Historic wins for Muslim women
US voters elected two Muslim women, both Democrats, to Congress on Wednesday, marking a historic first in a country where anti-Muslim rhetoric has been on the rise, American networks reported.
Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee, won a House seat in a pro-Democratic district in the Midwestern state of Minnesota, where she will succeed Keith Ellison, himself the first Muslim elected to Congress.
Rashida Tlaib, a social worker born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrant parents, won a House seat in a district where she ran unopposed by a Republican candidate.
The two politicians will increase the total number of Muslims in the House to three.
Congressman Andre Carson, who is Muslim and African-American, won re-election in his Democratic district in the state of Indiana.
And Democratic Congressman Jared Polis has won the governor’s race in Colorado, making him the first openly gay person to be elected governor in the US.
The five-term congressman, who defeated Republican Walker Stapleton, was open about his sexual orientation during the campaign, often referring to it in his criticism of Trump.
The extended family of Tlaib celebrated her victory in their home in the Israeli occupied West Bank. She had become a source of pride for Palestine and the entire Arab and Muslim world, her uncle, Bassam Tlaib, said in the village of Beit Ur Al-Fauqa.
With her win, Tlaib will become the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in the US Congress.
“I’m going to speak truth to power,” Tlaib told the Detroit Free Press on election night on Tuesday.
“I obviously have a set agenda that’s not going to be a priority for the president, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to push back.”
Tlaib’s district is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the US.
Her win highlights a wave of Palestinian diaspora candidates and activists who have embraced the Democratic Party’s progressive wing at a low point in US-Palestinian relations under Republican President Donald Trump.
Under Trump, Washington has alienated Palestinians by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American embassy there, and by slashing US funding of the UN body that aids Palestinians.
Palestinians have broken contact with the US, which has promised to announce a peace plan soon for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Throughout the territory, Palestinians took a cautious view of the election news.
“Change is incremental, and Palestinians in Palestine are intimately aware of that,” Salem Barahmeh, executive director of the Ramallah-based Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, said.
A source of pride for Palestine and the entire Arab and Muslim world