Democrats Decline Protesters' Request for Palestinian Speaker at Convention
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, party leaders turned down a request from protesters to allow a Palestinian speaker to take the stage. The demonstrators, who oppose U.S. support for Israel’s military actions in Gaza, began a sit-in protest just outside the convention doors on Wednesday night, demanding that their voices be heard.
Despite setting a deadline of 6:00 p.m. local time on Thursday for a response from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, the activists said they received no reply to their request for a Palestinian representative to speak. The protest, occurring on the final night of the convention, coincided with thousands of demonstrators outside the venue, rallying against the ongoing conflict in Gaza and criticizing U.S. foreign policy.
While most of the week’s demonstrations were peaceful, a separate, unauthorized protest outside the Israeli consulate resulted in 56 arrests. Layla Elabed, a leader of the uncommitted delegate movement, criticized the Democratic leadership’s decision, calling it “disastrous” and noting that the request for a Palestinian speaker had been made weeks before the convention began.
According to the Harris campaign, her campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, had met with leaders of the uncommitted movement in recent days. A campaign spokesperson stated, “We have had several speakers discuss the war in Gaza and the necessity of a ceasefire and hostage negotiations. That message will continue to be emphasized.”
The uncommitted delegates were chosen during state Democratic primaries earlier this year. Although President Joe Biden secured the majority of primary votes, pro-Palestinian activists encouraged voters to select “uncommitted” or similar options in various states. This effort resulted in 30 uncommitted delegates attending the Chicago convention out of over 2,400 total delegates.
The conflict in Gaza has created divisions within the Democratic Party, yet it has largely been avoided as a topic of discussion during this week’s convention. The uncommitted protesters claimed they had provided the Harris campaign with a list of potential Palestinian speakers. The activists said that Harris’s aides and other lawmakers visited the sit-in on Wednesday night to try to negotiate but did not offer a speaking slot.
Uncommitted activists reported being told that the convention’s focus was on Vice President Harris, as she was preparing for a significant speech. “We’ve been asking for a Palestinian speaker to address the convention for two months,” said Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan. “We’re going to have to engage in some tough conversations with the vice-president and her team after this. We need to assess what happened.”
Despite the large protests at the convention’s doors, the Gaza conflict was mentioned by only a few speakers throughout the four-day event. Alawieh explained that the objective of having a Palestinian speaker was to push the Democratic Party to “make room for discussions on Palestinian human rights.”
Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a vocal critic of U.S. support for Israel, expressed her lack of surprise at the limited discussion of the topic at the convention. “Interestingly, foreign policy rarely gets a lot of attention,” she told the BBC. “But I’ve always viewed foreign policy as an extension of domestic policy.”
