I Urge Palestinian-Americans To Wait Till Nov. 9, Then Vote For The Winner

We Palestinians have always been challenged with choosing the winning side in any strategic disagreement. That is why I strongly recommend to our brethren who hold American citizenship to be extra cautious during this presidential election, and wait to see who the clear winner is before casting their votes for that candidate. It is the prudent course.

Our trouble with choosing the losing side began back in 1947-48, when we listened to the propaganda and selfish advice of the neighboring Arab governments in getting out of the way for them to send their soldiers in and get rid of the Jews, after which we could return home and resume our lives with no Jewish sovereignty anywhere near us. Of course it didn’t work out that way, and the Jews won. Ben-Gurion even urged our predecessors not to leave, but we chose to side with our fellow Arabs, and continue to suffer as a result. We can’t make such a mistake again. If Palestinian-Americans vote for the losing candidate this time, it will further cement the notion in the American psyche that Palestinians are perpetual losers, and it’s high time we shed that image. Wait until after the results are known on the morning of November 9, and only then go to your polling place to cast your ballot for the winner, be it Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Once that happens, we can celebrate as a public relations victory the dovetailing of Palestinian interests and those of the American electorate. No longer will there be an apparent alignment only of Israeli and American values. But jumping in to vote too soon, before the results are official, will deprive the Palestinian people of that achievement in appearances, the only kind of achievement we have been able to muster for nearly seven decades now. We need every little one we can get.

This path will also continue the approach of our departed Raïs, Yasser Arafat, who famously refused to make decisions until a consensus emerged or circumstances made clear where the correct path lay. I believe he, too, would urge our brethren holding American voting rights to wait for the official indication that one candidate or the other has prevailed, and only then cast your votes for that candidate.

I realize that those who vote absentee, principally those of us here in Palestine who hold US citizenship, have little choice but to submit their ballots in advance, so I cannot offer you the same advice. But those ballots are seldom counted unless the vote in the state of registration is close, so that possibility remains unlikely. Palestinians with American citizenship who reside in the US must vote no earlier than Wednesday, November 9, to make sure our voice is heard on the side of the victor.