Islam, Israel & Mitt Romney

The American Muslim Choices in the November Elections

By Geoffrey Cook, TMO

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shakes hands with coal miners during the Beallsville Coal event at the American Energy Corporation in Beallsville, Ohio August 14, 2012. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

El Cerrito (Calif.)–As I write this Governor Mitt Romney has just made a nod to “Tea Party” by choosing fiscal conservative Paul Ryan as his running-mate.  This  does not bode well for legal immigration reform – or indeed for immigrants from Muslim countries generally.

Be that as it may, the purpose of this opinionated essay is to try to lay out what I see as the interests of the Muslim-American electorate – especially for the Executive – in November’s election.
I plan to begin by discussing candidate Romney’s disastrous trip to the U.S.’ best of allies, Great Britain, and America’s albatross, Israel.

Mitt proceeded to make a fool of himself wherever he went.  After totally insulting the English, I received a request from a not particularly pro-British American Internet news service requesting me to sign onto a petition to be sent to all the major U.K. news outlets to apologize to the people of the United Kingdom for Mr. Romney’s insults – which I did.

The most telling part of his trip, though, was his journey to earn the blooden lucre extracted from our Arab brothers, and to appeal to the right-wing (Fundamentalist) Christian and Jewish Zionists in the US.

Romney praised the Israelis for being richer, and, therefore, smarter than their Palestinian-Arab neighbors when, in fact, as stated by Hassan El-Najjar in an Al-Jazeera’s Cross-Cultural Understanding dated the last day of last month, “…The major reason why the Israelis are rich is the continuous… aid …from the US…[which is]…$15.4 trillion in debt…as a result of the Zionist global war on Muslims…” as engendered, pointed out by Mr. El-Najjar, by the most previous Republican interregnum – including “…more than $3 billion to the Zionist state..” per annum. 
Romney completely embraced the most rigid Israeli position on the Israel-Iran crisis which could only beget thermo-disaster, and a most likely economic collapse in the West.

Romney in his fund-raising speech in the captured Palestinian capital stated that “You notice a stark difference in economic vitality [between the Settler Colonialist Israelis and the occupied Arabs]…I recognize the power of culture [there]…” to be rebuffed later by the Palestinian Labor Minister, Ahmed Majdalani, “The statement reflects a clear racist spirit” against Arabs primarily and sectarianism against Muslims in general.

Remember Mitt Romney stands firmly within the GOP (“the Grand Old Party”) of Michele Bachman who recently accused Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and many others within the Democratic Party — including the only elected Muslim Representative Keith Elision–of being lackeys to the Muslim Brotherhood (those Middle Eastern political parties legitimately elected), to which accusation Congressman Elision himself responded to her “Your response simply rehashes claims that have existed for years on anti-Muslim websites and contains no reliable information that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government.” Islamophobia has been expressed by many officials and spokespersons within the current Republican Party, and Romney personally reiterated last it month in occupied Jerusalem.

Barack Hussein Obama’s Administration has not been perfect in its policies towards Muslims and in its foreign affairs to, Dar al-Islam, but they have been the first Executive in American history to actively engage with Islam.  Without its restraint the successes of the Arab “Spring” would have floundered, and an Islamic-style democracy would still only be a dream.
The leader of that current government, although a Christian, has Muslim relatives.  (Note his middle name is Hussein after a revered relative of his father.)  He, although born in the United States; and, therefore, a native-born American citizen, despite the slanders of the Republican “Birthers,” has, also, partially, been raised in a Muslim culture (Indonesia), and had traveled to other Islamic areas before his Presidency, and one of his first visits as the President was to Cairo!

I wrote of his speech in 2009 that there that it was a breath of fresh air, for it represented an open ear to Muslims worldwide and an acknowledgment of their presence domestically.  Obama stated in that speech that “…my responsibility…[is] to fight against negative stereo-types of Islam…,” but unlike the former Bush regime “Our problems must be dealt with partnership…,” for, unlike so much of the ideology of the right of the Republican right, “America is not…at war with Islam!”

For all, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, do we go back to the old days where democratic elections are rigged (as in Florida, 2000 and) as too often in the Third World, or do we go back to violating the Geneva Convention through torture and other war and other crimes against humanity and against Muslims especially.

I believe this will be the first election that the Islamic vote will have an impact upon the outcome in the States, and more and more  Muslims themselves will find themselves in elected office and appointed office.  I believe that at this time in history that it will be with President Obama and the Democratic Party as a whole, for they are the political Party that has begun a political dialogue with its own Muslim citizens and with those aboard, too.  Let’s take the  opportunity to make change, and to establish a rightful American Islamic voice and legitimate influence!  

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