Pomp, pageantry and protests: How the DNC snubbed pro-Palestine activists

The movement to end US support for Israel's war on Gaza will continue to pressure presidential candidate Kamala Harris to change track on Gaza despite the Democratic Party making it clear there would be no shift in US policy to Israel, should she become commander-in-chief.

In her speech last week at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Harris offered a mix of platitudes "to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done" while confirming that her priority remained standing up for Israel's right to defend itself.

Accompanying Harris' support for Israel came the DNC's refusal to allow a Palestinian speaker to address the plenary, culminating in a media spectacle and several pro-Palestine Democratic Party insiders in tears. 

Though the refusal to allow a Palestinian speaker to address the convention drew condemnation from several quarters, including liberal Zionists, activists and scholars say the way the DNC sought to bury its role in Israel's war on Gaza underlined the extent to which Palestinian Americans were no more than placeholders in American democracy.

"Predictably, the Democratic Party did everything they could to ignore the genocide - even going as far as silencing their own delegates," Faayani Aboma Mijana, spokesperson of the coalition to march on the DNC, told Middle East Eye.
 
"But the reality, as shown by the 30,000+ who mobilised for our coalition's marches, is that this genocide will remain a central issue, especially as the movement keeps pushing for a stop to the genocide and an end to all US aid to Israel," Mijana said.

The Biden administration has provided unconditional support for Israel's war on Gaza, which has now left more than 40,000 Palestinians dead, another 100,000 injured and has seen the besieged Gaza Strip reduced to tonnes of rubble and waste. 

For those who had a sliver of hope that Harris would hint at a revised US policy on Israel, the DNC's approach to Palestinians knocked them back to reality.

Alternate realities

Pro-Palestinian protesters made their presence felt throughout the week of the convention despite the efforts of the police and the security ring to deter them.

As protesters assembled at Union Park almost daily to raise their voices and demand an arms embargo, several other events, including vigils and readings, took place across the city, drawing attention to the failures of the Democratic leadership to fulfil the promises to the working class in the country as well as to protest against what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) called a "plausible" case of genocide in Gaza.

Several autonomous groups engaged in direct actions to keep delegates guessing and uncomfortable. 

Outside the entrance of the DNC, several Palestinian activists took turns to read out names of dead Palestinian children as attendees and delegates queued up for their security check. Dinners, too, were interrupted, and parties disrupted. One night, disruptors found out where Harris was staying and made their way to her hotel, banging pots at 1 am local time.

Of course, inside the DNC, delegates and attendees continued with the flamboyish event despite the thousands of people outside screaming their lungs out.

If a pro-Palestinian banner was unfurled inside, other delegates would attempt to block it with signs or Americans flags.

One pro-Palestinian delegate inside the DNC with a "Stop Arming Israel" banner was physically assaulted by five men as the convention continued. The banner was forcibly removed from her.

"The physical assault that I experienced at the hands of these men, coupled with the forceful removal of my protest sign crossed a line that should never be breached in a democratic society," Nadia Ahmad told MEE.

"As an elected DNC member exercising my right to peaceful protest, I was met with brute force. This attack on a visibly Muslim woman sends a chilling message about who is welcome to speak out in our party".

Ahmad said that she is calling for a thorough investigation into the assault.

"The fact that such an incident could occur on the convention floor, involving high-level union leadership, raises serious questions about security and respect for diverse opinions within our party." 

Observers described the euphoria inside the DNC towards Harris as "messianic". Others noted the deliberate attempt to stir up Obamaesque nostalgia at the convention. Harris is Black and a woman.

Back outside, on the outskirts of the security perimeter, a handful of vendors set up stalls to sell Harris merchandise, without a buyer in sight.

 

Catering to the right

Nazia Kazi, an anthropologist and educator based in Philadelphia, says the DNC has become all about performance over substance.

"Every election cycle, a politics of form - style or pageantry - is the consistent product being peddled at the DNC," Kazi told MEE.

And though much of the conversation has revolved around the DNC's refusal to allow a Palestinian voice at the convention, scholars like Kazi caution it was hardly the calamity it has been made out to be. 

"Even if the Democrats had allowed a Palestinian to take the stage, the identitarian horse-and-pony show would have been nothing but a performance meant to bolster America's bipartisan commitment to maintaining its imperial bulwark in the Middle East," Kazi said.

