David Dayen
Pro-Palestinian delegates to the Democratic National Convention, including Abbas Alawieh, an Uncommitted delegate from Michigan and co-founder of the movement, seated at center, stage a sit-in Thursday afternoon outside the United Center in Chicago.
CHICAGO – Just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday night, delegates with the Uncommitted National Movement sat down on the ground outside the main entrance to the United Center, where speeches for the third night of the DNC were well under way.
Uncommitted represented over 30 delegates to the DNC. But while just over 30 delegates withheld their votes during the roll call that confirmed Kamala Harris’s nomination on Tuesday, nearly 300 signed a letter calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Uncommitted calls that larger group “cease-fire delegates.”
Over the past few weeks, Uncommitted delegates had been calling on the Harris campaign and convention organizers to allow a Palestinian American speaker or a doctor who has volunteered in Gaza to take the stage at the DNC. The ask was a humble one. Five minutes. A pre-vetted speech. Delivered by a preapproved speaker from a list written up by Uncommitted members. The speaker would be subject to the same rules as everyone else on stage.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor who volunteered in Gaza, was initially floated as a potential speaker, Uncommitted movement strategist Waleed Shahid told Mother Jones. That request was denied earlier this week, prompting the movement to send an expanded list.
Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American Democrat, became a favorite for the speaking role and even wrote up a draft of a speech, which Mother Jones published. Her draft ended with an appeal to unity within the party:
“Let’s commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur. Let’s fight for the policies long overdue—from restoring access to abortions to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza,” Romman wrote.
But Uncommitted said the speech was never asked for or vetted by DNC organizers. By Wednesday night, the answer was given, and the request was denied.
In response to that refusal, Abbas Alawieh, an Uncommitted delegate from Michigan and co-founder of the movement, told the crowd: “I’ve run out of options from my position as a delegate, so I’m leaning into my power as a regular, everyday person, and I’m sitting here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
For nearly a day, outside the United Center and just in front of the “CNN Politico Grill” hospitality suite for lobbyists and elected officials that on Thursday was sponsored by the private equity firm Blackstone, Alawieh sat down on the concrete.
He was joined by roughly two dozen members of the Uncommitted movement, who during the sit-in announced that they gave the Harris campaign until 6 p.m. Thursday to approve their request. But the answer didn’t change.
A poll of likely Democratic and independent voters in swing states found that they would be more likely to vote for Harris if she pledged support for an arms embargo on Israel.
In her closing remarks, presidential nominee Kamala Harris made an equivocal statement about the war, denouncing the October 7th attacks, calling for a cease-fire and hostage deal, stating that Israel has a right to self-defense and that the United States “will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself,” and also speaking to the devastation and loss of innocent lives in Gaza and stating she will work so “the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity. Security. Freedom. And self-determination.”
This got the loudest applause in the speech outside of her acceptance of the nomination. Other speakers who referenced the suffering in Gaza, such as Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, were also met with resounding applause.
That fit with what Uncommitted delegates said in their initial sit-in press conference Wednesday night, which began with a moment of silence for those killed in Gaza. Delegates wore keffiyeh-patterned stoles that read, “Democrats for Palestinian Rights.” In the background, massive projections of Harris and Walz’s faces glowed from the outside the United Center.
Alawieh and the other Uncommitted delegates maintained that calls for a cease-fire were not just basic humanitarian appeals, but also a smart electoral strategy for the Democrats. A poll of likely Democratic and independent voters conducted in late July/early August in key swing states found that voters would be more likely to vote for Harris if she pledged support for an arms embargo on Israel.
In Pennsylvania, 34 percent said they would be more likely to vote for Harris compared to 7 percent who said they would be less likely. In Arizona, 35 percent reported being more likely compared to 5 percent less likely, and in Georgia 30 percent said they were more likely, with just 5 percent reporting being less likely to vote for Harris. This particular polling was conducted by YouGov and commissioned by the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project.
“I am an American. I am also someone who has survived American-funded Israeli bombing,” Alawieh told the crowd, reflecting on his time in South Lebanon, which warred with Israel when he was a child. “I thought that 100 percent I would be killed using bombs that my own government sent over there, because our government’s policy is to kill people like me. I remember what those bombs feel like when they drop. I remember how your bones shake within your body. I remember what they smell like. I remember what the dust feels like when it fills a room after a bomb drops and I can’t even see my own hand in front of my own face. I remember.”
Earlier on Wednesday evening, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli American who lost part of his left arm and was taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7th attacks, spoke on the stage of the DNC. They gave a fairly universal speech about the grief of parents, which moved many in the room to tears.
Alawieh connected the pain of Goldberg-Polin’s family to the pain of Palestinians.
“I’m thinking about what I heard today as an Uncommitted delegate who was privileged to hear from the parents of an Israeli hostage, Hersh, 23 years old,” he said. “They were talking about how every individual is the universe. And before they said it, I was thinking about how, in the Muslim tradition, we know that if you harm or if you kill any one person, it’s as if you harmed or killed all of humanity.”
“So as I was seated inside as a delegate and hearing about the 109 hostages still in Gaza, the 109 universes, I sat with that. Every one of those 109 people are people. They’re universes. And I was thinking of the 16,000 children [killed in Gaza].”
On Thursday evening, Uncommitted delegates asked Harris to come to Michigan and sit down with them by September 15th.
The protest was bolstered throughout the night and during the day on Thursday by delegates who brought food and supplies to the sit-in site, as well as politicians who supported the call for a speaker.
Just before 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) sat with the protesters, giving a speech in support of them before leaving. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called Alawieh over FaceTime, emphasizing that she was working from the inside to support their request. Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) gave a speech to the group Wednesday night, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) endorsed the request for a speaker on Thursday; several of the participants in the sit-in were her constituents from Washington. Jayapal told the Prospect that she was disappointed in the decision of convention organizers. She said that if they allowed a Palestinian speaker on stage, she expected that they would have received the same strong emotional reaction as Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents.
On Thursday, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who lost her primary just a couple of weeks earlier thanks in part to a massive amount of spending against her by pro-Israel interests, addressed the group.
“As a member of the United States Congress, I’m sitting here because first of all, where should I be? Where else should I be when people in our community and our country are saying: ‘We just want a voice, we want to start with a voice on that stage.’ And why is that important? It’s important because what we’re seeing on that DNC stage are the priorities of the Democratic Party. As we move forward to November, it is the priority. Those are the priorities of the Harris-Walz campaign.”
David Dayen contributed reporting.
