Emgage Action: Our statement reaffirming our commitment to Palestinians and upholding our mission

Emgage has always supported the human rights and freedom of the Palestinian people and we actively support initiatives aimed at protecting and uplifting Palestinians who continue to endure unimaginable suffering and hardship. As a matter of principle, we oppose the continued occupation of Palestinian lands and Israeli settlement activities that displace them from their homes and heritage. We support the right to boycott, divest, and sanction, as well as the Right of Return of Palestinians — or providing those displaced and their descendants with fair compensation, should they accept it. Emgage also opposes Israeli force and coercion against Palestinians, rather than diplomacy and negotiations. We strongly support a peaceful and negotiated settlement to this issue.

In this regard, Emgage also opposes President Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize Israeli annexation of occupied Syrian Golan Heights. And we strongly opposed his heartless decision to cut-off aid to UNRWA and effectively punish Palestinian children living in refugee camps.

Although Emgage is focused on a broad array of domestic and foreign policy issues, we frequently engage in support of human rights initiatives affecting Palestinians who continue to endure unimaginable suffering and hardship because of their continued occupation. In fact, we ask every candidate seeking the endorsement of Emgage PAC to answer questions related to Palestine, settlements, and the right to boycott. This is a key part of our endorsement process.

As always, we are committed to standing up for the diverse community of Muslim Americans across America in political and civic engagement. This work is particularly important as we embark on the 2020 presidential elections and we seek to turn out an unprecedented number of Muslim American voters through our “Million Muslim Votes” campaign. We are proud to partner with several leading Muslim American organizations, the full list of which can be found on our website.

To this end, we are continuing to work with the Biden campaign to develop their platform for Muslim Americans on both domestic and foreign policy issues. While we have made significant progress, there is still a lot of work to be done. We have hope that under a Biden administration, our communities will have a far greater platform than we would have under a Trump administration.

Thank you for standing with us.

Best,

Emgage Action

Fact checking recent false claims:

A recently published article includes several misrepresentations of Emgage’s domestic and foreign policy stances. We have included a few clear clarifications and citations below.

Emgage has a robust track record supporting the rights of Palestinians:

Sources:

1. https://emgageaction.org/palestine/
2. Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions
3. UNRWA Funding
4. Letter to McCollum on Palestinian Detention of Children
5. Palestine COVID Action
6. Annexation

• Emgage is based in Washington, D.C. with several offices across the country in key battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, and Virginia. You can find our affiliates here.
• Emgage endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders during the primaries, we later endorsed Former Vice President Joe Biden as we cannot be complicit in another four years of Trump’s white supremacy, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.
• Farooq Mitha, a former board member for Emgage, is currently on leave from his Board responsibilities as he works as Senior Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden.
• Emgage has a significant track record of grassroots organizing. You can find the details in our 2018 Midterm Report here.
• Emgage has never had an official relationship with the Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI). Emgage adopted a policy in 2018 that prohibits members of Emgage from participating in the program, even in their personal capacity.
• Emgage PAC has steadfastly supported proud Palestinian American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and turned out voters for her in the 2018 election and 2020 primary race, which she won handily. Emgage has also stood by our sister Ilhan Omar as a proud Muslim progressive who supports Palestinian rights.
• We support the constitutional protected right of Americans to boycott any country, including Israel.