US candidate Jill Stein considering vocal Palestine advocates for VP spot | US Election 2024 News

United States Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is considering three Palestinian rights advocates, including two Arab Americans, to be her running mate in the elections, her campaign has confirmed.

The vice president announcement will be made during a livestream rally on Thursday, the Stein campaign told Al Jazeera.

The candidates are Abed Ayoub, executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC); Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American activist; and Jacqueline Luqman, a journalist and activist.

All three have been vocal critics of Israel and the US’s unflinching support for the war on Gaza. Stein, a physician and activist, herself is a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights.

Having one of the three on the ballot could boost Stein’s chances of tapping into the mass of disaffected voters who have grown angry with the mainstream Democratic Party’s stance on Israel.

While Stein’s campaign is a long-shot bid, with US politics dominated by the Republican and Democrat parties, if she wins a significant share of the votes, her campaign may affect the result of the election.

Moreover, Stein’s supporters say they hope that her candidacy could broaden the conversation around Gaza and amplify voters’ concerns with US policy.

With a Palestine advocate on the ticket, Stein’s candidacy could also force Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, to further contend with the growing frustration with President Joe Biden’s unconditional backing of Israel.

Even with a small percentage of the votes, Stein’s campaign could make a major impression on the election in places like the swing state of Michigan – home to large Arab- and Muslim-American communities.

Both Ayoub and Zahr are from Michigan.

‘Honoured’

Luqman, Zahr and Ayoub all confirmed to Al Jazeera that they were approached by the campaign and said they were “honoured” to be considered for the position.

Ayoub said it is “important” that Stein is considering Palestinian rights advocates to be her running mate.

“This is a critical time. This is a time where the genocide is in front of everybody’s eyes. There’s no hiding from it. And it’s a time where most of the world and many Americans see how complicit and active both parties are in the genocide.”

Zahr also said selecting a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights as Stein’s running mate was a “smart choice” by the campaign.

“It’s clear that the genocide in Gaza has dominated the entire presidential campaign,” Zahr told Al Jazeera.

While Biden dropped out after growing concerns over his age following a disastrous debate performance in May, Zahr said the Democratic president’s coalition “was falling apart” because of the war on Gaza.

Luqman said opposing the war on Gaza should not be a campaign issue, but a human issue. “There’s no such thing as lesser evil. Evil is evil, and genocide is evil,” she told Al Jazeera.

The US-backed Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,550 people, levelled large parts of the territory and brought its more than two million inhabitants to the verge of starvation.

Gaza and the elections

While foreign policy is not usually a major factor in US elections, the war on Gaza has increasingly become a decisive issue in the presidential race.

Arabs, Muslims, young people and progressives have expressed anger at Biden’s support for the war. And while it remains unclear how the issue will play out following the US president’s withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Harris, some communities have shown willingness to break with Democrats over Gaza.

Predominantly Arab neighbourhoods in places like the Detroit suburb of Dearborn voted overwhelmingly for Biden against former President Donald Trump in 2020, helping him win Michigan.

But with the war in Gaza, support for Biden dropped sharply in Arab-American communities, according to public opinion polls.

The US administration has signed off on at least $14bn in additional military aid to Israel and vetoed three United Nations Security Council proposals that would have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The White House has said that Harris has been a “full partner” in shaping Gaza policy. Still, the vice president has expressed greater empathy for Palestinian suffering while still pledging “unwavering commitment” to Israel.

Harris, who is set to become the Democratic candidate to take on Trump in November after securing enough delegates to win the nomination, has not selected a running mate.

But Palestinian rights advocates are pushing against a rumoured frontrunner for the position – Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who earlier this year compared Gaza solidarity protesters on college campuses to the Ku Klux Klan.

In 2021, Shapiro – as Pennsylvania’s attorney general – also backed sanctions against Ben & Jerry’s after the ice cream company decided to stop doing business in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over ethical concerns.

Opposition to Shapiro grew this week after The Philadelphia Inquirer unearthed a 1993 college newspaper op-ed, in which Shapiro played down the prospect of solving the conflict after White House talks between then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“Palestinians will not coexist peacefully,” Shapiro wrote in the article. “They do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States. They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.”

Why run?

As Democrats rally around Harris, they have portrayed Trump as an existential threat to US democracy.

Democratic officials have also accused Stein of helping the former president by taking progressive votes despite not having a realistic chance of winning.

Stein ran for president in 2012, 2016 and 2020 but never mounted a competitive campaign.

Luqman, Ayoub and Zahr all said Stein’s bid was about giving the voters a choice and challenging the monopoly of the two major parties on US politics.

“We don’t engage in the franchise of voting … only to vote for candidates who are guaranteed to win,” Luqman told Al Jazeera.

“We are supposed to exercise that right however we choose. And if the two major parties offered nothing for the people, then the people should have a right to cast their vote for candidates who they believe reflect their values.”

Ayoub echoed that comment.

“We can’t go forward with politics as usual in this country. We can’t allow the Democrats and Republicans to continue to play our communities, give false promises, allow for genocide and keep things as [they are],” Ayoub told Al Jazeera.

For his part, Zahr said Stein’s campaign can build awareness and help increase support for third-party candidates in the future.

“As long as we say, ‘Hey, third parties are a wasted vote’, we perpetuate this system,” Zahr told Al Jazeera. “By the way, this system with a liberal democratic president got us a US-funded genocide – not even with a right-wing president.”