Within the months earlier than the Democratic Nationwide Conference got here to Chicago, the town ready for enormous protests in opposition to U.S. assist for Israel’s struggle in Gaza. Pundits raced to attract parallels with 1968, when anti-war protesters overshadowed the Democratic conference and helped hand the White Home again to the GOP.
However historical past doesn’t all the time repeat itself. The 2024 conference received’t be remembered for violent clashes between demonstrators and police, or for the sparsely attended rallies in opposition to the struggle. As a substitute, it could have facilitated the delivery of a brand new Palestinian motion—one fairly distinct from the road protests we’ve grow to be aware of.
Essentially the most spectacular pro-Palestinian effort on the DNC was organized by the Uncommitted Nationwide Motion. Launched in February, when President Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee, the motion inspired voters throughout the nation to voice their displeasure with the president’s backing of Israel’s struggle in Gaza by casting an “uncommitted” vote within the Democratic primaries. A whole bunch of hundreds of voters across the nation answered the decision, with particularly spectacular numbers in swing states similar to Michigan and Wisconsin. This translated to 30 elected delegates who introduced their message to Chicago.
Behind the scenes, Uncommitted had been negotiating with Democratic leaders for days. It was in a position to safe a first-ever panel at a Democratic conference about Palestinian human rights. As a substitute of merely protesting past the safety perimeter, the Uncommitted delegates labored the halls, their buttons and keffiyehs making them a visual presence, and signed up lots of of “cease-fire delegates” supporting the motion’s demand for a everlasting cease-fire.
However one central ask introduced the Uncommitted nationwide consideration on the ultimate day of the conference: a requirement for a talking slot for a Palestinian American onstage. The assist this request garnered augurs nicely for the way forward for a brand new pro-Palestinian motion in america. At the least eight sitting congresspeople backed the request, together with not simply progressive firebrands similar to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib but in addition Lloyd Doggett, the dean of Texas’s congressional delegation. The Democratic chairs in Michigan, North Carolina, and Colorado signed on, as did the United Auto Employees.
Some progressive Zionists additionally backed the request. This included the liberal pro-Israel advocacy teams J Road and People for Peace Now. Hadar Susskind, the latter’s president and CEO and a former sergeant within the Israel Protection Forces, referred to as the absence of a Palestinian American speaker “a mistake, not only a political one, however an ethical one.” Alana Zeitchik, a member of the family of and advocate for the hostages held by Hamas, was additionally supportive. When a columnist mocked the demand for a talking slot, an Israeli group representing the households of hostages responded by suggesting a Palestinian as a possible speaker.
The surprising solidarity ran each methods. Uncommitted confirmed outstanding message self-discipline and highlighted a set of calls for that, not like lots of these aired in pro-Palestinian demonstrations of the previous few months, may have been shared by many Zionists and Israelis. When the mother and father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli American hostage being held in Gaza, addressed the conference, Uncommitted delegates praised their speech whilst they demanded to be heard. “They deserve a spot on this stage,” one Uncommitted delegate instructed The Jerusalem Submit. “However a Palestinian American additionally deserves a spot on that stage.” When an Uncommitted press convention was heckled by somebody demanding that the hostages be freed, the motion’s leaders stated they agreed with this demand.
The motion’s lead candidate for a talking slot was Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American state consultant from Georgia. A longtime Democratic activist who knocked on doorways for Biden in 2020, Romman is a former Deloitte guide and the self-declared chair of the Swiftie Caucus—in different phrases, not your common campus radical. The speech she proposed to ship was an try at talking to a broad base. Like the perfect speeches of the conference, it centered her private story—being born in Jordan to displaced Palestinian mother and father. If it included some language that Zionist teams may need discovered objectionable—similar to referring to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails as “hostages”—its general tone was nonetheless strikingly average. It included a requirement to free hostages held by Hamas alongside a cease-fire, prevented the contentious time period genocide, and pushed for “constructing a path to collective peace and security.”
