Beware the Demagogue or the “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”

The US (and others) celebrated Halloween on October 31st. And now, almost as if planned to coincide with that day of “disguises” out come some folks masquerading as pro-Palestinian advocates.

Beware!

Just beware! Yeah, perhaps this article is meant to scare you a little bit. For years, trick or treating has become something many parents are scared of — fearing their children may be given a candy apple with a razor blade in it or some such dangerous “treat.”

Well, beware of those posing as advocates for Palestine NOW, just a few days before Election Day. We know exactly what the Democratic Party, under the misleadership of Biden and Harris have done to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. We have seen images of atrocity after atrocity, such that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) says that a plausible case can be made for a genocide committed by the Netanyahu government, with the full support of the U.S. government. In fact, South Africa has indicated that they will be going back to the ICJ with reams of new evidence. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has also indicated a desire for arrest warrants to be issued for Netanyahu and Gallant, but they have been dragging their feet on this for months now.

At the same time, we’ve seen the anti-Democratic Party go to great lengths to keep Green Party candidates Jill Stein and Rudolph Ware off the ballot in state after state. Though Stein/Ware have prevailed in some states (they’re on the ballot now in right around 40 states, with write-in campaigns initiated in another 8), they have had to spend time and money fighting back with lawsuits of their own.

We’ve seen some high visibility leaders in the Muslim community like Mehdi Hasan both try to trip up the Stein/Ware pairing and try to introduce some fissure lines between members of the Muslim community very much united against genocide, along with a whole list of allies calling for an arms embargo and an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Any Democrat who now claims to be pro-ceasefire and pro-arms embargo, just before Election Day, can’t be trusted to mean what they say. Nor can that claim in the next few days sweep away all the dead on the Gaza Strip, most of whom are women and children. That can’t be undone. Nor can the almost completely obliterated neighborhoods and refugee camps in Gaza be rebuilt before Election Day. Or all those being starved and wiped out of Northern Gaza, at the time of this writing. The rebuilding and the granting of reparations to Palestinians for the most terrible and traumatic damage done to them may require decades and billions of dollars, even assuming that there are those in charge now with the political will to do that.

So let’s not be fooled by some 11th hour pandering by Democrats or “justifications for genocide” offered by former president Bill Clinton during a speech he gave recently in Michigan. His words provided no comfort here and probably won few, if any, more votes for Kamala. Nor has anyone from the Harris campaign condemned a word of what Clinton said.

Equally important, let’s not be fooled by Republicans trying to gain votes for Donald Trump. Bob Witanek recently wrote an article questioning whether Billy Prempeh’s recent pro-Palestinian statements referring to Donald Trump are real https://fightbackbetter.com/prempeh/ or perhaps the work of someone trying to split the pro-Palestinian vote in District 9 in NJ. District 9 includes Paterson, known as “Little Palestine” because of its large Palestinian population, with the 2nd largest Palestinian population in the U.S. Surely, Kamala Harris is very vulnerable on the issue of Palestinian genocide. She knows it and so does almost everybody else.

The latest (and last Council on American Islamic Relations poll) has Kamala and Jill in a dead heat among Muslim voters. https://fightbackbetter.com/cair-final-poll/. Notice how close the race is and how unprecedented it is that an independent party candidate, i.e. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is virtually tied with a Democrat for the anti-genocide vote of Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians and their allies. This suggests a sea-change in the political landscape which won’t be going away on November 6th. This is a perfect time for Trump and his allies to swoop in an try to capture some of these voters.

But as is the case with the Democrats, the U.S. population knows all too well where Donald Trump stands on this issue. Some have even indicated that he would be worse for Palestinians than Kamala, as if that were possible. Take a long hard look at what the Democrats have done under Biden-Harris. None of this can be undone. None of the lives lost can magically reappear. To those who claim that Trump will let Netanyahu “finish the job” by giving him whatever he wants, Biden-Harris have not denied anything to Netanyahu and have failed to stop funneling money and bombs to him, as well. We have all seen images of U.S. made weapons showing up at the site of recent massacres on the Gaza Strip and recent massacres in Beirut.

Of course, many of us also remember Trump’s attempted Muslim ban and fear him trying that again. But as some Palestinians have said, there’s nothing left to fear, because everything they ever feared has already come to pass.

So, please. On Election Day, remember who has been opposing the genocide since day one. Don’t be fooled by the panderers, those desperately seeking votes either for themselves or to take them away from others. Let’s cast our votes for 3rd party candidates who have stood firmly against genocide and the ushering in of World War III. These are the people who will have to continue to fight and to build a strong movement of folks in the U.S., no matter who wins on November 5th.