic National Convention as a battleground in their shared war against Israel. And while the leftist protesters will be fomenting chaos outside the convention, Muslim activists will be inside lobbying delegates to convince Democrats to abandon Israel or risk losing the White House. The hope of both elements is that this combination of tactics will act as a force multiplier, producing their shared goal – an anti-Israel Democratic Party.
To be sure, there is a basic commonality between the two groups. “The question is do they see the Democrats as enemies or allies? Insufficient disdain for Israel inside the venue will make the rioters outside angrier,” said A.J. Caschetta, a lecturer at Rochester College and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow. The combination of street violence outside the convention and efforts to weaponize voting inside, however, is likely to prove a less effective tool for advancing joint goals than its leftist and Islamist adherents are hoping.
The Threat: Withholding Muslim Votes
Leaders of the American Islamist movement have made it clear that they and their followers will stay home in November if Kamala Harris and her running mate, jihad-adjacent Tim Walz, do not demonstrate their intentions to throw Israel under the bus in its conflict with Iran and its proxies in the Middle East in the remaining weeks of the 2024 Presidential election campaign.
“Madame Vice President, we don’t owe you our vote. If you lose to Donald Trump, it is because you are disconnected from your base and voters felt that you did not represent them.” -- CAIR Ohio director Khaled Turaani
Judging from their contempt for the Harris/Walz ticket, they will almost be happy if a repeat of the riots outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago costs the Democrats the election in November like it did 56 years ago. They are quite willing to live with a Trump presidency if it demonstrates their power over the Democratic Party.
“Madame Vice President, we don’t owe you our vote. If you lose to Donald Trump, it is because you are disconnected from your base and voters felt that you did not represent them,” Khaled Turaani, the executive director of the Ohio Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a video he posted on Facebook on August 9, 2024. “Without a firm position against the genocide in Gaza and a clear call to an immediate ceasefire, then you are the one electing Donald Trump. This election is yours to lose and ours to make you win. So, get off your high horse, have some humility and don’t ever threaten your voters.”
Islamist leaders largely affirmed a softer version of this message at an August 12 press conference organized by CAIR’s Chicago Chapter — one week before the start of the DNC. At the conference, they told a story very similar to the one offered by leftist protesters at encampments on college campuses throughout the United States this past spring: The United States is complicit in an Israeli-perpetrated “genocide” in Gaza and should stop giving Israel the weapons it needs to prosecute the war against Hamas. They said nothing about Hamas’s atrocities against civilians on October 7, nor did they acknowledge that the terror organization still held Israeli and American citizens hostage – even as they try to portray themselves as committed to the welfare of their fellow U.S. citizens and the republic itself.
The Islamists deployed one key talking point the campus radicals did not—their potential impact on the upcoming presidential election and on the internal politics of the Democratic party.
“This city is home to the largest Palestinian population in the nation, the second largest in the entire world,” said Jenin Alharithi, coordinator of the Chicago chapter of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). After recounting Hamas propaganda about civilian deaths in Gaza and the role the Chicago Palestinian Muslim community played in organizing weekly protests in the city since October 7, Alharithi declared that “The people’s voices will be clear and unified. Palestine will be on the agenda at the Democratic National Convention.”
Ahmed Rehab, director of CAIR-Chicago, offered a similarly aggressive message, declaring that “The soul of America is at stake ... We cannot continue almost a year into a genocide not only doing nothing to stop it, but ... but doing much to allow it to happen through diplomatic cover at the United Nations, through giving billions of dollars time and again to a rogue state actor that is engaging in murder and massacres of innocent human beings.”
But as aggressive as the rhetoric was at CAIR-Chicago’s press conference, none of the speakers expressed hope for a repeat of the protests that took place in Washington, D.C. in late 2023 when speakers addressing a largely Muslim crowd accused President Biden, who they referred to as “Genocide Joe” of genocide and where protesters carried signs that read “F—K AIPAC.”
The division of labor between Islamists and leftist protesters is not hard and fast. The Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, for example, a major center of Islamist influence in the United States, has issued a call on Facebook for protesters to gather in Chicago on the last day of the convention. But the de facto separation of tasks largely holds.
Limited Impact
Clearly, Islamist agitation appears to be having some impact on the political calculations of the Harris/Walz campaign. In early August, Harris spoke briefly with leaders of the Muslim-dominated “Uncommitted Movement” led by Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, at a campaign event in Michigan, allegedly declaring that she would be willing to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Harris advisors immediately walked back the statement, but given that Hammoud, the mayor of a city with a significant Islamist presence, is considering withholding his support from the Democratic ticket, this must surely concern Democratic officials (who have not responded to a media query).
The marriage of convenience between Islamists and activists on the far left may not be as fruitful as the leaders of the two groups have hoped.
But for all the bluster, the Muslim vote may not have the impact Islamist leaders want people to think it does. In February, ABC News reported that “There just aren’t a lot of Arab American and Muslim voters out there. The U.S. is only 0.7 percent Arab American and 1.3 percent Muslim. And most swing states don’t have significant Arab American or Muslim populations; even in Michigan, which has the largest such populations, they each make up less than 3 percent.” Of course, ABC News acknowledged that in a close election, even a small number of disaffected Muslim voters could affect the outcome, but that’s also true with every ethnic group, the outlet reported.
The impending riots in Chicago, meanwhile, which seem inevitable to most observers, will certainly energize Islamists and leftists. But the sight of chaos on the streets is likely to similarly energize opponents of these elements. About the only real argument will be whether the riots outside the Democratic National Convention are a repeat of the chaos in Chicago in 1968, the George Floyd Riots of 2020, or the violent encampments of 2024. Whatever moniker is put on the impending fauda (chaos) in Chicago, the result will be a hit on the credibility of the Harris/Walz ticket in November and probable disaster for the red-green alliance in the years ahead. The upshot is that the marriage of convenience between Islamists and activists on the far left may not be as fruitful as the leaders of the two groups have hoped.
Past experience shows that the deliberate fomenting of chaos, combined with the implicit threat of withholding support from one’s own side are, like Frankenstein’s monster, devices with a tendency to turn on their creator.
