US Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters. \u201cTrump won because of us and we\u2019re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others,\u201d said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe. Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel, for Secretary of State. Earlier this year, Rubio said he would not call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy \u201cevery element\u201d of Hamas. \u201cThese people are vicious animals,\u201d he added. The nominees hold strong anti-Palestinian and anti-UN views Trump also nominated Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and staunch pro-Israel conservative who backs Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has called a two state solution in Palestine \u201cunworkable\u201d, as the next ambassador to Israel. He has picked Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, who called the UN a \u201ccesspool of antisemitism\u201d for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza, to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations. Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), said Muslim voters had hoped Trump would choose cabinet officials who work toward peace, and there was no sign of that. \u201cWe are very disappointed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt 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.\u201d Nazarko said the community would continue pressing to make its voices heard about ending the war in Gaza. \u201cAt least we\u2019re on the map.\u201d Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and co-founder of the Abandon Harris campaign, which endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, said Trump\u2019s staffing plans were not surprising, but had proven even more extreme that he had feared. \u201cIt\u2019s like he\u2019s going on Zionist overdrive,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were always extremely skeptical \u2026 Obviously we\u2019re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played.\u201d The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Several Muslim and Arab supporters of Trump said they hoped Richard Grenell, Trump\u2019s former acting director of national intelligence, would play a key role after he led months of outreach to Muslim and Arab American communities, and was even introduced as a potential next secretary of state at events. Another key Trump ally, Massad Boulos, the Lebanese father-in-law of Trump\u2019s daughter Tiffany, met repeatedly with Arab American and Muslim leaders. Both promised Arab American and Muslim voters that Trump was a candidate for peace who would act swiftly to end the wars in the Middle East and beyond. Neither was immediately reachable. Trump made several visits to cities with large Arab American and Muslim populations, include a stop in Dearborn, a majority Arab city, where he said he loved Muslims, and Pittsburgh, where he called Muslims for Trump \u201ca beautiful movement. They want peace. They want stability.\u201d Bill Bazzi, mayor of neighboring Dearborn Heights, who endorsed Trump, said he met the president-elect three times and still believed he would work to end the war, despite the cabinet appointments. Rola Makki, the Lebanese American, Muslim vice chair for outreach of the Michigan Republican Party, agreed. \u201cI don\u2019t think everyone\u2019s going to be happy with every appointment Trump makes, but the outcome is what matters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21082,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}