You want solely examine this rhetoric with what was on show on the Individuals’s Convention for Palestine, held in Might in Detroit and addressed by Tlaib, to understand the distinction. That assembly included a gap name that mocked “all backers of Zionism, Israel, and U.S. imperialism.” It featured audio system lauding the October 7 assaults by Hamas and had sponsors supportive of dictatorships in Russia and China. Such teams typically dominate the pro-Palestinian messaging in U.S. politics and have helped safe its marginality.
The disappointing exclusion of Palestinian People from the Democratic Nationwide Conference may encourage some activists to show away from the Democrats and from the fastidiously calibrated techniques pursued by Uncommitted.
However there’s one other potential path, one that might result in a sturdy coalition, just like the one which backed Uncommitted’s talking demand in Chicago. This is able to require a give attention to insurance policies shared by massive sections of the broad liberal camp, particularly inside its progressive Zionist corners: a recognition of the state of Palestine, conditioning the availability of arms to Israel on requirements for his or her use, and sanctioning unlawful settlements within the West Financial institution.
Salim Yaqub, a Palestinian American historian, instructed me he supported Uncommitted’s demand for a speaker and was impressed with its “vast spectrum of assist amongst Democrats.” But he was not stunned that the demand went unheeded, as a result of “the Harris marketing campaign believed it was staging a nearly flawless conference and didn’t need to do something that might presumably interrupt the momentum or sound a discordant be aware.”
Yaqub additionally instructed me he was “cautiously optimistic that the kind of organizing we’ve seen over the past a number of months could make a small however constructive distinction in U.S. coverage on this subject—supplied Harris wins the election.” He’s crystal clear {that a} victory for Donald Trump would entail “actually disastrous insurance policies” on Palestine.
Jo-Ann Mort, a board member of People for Peace Now and a longtime activist, is worked up about the opportunity of a coalition between the pro-Palestinian and progressive Zionist actions. A founding member of the Democratic Socialists of America within the Eighties, Mort left the group way back and has been dismayed by the left’s entrenched anti-Israel attitudes lately.
“There ought to have been a voice given on the primary stage for Palestinian American anguish,” she instructed me. “However I additionally assume that the pro-Palestinian motion should embody voices like mine—progressive Zionists who urgently need self-determination for 2 peoples, Israeli and Palestinian. This could mainstream the motion.”
The exclusion of Palestinian American voices in Chicago revealed how lopsided U.S. politics may be on this subject. Few Arab People have addressed a Democratic conference since James Zogby in 1988. However the previous week confirmed that if the Palestinian motion does act in additional strategic methods, it will possibly collect main assist contained in the social gathering.
In her acceptance speech, Vice President Kamala Harris affirmed that she needed the struggle to finish in order that Israel may be safe but in addition in order that “Palestinian individuals can notice their proper to dignity, safety, freedom, and self-determination.”
If the pro-Palestinian motion within the U.S. units apart its marketing campaign to delegitimize Israel and query its proper to exist, it will possibly discover dependable allies within the mainstream of American politics to assist a way forward for peace and coexistence for each of the nationwide communities between the river and the ocean. It may take a cue from Senator Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, two democratic socialists who moved from “protest to politics,” because the civil-rights activist Bayard Rustin as soon as put it, and within the course of grew to become enormously influential figures throughout the Democratic Social gathering.
Satirically, in Israel itself, leaders of the nation’s Arab group usually associate with the Israeli Zionist left. Simply final month, an enormous peace convention in Tel Aviv attracted 6,000 individuals with its name for a diplomatic course of that might assist resolve the Israeli-Palestinian battle. Amongst its organizers have been the Israeli Maoz Inon and the Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah, peace activists who may use extra assist from the American left. If the pro-Palestinian motion replaces its intention of a blanket boycotting of Israelis with a hand prolonged towards them, it may obtain unprecedented outcomes.
That isn’t the one attainable strategy for both the pro-Israel or the pro-Palestinian camp within the U.S. At a time when Israeli and Palestinian politics each appear to be dominated by hard-liners, the hunt for a politics of peace may really feel quixotic. For many who demand a Palestinian or a Jewish state from the river to the ocean, such a coalitional strategy, with its needed compromises, has understandably little attraction.
However final week confirmed that one other path was attainable for the remainder of us.
