CHICAGO – Unaffiliated delegates said Thursday they would continue their sit-in outside the United Center to advocate for a Palestinian American speaker at the Democratic National Convention as Vice President Kamala Harris prepares to deliver her keynote address on the final night of the convention.
While Harris will seek to mobilize Democrats to support her meteoric rise to the top of the candidacy, the absence of a single Palestinian American addressing the crowd is part of a larger concern about the enormous number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza as a result of the war between Israel and Hamas.
This initially spurred the Uncommitted National Movement, which has around 30 delegates at the DNC. Eleven of them come from Minnesota, the home state of the vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. This means that the most delegates are represented of any state.
It is a turning point that has created a divide among Muslims, Arab Americans and anti-war Democrats within the party – just as it did under Harris’ predecessor, President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race last month.
Several progressive Democratic lawmakers, including independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called for a ceasefire at the convention. Both were greeted with noisy applause at the United Center.
On Wednesday, the Uncommitted National Movement said the Harris campaign had rejected its request to allow American pediatric intensive care surgeon Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan to speak about her time treating patients in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas.
“We asked for [she] “She will be given time off the stage to speak from her perspective as a health worker who has been on the ground in Gaza treating children whose lives were snuffed out and whose bodies were destroyed by US weapons,” Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted movement and an undecided delegate from Michigan, said Wednesday.
Alawieh said the organization spent two months trying to get a speaker’s approval before the DNC, and they were negotiating with DNC officials and the Harris campaign until 2:30 a.m. Central Time on Wednesday night.
Frustration grew after speakers among DNC organizers included former Trump administration officials and Republicans who had pledged to vote for Harris.
“I’ve had some pretty devastating days, but to be honest, today was the highlight,” said the Georgia state representative. Roman water he said on social media on Wednesday. “I don’t understand how there is room in our party for a Republican who is against free choice but not for me. I need someone to tell me what to do now.”
Roman is the only Palestinian in the Georgia State Parliament.
Florida U.S. Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who is speaking Thursday evening, campaigned on social media to ensure that Romman also gets a speaking slot.
“Representative Ruwa is a Democratic leader committed to keeping Georgia blue and electing Vice President Harris,” he said. “She would be a unifying speaker for peace.”
At the DNC meeting on Wednesday, there was a speech for the parents of an American held hostage by Hamas – their son – after the October 7 attack that took hundreds of people hostage and killed 1,200. On Tuesday, Israeli officials said announced They had recovered the bodies of six hostages who had been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.
The DNC officials’ decision not to include a Palestinian-American speaker also prompted a coalition group supporting Harris and Walz – Muslim Women for Harris-Walz – to suspend its campaign.
“The family of the Israeli hostage who stood on stage tonight showed more empathy toward Palestinian Americans and Palestinians than our candidate or the DNC,” wrote the group. “This is a terrible message to Democrats. Palestinians have the right to talk about Palestine.”
The Uncommitted movement has also received support from other organizations in the DNC, such as the United Auto Workers.
“If we want the war in Gaza to end, we cannot bury our heads in the sand or ignore the voices of Palestinian Americans in the Democratic Party,” UAW said in a statement“If we want peace, if we want real democracy and if we want to win this election, the Democratic Party must allow a Palestinian-American speaker to speak on the DNC stage tonight.”
These undecided delegates secured a spot on the DNC after more than 740,000 voters across the United States voted “undecided” in the primaries to protest then-presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Biden’s support of Israel in the war that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians over the past 10 months, according to local health officials.
Although the movement began in Michigan, it soon became national and non-binding delegates were sent from Hawaii, Washington, Rhode Island and Minnesota.
Now that Harris is the up-to-date Democratic presidential candidate, these uncommitted delegates expressed hope that Harris would listen to their calls for a ceasefire and an arms embargo against Israel. But now all they want is for a Palestinian American to speak to the party.
“The Democratic Party platform contains specific language insisting that Israeli and Palestinian lives are equal in the eyes of this party,” Alawieh said. “We believe, as our platform says, that every Israeli and every Palestinian life is equal. There should also be a Palestinian American speaking from this platform. This is urgent.”
Ross Williams contributed to this story.
