Gaza: American Muslim leaders call on Muslim countries to act to end the genocide

More than 90 imams, scholars and Muslim organizations in the United States have urged Muslim majority to take “immediate and concrete measures” to end the current genocide in Gaza. Their appeal targets in particular the Arab states, requested to break their relations with Israel, to impose embargoes on oil and gas, to block their airspace on Israeli operations and to open borders, like that of Rafah, with humanitarian aid. “The” business as usual “policy in international affairs is simply not working. We believe that the governments of the majority Muslim majority should not wait for the “international community” to have a conscience, “they say.

The signatories, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America, believe that the Ummah has a particular responsibility in the face of “openly racist and Islamophobic policies” of Israel. The appeal comes as the Gaza Ministry of Health reports more than 61,000 Palestinians killed, including a third of children, since October 2023, in what the signatories qualify as a genocidal campaign led by Israel.

Progressive Jewish leaders in the United States, notably from the Union for Reform Judaism, also urged Israel to “choose life” by ending this war of annihilation, calling to protect both hostages, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. This position illustrates a turning point: an increasing part of American religious voices, Muslim and Jewish, now clearly appoints the massacres in Gaza as a genocide. By directly targeting Muslim governments, the signatories highlight the gap between popular anger at this tragedy and the persistent inaction of many Arab states linked to Israel by economic or security agreements.