US Muslim supporters of Donald Trump’s campaign for presidency are disappointed with his Cabinet picks, according to new reports.
The campaigners, who supported the former president in protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon, have expressed frustration over Trump’s recent selection of politicians to hold political positions, including secretary of state, claiming he was “going on Zionist overdrive.”
“We were always extremely skeptical,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, told Reuters. “Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played.”
If you genuinely cared about Gaza, you would be outraged that the *current* Secretary of State allowed the 30-day deadline—set by him—for Israel to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza to pass without any consequences.
But the truth is, you’re not angry about Gaza. You’re upset… https://t.co/GgGVKwDP3j
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, added: "Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
For the role of secretary of state, Trump selected Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel.
Earlier this year, Rubio said he would not call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that Israel should destroy "every element" of Hamas. "These people are vicious animals," he added.
Trump also nominated Mike Huckabee as the next ambassador to Israel. A former Arkansas governor, Huckabee is a staunch pro-Israel conservative who has expressed support for Israeli occupation of the West Bank and called a two-state solution with Palestine “unworkable”.
To serve as US ambassador to the UN, Trump selected Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, who has called the UN a "cesspool of antisemitism".
"It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), told Reuters.
Some political strategists believe Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins.
Trump made several visits to cities with large Arab American and Muslim populations, including a stop in Dearborn, Michigan, where he said he loved Muslims, and Pittsburgh, where he called Muslims for Trump "a beautiful movement”. “They want peace. They want stability," he said.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), said that Trump’s focus on pro-Israel nominees so early in the transition process was an indication of how his administration would approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously, and take the US friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”