Green Party Candidate Jill Stein Brings Pro-Palestinian Message to Dearborn

Cherborn — Speaking at an event aimed at rallying support for the Arab-American population amid the ravages of the war between Israel and Hamas, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein brought her passionately pro-Palestinian message to Dearborn on Thursday.

“We do not need genocide in Gaza and we will not tolerate it,” Stein, an environmental activist, told a crowd of supporters at the Arab American National Museum.

Israeli officials have said they are legitimately defending their people and are not committing genocide. Israeli legal adviser Tal Becker told the United Nations’ highest court in January that the country is waging a “war it did not start and did not want” and that Hamas militants are the ones guilty of genocide.

Stein drew a stark contrast between herself and the two major party presidential candidates, urging voters not to choose who they might perceive as the proverbial “lesser evil.”

“We are dealing with two greater forces of evil,” she said.

Stein’s speech helped launch the 2024 Arab American National Convention, or ArabCon. The four-day event in Dearborn aims to strengthen unity and empowerment in the Arab American community.

ArabCon is organized by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Other speakers scheduled for the weekend include fellow presidential candidate, philosopher Cornel West, Dearborn Democratic Rep. Alabas Farhat and rapper Macklemore, who openly supports the Palestinians amid the war with Israel.

In previous years, the convention had been held in the Washington, D.C., area. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, in a speech before Stein spoke, called his city’s ArabCon “a legitimate venue,” given that it is home to one of the largest concentrations of Muslims in the country.

The convention comes at a crucial time, he said, “probably the most important moment in history to date” for the Arab American community.

Stein agreed. “In this moment of unprecedented crisis, together we are the unwavering resistance,” she said. “We are a haven of humanity in a disintegrating empire.”

Stein briefly touched on other issues, including her promises to raise the minimum wage to $25 an hour, expand Medicare to all Americans, control rental costs, enact environmental reform, end mass incarceration and “end the immigration crisis by ending the American policies that are fueling this crisis.”

This is Stein’s third time running as the Green Party’s presidential candidate. In 2012, she received 0.36 percent of the vote. She increased her share of the vote to 1.07 percent in the 2016 election.

The 2020 Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins, received 0.26% of the vote.

Most national polls currently have Stein at about 1 percent. But she leads among American Muslim voters in Michigan and two other states, Arizona and Wisconsin, according to a survey released Monday by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The CAIR poll, which surveyed 1,155 voters between August 25 and 27, found that across the United States, 29.4% of American Muslims plan to vote for Harris, followed closely by Stein (29.1%). Behind them are Trump (11.2%) and West of the People’s Party (4.2%). Chase Oliver of the Libertarian Party has less than 1% of the vote, with 16.5% of respondents undecided.

West, a liberal activist, author and academic, is scheduled to speak at ArabCon on Saturday night. His speech comes just days after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that his name will appear on the state’s ballot on Nov. 5.

Attorney Mark Brewer, a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, argued that West should be disqualified on several fronts, including problems with the notarization of his declaration of identity and allegations that West’s petitions to appear on the ballot were fraudulent.

Another notable third-party candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will also be represented on the Michigan ballot, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday in a separate case. Kennedy sought to have his name removed after suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump.

The court ruled that Kennedy filed his petition too close to Election Day and that it would give his nominating party, the Natural Law Party, the opportunity to run a replacement.