Hundreds of pro-Palestinian delegates were left out of the Democratic National Convention, which ended with Vice President Kamala Harris reaffirming her support for Israel.
“The Israeli people must never again be subjected to the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas inflicted on October 7,” she said in her speech accepting the party’s nomination for president on Thursday evening.
While anti-war protesters filled the streets throughout the week, 270 pro-Palestinian Democrats who call themselves “ceasefire delegates” signed a petition calling on Harris, if elected, to impose an arms embargo on Israel.
The ignored petition was pushed by leaders of the “Uncommitted” movement, which received hundreds of thousands of votes in the Democratic primaries across the country.
These delegates staged a sit-in outside the United Center in Chicago, the venue for the convention, to protest the Democratic National Committee’s rejection of a request for Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatrician who treats injured children in Gaza, to speak.
According to Layla Elabed, spokeswoman for the Uncommitted National Movement, the DNC did not want Harris to be “overshadowed.”
When asked by VOA for a response to Elabed’s claim, the Harris campaign team responded: “There were a number of speakers who talked about the war in Gaza and the need for a ceasefire and a hostage agreement.”
Unbound delegates
Elabed spoke to VOA on behalf of the 30 “undecided” delegates who cast their votes on the nomination call, less than 1% of the roughly 4,700 delegates who voted for Harris.
However, the pro-Palestinian group was given the opportunity to speak at a panel discussion outside Congress on Monday.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Muslim who sympathizes with the Palestinian cause and spoke on the podium, was given time on the main stage at Congress on Wednesday, but he did not mention Gaza in his speech.
The war in Gaza is “not the issue I would talk about,” Ellison told VOA before his speech, pointing out that pragmatism is the key to bringing about change within the party.
“I am not one of those people who think we are voting for perfection. We are voting for dialogue,” he said.
Party program supports Israel
At the beginning of the convention, the Democrats voted for the party platform, which recommits itself to support for Israel, a ceasefire for the release of the hostages and a two-state solution.
Pro-Palestinian delegates attempted to introduce language supporting the enforcement of laws prohibiting the provision of military assistance to individuals or security forces committing serious human rights violations.
“We demand that our tax money not be used to kill men, women and children. This is not a controversial demand and is actually more in line with our democratic values,” said Elabed.
Compared to Biden, Harris appears to show more compassion for the suffering of the Palestinians and reiterated on Thursday the “devastating” situation in the Gaza Strip over the past ten months.”
“So many innocent lives have been lost. Desperate, hungry people continue to flee safety,” she said in her speech at the congress. “The scale of the suffering is heartbreaking.”
But politically it signaled continuity on the part of the current government.
“President Biden and I are working to end this war so that Israel is safe, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination,” she said in her speech to thunderous applause.
Harris’ current and former aides say her Israel policy is unlikely to differ from President Joe Biden’s. Halie Soifer, Harris’ national security adviser during her time in the Senate, said the vice president has always been a “strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship” while upholding humanitarian values.
“She doesn’t want to see the suffering of innocent civilians, nor do the vast majority of Americans and Jewish Americans,” said Soifer, who is now CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“We don’t have to look at it through a binary lens,” she told VOA. “We support both.”
Not discouraged
Undecided delegates say they are not discouraged.
Inga Gibson, a delegate from Hawaii, a state where seven of 31 delegates have not yet made a firm decision, said she and her fellow delegates have made “tremendous progress.”
“I’ve found that a lot of people are really on our side on this issue, but they don’t know where to start or how to get involved,” she told VOA.
She and other unaffiliated delegates handed out keffiyehs, “Democrats for Gaza” leaflets and “No More Bombs” buttons. The pro-Palestinian symbols symbolize a central point of contention among Democrats – namely, how much support to give Israel.
Pro-Israel delegates say this should not lead to a split within the party.
“We can all try to better understand the complications of the conflict,” Andrew Lachman, a delegate from California, told VOA. “We are all concerned about the civilians in Gaza, but we are also concerned about the people of Israel and their security.”
Polls show that more and more Americans want their government to reduce its support for Israel. Some say Harris has missed an opportunity.
As a former prosecutor, Harris can and should strictly enforce laws and hand over weapons to allies who violate international or U.S. law, said Nancy Okail, president and executive director of the Center for International Policy, a left-leaning think tank.
“It could make clear that this applies not only to Israel’s misuse of these weapons to inflict disproportionate harm on civilians in Gaza, but also to the misuse by Netanyahu’s extremist government to dispossess and mistreat Palestinians in the occupied West Bank,” she told VOA.
Make protest the agenda
Scholars who study social movements say it takes time and work to turn protests into a political agenda. Elisabeth Clemens, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said that involves coalition building, negotiation and compromise.
“Finding a path forward that almost never leads to where the protesters hoped, but still represents an important change,” she told VOA.
And on an issue as complicated as the Middle East peace process, there are different pressures coming from different sides.
“American domestic politics only gets a portion of it,” she said.
Elabed said they were in it for the long term.
“Our strategy is not to abandon the Democratic Party, but to fundamentally revolutionize it and listen to its core base.”
Right now, Vice President is their best choice.
“I don’t care what you think, you have to win to be in power,” Ellison said. “Harris, the numbers are higher everywhere. The odds of success are higher.”
