Frank Franklin II/AP Photo
Protesters march in Chicago on Sunday, prior to the start of the Democratic National Convention.
One of the main storylines of this convention is how the Democratic Party handles the Uncommitted movement and calls for a permanent cease-fire in the ongoing war in Gaza. Outside the convention center, thousands of people convened to protest Monday in a roughly mile-long designated zone, barricaded and with a heavy police presence, as my colleague Emma Janssen has reported. Those on-the-ground protests will likely ramp up all week.
Inside the convention walls, the same struggle is playing out, albeit by different means. The DNC rolled out its official party platform yesterday, including its foreign-policy stances. The section on Israel and Palestine did not contain a pledge for an arms embargo if Israel continued to violate international law, or language sufficiently addressing the onslaught that’s been taking place in Gaza, according to several groups affiliated with the broader Palestinian rights movement.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, which is organizing events in Chicago this week, said in a statement that it “considers the Democratic Party’s platform plank on Palestine/Israel to be wholly inadequate.”
At the same time, the Uncommitted movement, a pro-Palestine movement to end the war in Gaza, pushed the Democratic National Committee to host its first-ever panel on Palestinian human rights at the convention—which was seen by the group as a significant move in the right direction. The movement has about 30 pledged delegates. The event took place Monday afternoon with speakers Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Uncommitted co-founder Layla Elabed, former Michigan Congressman Andy Levin, Jim Zogby from the Arab American Institute, Democratic Party organizer Hala Hijazi, and Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric surgeon who served in Gaza.
“This is a historic moment that the DNC has called a panel to discuss the human rights of Palestinians but I also recognize it’s not enough … a policy shift is the only thing that will accomplish a cease-fire,” said Elabed of Uncommitted.
The panel professed optimism about the possibility that the party will move in a new direction on a cease-fire now with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket instead of Joe Biden.
“I feel like she’s broken through,” said Levin, describing the vice president’s speech in Selma, Alabama, on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in March where she called for a cease-fire and, more recently, not attending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Based on reports that Harris’s private meeting with Netanyahu was chilly, Levin said, “When she met [with Netanyahu] she did speak some truth to power.”
However, speakers also emphasized that there’s still far more that needs to be done by party leaders starting with Harris. “We need the VP to keep pushing the envelope … she can say things that don’t betray [President Biden]. She can say that ‘In my administration, we’re going to follow U.S. and international law,’” Levin said. “I have faith in her but we need her to do more.”
Uncommitted has been criticized for undermining the Democratic Party by persuading delegates to pressure the party and organizing outside protests to push for policy change.
Each panelist underscored their connections to the party and why their advocacy on behalf of Palestinians is aimed at getting the party to live up to its ideals. Failing to take a firmer stance on Gaza poses a significant political risk for the Harris campaign, given the importance of Michigan’s 15 electoral votes—the state has the largest Arab American population in the country.
Hijazi went to great lengths to identify herself as a loyal party soldier who for years worked at mainstream party-aligned organizations like NARAL (now known as Reproductive Freedom for All), doing fundraising for candidates. “I’m a proud moderate but it’s not about that,” Hijazi said. “It’s about basic decency and civility and humanity.”
The speakers also discussed their personal experiences with the ongoing war. Hijazi said she’s lost upwards of 100 extended family and friends in the region since the war broke out.
The most gut-wrenching comments were offered by Haj-Hassan, who has been serving as a pediatric care surgeon on the ground and training others. She described the scenes taking place in vivid detail, explaining, for example, that since October medical practitioners had come up with the term “wounded child, no surviving family,” after seeing hundreds of such cases.
The doctor also provided another grisly observation: “For the children I’ve treated, who were discharged, they face a Russian roulette of 100 ways that they will likely and potentially die when leaving the hospital due to the circumstances incompatible with life that have been architectured by this military assault.”
Levin suggests that a Democratic administration should try to repair the damage in the region beyond a Gaza cease-fire. His road map would include convening an emergency diplomatic summit with Middle East countries to work on an agreement. “Why have we let Netanyahu set the limits of the possible for us?” he said.
