Michael Moore is warning Vice President Kamala Harris that her “lack of action” regarding a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war, which has killed tens of thousands in the past year, could cost her the key battleground state of Michigan — and the presidential election.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker urged Harris in his Substack newsletter on Wednesday to use her leverage as VP to demand that President Joe Biden broker a cease-fire deal and withhold U.S. military aid for any nation violating international law.
“Your perceived silence and lack of action, your lack of a plan, your continued repetition of the party line — ‘We are close to a ceasefire!’ — as if it’s just around the corner when we all know … that that is not going to happen — rings hollow,” Moore wrote Wednesday.
The “Fahrenheit 9/11” director argued that a cease-fire was still out of reach thanks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Moore has previously accused of making endless excuses and playing Biden “like a sucker.”
Moore noted that Harris’ commitment to continue Biden’s policies has cost her “an active base of support” in Michigan, where the filmmaker organized a protest in May — and helped more than 100,000 voters cast “uncommitted” ballots in the Democratic primary.
“The bad news is that it seems the vast majority of Arab voters in Michigan are either going to stay home or … vote but leave the ‘president’ line blank,” he added. “Some will vote 3rd party. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in The New York Times, ‘Lose Michigan, Lose the White House.’”
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Moore still certainly hopes Harris wins the election against former President Donald Trump, but said the Palestinian death toll — which Gaza’s health ministry estimates is over 40,000 — and the ongoing famine there is palpably felt by Michigan’s Arab and Muslim Americans.
“Many have either lost loved ones in Gaza or live with the daily fear that their families and friends still in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are in a constant state of terror,” he wrote. “It has profoundly affected them. … And it will deeply affect this election.”
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In a recent example of the ongoing destruction, Israeli forces burned a camp for displaced Palestinians via an airstrike Monday, killing four and wounding dozens.
Moore also noted that, while Harris and Biden “won nearly 70% of the Arab American vote in Michigan” in 2020, that same support “has tanked” since Israel’s U.S. government-backed invasion.
“The solution is simple and doable,” wrote Moore. “It does not require you to be critical of President Biden. It simply asks that you side with the American people who in every poll have said that they do not support this war and want an immediate ceasefire.”