Kamala Harris And Their running mate, Tim Walz, made their political debut in front of screaming supporters in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. The next day, they headed to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to meet 12,000 Bon Iver fans before landing in Detroit, where around 15,000 people showed up on the Detroit Metro tarmac to greet them.
Harris was on stage in an airplane hangar a short time later when her speech – and the positive vibe that has driven her campaign over the past two and a half weeks – was interrupted by protesters protesting against the Biden The Israeli government’s decision to continue supplying weapons to Israel, despite the country’s right-wing government using those weapons without regard for the lives of civilians, aid workers and journalists. An estimated 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October.
“Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide. We will not vote for genocide,” the protesters chanted.
The message delivered in Michigan – where 100,000 people refused to vote for President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary in February because of his administration’s Gaza policy – has bite. Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic stronghold in 2016 by just 10,704 votes; Biden won it back for the Democrats in 2020, but by a narrow margin of 154,000 votes.
Harris initially seemed to take the interruption in her stride. “I’m here because we believe in democracy. Every vote counts, but I’m speaking now,” she said after the first chant broke out. Then she continued her speech: “Look, if he’s elected, Donald Trump He wants to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare, he wants to give up on our fight against the climate crisis, and he wants to end the Affordable Care Act—” The chants continued, and Harris seemed to be running out of patience. “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, say so. Otherwise, I’ll do the talking,” she said.
The moment was clipped and quickly spread on social media, where it was poorly received by potential Harris supporters who hoped that a change at the top of the Democratic ticket would also mark a meaningful shift in U.S. policy toward Gaza.
There have been subtle signals that Harris would be more inclined than Biden to support such a change, including her calls for a ceasefire that predated Biden’s call, reports that she has pushed for more public criticism of Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, her personal contact with a man who lost dozens of family members in the war, and her nomination of Walz as her running mate.
But since Harris herself did not articulate a political vision that differed from that of the current administration, this viral moment seemed to confirm the worst fears of voters outraged that U.S. taxpayers are funding what United Nations experts have called “genocide.”
Before taking the stage on Wednesday, Harris and Walz were introduced to Uncommitted Movement founders Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, who said the campaign invited them to Wednesday’s rally. The invitation, which came after months of lobbying for both a meeting to discuss an arms embargo and to speak at the rally, included a brief introduction during a photo opportunity.
“It was only a few minutes in the photo series and I was really emotional,” says Elabed Rolling Stone. “Harris was incredibly compassionate. And I could sense that her compassion was very genuine… And when I asked, ‘Do you want to meet?’ she said, ‘Yes, let’s meet.'” Elabed and Alawieh say Harris then assigned a staff member to arrange a meeting with them. They hope it will happen, but no date has been set.
“Of course we need more than just compassion… compassion is something you can’t eat,” says Elabed. “The Palestinians who are the main protagonists of this attack cannot live on compassion. We need a real change of course. We need real change.”
After the event, the Uncommitted Movement sent out a press release saying Harris had agreed to meet with them to discuss an arms embargo. The vice president’s national security adviser, Phil Gordon, immediately denied the notion that she would support one. A spokesperson for the campaign, meanwhile, said only that Harris “reiterated that her campaign will continue to work with these communities.”
Alawieh and Elabed remain optimistic about that prospect. “It seems like the vice president is interested in engaging,” says Alawieh, who worked with members of Harris’ team as legislative director in Congress. “I know Vice President Harris’ team is a strong group of people, many of whom are in touch with Arab-American, Muslim-American and Palestinian-American community leaders, so I was not surprised that there was certainly more of a response than we got from President Biden.”
He added that they know that Harris’ campaign is still new and she and her team are still working to get it off the ground. At the same time, he said, the Democratic campaign’s reorientation “provides a real opportunity to open a new chapter in Gaza policy.”
“In my opinion, the last 10 months of this administration’s Gaza policy have been disastrous. And now, as we approach the most important months of this campaign, a hypocritical campaign posture that declares ‘ceasefire’ in one breath and supports the unconditional flow of weapons in the next is neither sound policy nor good campaign strategy,” Alawieh said. “Democratic voters, including over 100,000 here in Michigan, have themselves stated that Gaza is an important political issue for them. So if you listen to voters, you have to revise this policy. And I’m confident your team recognizes that.”
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