Kazi says a more disturbing phenomenon took place at the convention. 

Not only did Harris shift to the right on immigration, the vice-president presented herself as favouring a muscular foreign policy - both typically right-wing talking points.

"I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world ... I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence. That America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership."

Catering to neoconservatives, either in the Democratic Party or amongst Republicans still undecided about Trump, the DNC invited CIA director Leon Panetta to provide his personal guarantee that Harris would be good for the military-industrial complex.

"She'll keep America's military, the strongest in the world, the strongest ever known," Panetta said, adding, "And she understands what the military is for."

Despite being fawned over by the mainstream American press, the DNC faces a trail of criticism for failing to outline policy as it looked to capitalise on the momentum garnered from replacing President Joe Biden with Harris at the top of the ticket. 

Observers note that since becoming the presidential nominee, Harris has yet to face the media or offer any unscripted comments, in what appears like a deliberate attempt to both wrestle control over the campaign's messaging to the public as well as avoid facing tough questions from the press.

The highly irregular approach has set off alarm bells about a campaign that has ironically set its sights on defeating Donald Trump in the name of saving American democracy. 

Anti-war activists who mobilised for months ahead of the DNC said, too, how the city authorities tried to keep the protests for Gaza far away from the convention as to render them null and void.

"The original rejection of our permit applications was the work of CPD, and if it were not for our federal lawsuit and community organising pressure on the city's law department, the powers that be would have been perfectly satisfied with burying us at Columbus Drive, a clear violation of our First Amendment rights," the coalition to march on the DNC said in a statement.

Explaining the phenomemon, Kazi says the DNC "continued its tradition of embodying what [scholar] Aijaz Ahmad called the "intimate embrace between liberalism and the far right". 

"For people involved in movement-building, there has been a silver lining to the [Democratic] Party's overt commitments to Aipac, its promises to expand our already 'lethal' military, its mealy-mouthed promises about a ceasefire whose very definition seems as murky as Flint's drinking water during the Obama years: it has allowed us to see who in our ranks has once again fallen victim to the politics of style rather than of substance," Kazi said.

Reaffirmed opposition to Harris

In neighbouring Michigan - the state expected to reprise its role as a major player in this year's election - Palestinian Americans watched in disgust as the convention sidestepped a discussion on an arms embargo and blocked a vetted speech by a Palestinian American from being delivered at the plenary.

Mariam Abu Tarboush, with American Muslims for Palestine (AMP-Detroit), said the approach would have convinced those sitting on the fence about voting for Harris. Abu Tarboush, who took part in the disruption at the Harris rally in Detroit earlier in August, earning a dismissive rebuke from the vice president in the process, said the priority at this juncture remained the implementation of an arms embargo.

Anything else was immaterial and meaningless at this point.

"You cannot have a ceasefire without an arms embargo. That is the one thing that can stop what is happening in Gaza tomorrow. Saying that you are going to call for a ceasefire is a moot point if you are supplying [the weapons]," Abu Tarboush said.

"[Her] entire speech just ruined her chances in Michigan. Which you would think she would take into account because it’s a swing state. But she doesn’t care. And that was evident in her speech," Abu Tarboush added.

That sentiment runs deep.

Salma Hamamy, a student organiser from the University of Michigan, said the DNC had merely confirmed what many had already known. 

"They close their ears to the voices of Palestinians that fill the streets around them as they simultaneously close their eyes to the piled bodies in the streets of Gaza," Hamamy said, referring to a video that showed delegates and attendees blocking their ears as they queued up to enter the DNC.

For others, however, like the coalition to march on the DNC, there is still no directive on who to vote for or whether to boycott the vote itself.

"The coalition itself hasn't made any recommendations as far as who to vote for," Mijana from the coalition to march on the DNC, said.

"But many of the leading organisations, like the US Palestinian Community Network and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, remain committed to building the movement beyond this march to force these genocidal politicians to yield to our demands." Mijana added.

But for others like Hamamy and Abu Tarboush, the culmination of Palestinian erasure had made their decision far easier.

"The Democratic Party has shut its doors to the Palestinian people, and as a result, we will close its doors from achieving any meaningful victory," Hamamy said.