Hundreds of thousands of American Muslims bade farewell to Republican Party and joined the Democratic Party following the 9/11 tragedy, and experiencing Republican President George Bush’s aggressive policies in response. Now American Muslims are watching closely the primary campaigns of Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barak Obama.
Although Hillary Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire energized this election race, making it very difficult to predict who will be the Democratic Party nominee for the presidential elections, we must look at Hillary Clinton’s record, especially her treatment of Muslims. Without getting emotional, we need to recall Hillary Clinton’s during her campaign for New York’s Senate seat and the attitude she adopted towards American Muslims. Two incidents are of special note – one hurt the feelings of Muslims while the other had left many Pakistani Americans ashamed.
You might remember that during his last tour of Middle East former President Bill Clinton visited the West Bank to meet the then Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. The then First Lady Hillary Clinton customarily hugged Arafat’s wife and supported the creation of an independent Palestinian State, which was the official policy of the Clinton Administration. (It is now also the official policy of George Bush). Some time later, when Hillary Clinton announced her intention to run for U.S. Senate, New York Jews expressed their displeasure at Hillary’s hugging of Arafat’s wife and her support for an independent Palestinian State. In order to win just the Jewish vote, Hillary expressed her regrets for having hugged Arafat’s wife. It was a matter of insult for Americans as well as the Muslim world. This incident proved, beyond any doubt, that Hillary can ditch both the Americans as well as the Muslim world, change her right and principled stance, in order to secure votes.
The second incident involved the insult to Pakistani Americans. A few New York-based Pakistani Americans had raised $50,000 for Hillary’s election campaign. But after a few days, Hillary’s political opponents as well as Jewish leaders objected that Hillary’s campaign contributors also gave donations to Palestinian terrorists who are killing the Jews. They termed the $50,000 donation as Jews’ blood money. Hillary returned the Pakistanis’ donation following these objections.
The reason for recalling these incidents is that Muslim voters must look at the past record of both Republican and Democratic candidates before they make up their minds on who to support. We must also make sure that our self-proclaimed representative organizations take the opinion of the community before endorsing any candidate. If Muslims decide to vote en bloc, they could emerge as king makers in these elections. We are in a do or die situation that demands complete harmony and unity amongst us. These elections are affording us the Muslims a rare opportunity to prove that we wield the ability to change history.
We have an important opportunity to make this beautiful country more beautiful; however, if we are not united and vote as a bloc in favor of either a Republican or Democratic, our votes will again be used the same way that George W. Bush used them.
A voter registration campaign is very important for American Muslims.
