Americans in the Middle East: “The Most Unenthusiastic Vote I’ve Ever Cast”

Parastou Hassouri, a California voter living in Egypt, has often voted in years past via absentee ballot. She’s one of nearly 3 million Americans eligible to vote from overseas — with some 300,000 citizens living in the Middle East and North Africa, according to federal estimates. 

But this election, she won’t be casting a vote.

Since October 7, 2023, Hassouri has contacted her elected representatives and participated in protests on a visit to the U.S. But none of that seems to matter, she said. She called her decision not to vote a “last-ditch effort” to express her opinion.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice. The war has now spread to Lebanon, where more than 2,900 people have been killed. For Americans living in the region, both the devastation and the U.S. support for Israel were close to home and top of mind as the general election approached. 

“I can’t bring myself to cast a vote for the Democratic Party,” Hassouri said. “It’s a decision completely informed by the situation in Gaza and now Lebanon.” She had little faith that a Trump administration would prove any better.

The Intercept spoke to registered American voters living in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Jordan. Many feel that their vote is unlikely to shape one of the issues they care about the most: U.S. policy on Israel–Palestine.

The number of American voters in the MENA region is small compared to those in Europe or Mexico. But close margins in the 2016 and 2020 elections, in which multiple swing states hinged on fewer than 50,000 votes, show just how significant a small number of ballots can be. Days ahead of the election, conversations with voters highlight how U.S. foreign policy is shaping voters’ choices not only in swing states such as Michigan, but also across the world.

Approximately 1 in every 3 eligible U.S. voters abroad is an active-duty military member, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, and overall voting rates are low: just 7.8 percent of eligible overseas voters cast a ballot in the 2020 general election.

But this year, for the first time ever, the Democratic National Committee made a push to register voters abroad, in a bid to win votes for Harris-Walz. In parallel, Republicans have challenged the legitimacy of ballots cast by overseas citizens in court cases filed in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Despite the Democratic bid for their votes, many Americans in the Middle East remain skeptical that a vote for Harris will translate to a change in U.S. support for Israel’s war.

For Americans in the region who care about Palestine, conversations about voting come back to the belief that a vote for either candidate is unlikely to result in foreign policy change. “There’s nothing I see in Harris’s platform that gives me any hope,” Hassouri said. She and other potential voters interviewed by The Intercept cited Harris’s dismissal of protesters, refusal to engage with the Uncommitted movement, and framing of conversations about the Gaza war through the lens of Israel’s right to self-defense as evidence that she is likely to conform with the Biden administration’s policy if elected. 

“There’s no chance, at least for this election, that we will have somebody who is going to be genuinely beneficial to helping the lives and ending the genocide of Palestinians,” said Leah, a 23-year-old from Georgia living in the region who asked not be identified by last name or country of residence for fear that being politically outspoken could harm her career in public service. She added that although she saw neither candidate as great from a progressive viewpoint, she viewed Harris as more competent in policy negotiations. 

Haadiya, a recent college graduate from Arizona living in Morocco who similarly declined to share her last name out of fear that it could harm her job search, also expressed disillusion with the candidates’ stances on foreign policy. Living in Morocco has made her more concerned with how the elections will impact the lives of people outside of the U.S. “I care a lot more about global politics and global injustice than I do about local politics in the United States,” she said. 

She thinks Donald Trump and Harris will handle foreign policy in similar ways. “I think that the difference between the two candidates for the region would be so marginally small,” said Haadiya. “No matter what I do, it’s not going to end up being something I want.”

Sophia, a 27-year-old Florida voter living in Jordan, has lived outside the U.S. for many years. She’s never missed an election, local or national. In every election except one, she’s voted from abroad via absentee ballot.

But this year was the first time she considered not voting at all. Over a year into the war in Gaza, she wrestled with voting for the Democratic Party, whose policies in Gaza she opposes. “I wasn’t as much of a one-issue voter before, and I’m still not, but now this takes up a larger proportion of my decision because Palestine is right there,” said Sophia, who declined to give her last name for fear that publicly airing her political beliefs would threaten her job.

From Jordan, Sophia wrestled with voting for a candidate and a party that has greenlit billions in U.S. military aid to Israel. More than 2.3 million Palestinians live in Jordan and make up about 20 percent of the country’s population. “With how visible what’s happening in Gaza is, it’s harder to ignore,” she said.

But she didn’t see any promises from Trump for Palestine either. A second Trump presidency seemed like much more of a threat to her family and her rights. Ultimately, she cast her absentee ballot for the Harris-Walz ticket. “It was the most unenthusiastic vote I’ve ever cast,” Sophia said.

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