The list of speakers The Democratic convention in Chicago features names from all parts of the Democratic Party, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and, of course, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. What is striking, however, is that Palestinian Americans are not represented.
“Undecided” Democratic delegates and political leaders, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, are pushing to correct the oversight by urging DNC leaders to send two Palestinian-American speakers to the convention’s main stage to talk about the ongoing war in Gaza.
The Uncommitted National Movement announced earlier this month its demand for a speech on the congressional stage by Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician who works with Doctors Without Borders and treats patients in Gaza. The group said in a statement Monday that it was pushing for a second speaking slot to be given to an as-yet-unnamed Palestinian-American speaker.
At a press conference on Monday, the Uncommitted politicians suggested several leading Palestinian-American Democrats as possible speakers, including Illinois State Representative Abdelnasser Rashid, Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman, Colorado State Representative Iman Jodeh and Virginia State Delegate Sam Rasoul.
DNC officials have not yet announced their decision on whether to include the requested speakers. The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Waleed Shahid, a Democratic strategist who advises the Uncommitted movement, told The Intercept that the group has been proposing names of possible Palestinian-American speakers – mostly elected officials – to DNC officials several times a day.
“But we haven’t heard anything back,” Shahid said. “We haven’t heard a no either.”
At the beginning of the congress on Monday, there was a panel discussion on Palestinian human rights. The panel was the first such meeting for congress-goers, but it was little consolation for those who had expected a keynote speaker.
“The undecided and I don’t see (the panel) as an alternative to someone on the main stage,” said James Zogby, founder and director of the Arab American Institute, who attended the session on Palestinian human rights.
The convention will feature a wide range of speakers, from well-known names to lesser-known figures. Among those offered to speak at the convention are family members of American hostages captured by Hamas on October 7, according to the New York Times. They will also be on the convention floor on Monday night to hear President Joe Biden’s speech, in which he is expected to address his administration’s efforts to reach a hostage deal.
“We certainly don’t want to rob them of the time to talk about their pain,” Shahid told The Intercept, “but to once again highlight the pain of one community over another goes against the platform’s statement that Israelis and Palestinians are equally valued by this party — and so we hope that as we alleviate the pain of one community, we are not silencing that of another.”
Lexis Dena Zeidan, a leader of the Uncommitted movement, fears that the DNC’s lack of response so far could be a sign that party officials are buying time before ultimately rejecting her request.
“Maybe they’re just running out of time,” she said. “People want to rally behind Vice President Harris and Walz to get them elected in November, but at the same time they’re also demanding real change when it comes to what’s happening in Palestine and the funding of bombs with our tax dollars. So we’re listening to the demands and we think they’re really important.”
Zogby told The Intercept that while DNC officials have not provided a clear answer, he and the Uncommitted Movement delegates have been in constant contact with them while organizing the panel, speaking back and forth up to three times a day. He said DNC officials have been receptive to concerns about having both sides of the conflict represented on the convention stage, but acknowledged that there has been no response from convention decision-makers so far.
DNC organizers have also been in touch with Ellison on the matter, Zogby said. Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker and also served on the Palestinian rights committee. He has long been an advocate for Palestinian rights, which made him a political target during his unsuccessful bid to chair the Democratic National Committee in 2017.
Ellison has been a vocal supporter of Walz’s candidacy for vice president, praising the Minnesota governor in national television ads in recent weeks. During his tenure as attorney general, Ellison maintained a close partnership with Walz, who assigned high-profile criminal cases to local prosecutors to Ellison’s office, including the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
When asked if his relationship with Walz could help convince DNC officials to prioritize the voices of Palestinian Americans, Ellison said the two things have “nothing to do with each other.”
Zogby noted that the last time a convention speaker supported Palestinian rights was his own speech at the 1988 convention in Atlanta, in which he endorsed the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s minority policy platform. In that speech, he advocated for Palestinian statehood to be included in the party’s platform. Although the party has since moved toward Palestinian sovereignty, it remains a staunch supporter of Israel and its military.
At the panel, numerous speakers, including Haj-Hassan, recalled the horrific scenes of the treatment of children injured in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, who was targeted by the pro-Israel lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee and lost his re-election bid in 2022, said Congress had neglected its foreign policy responsibilities and was distorted by the influence of dark money.
The move to allow Palestinian speakers at the convention highlights divisions within the Democratic Party over the U.S. stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians and led human rights groups and activists to accuse Israel of genocide. The United Nations’ top court continues to hear genocide charges against Israel.
In protest against Biden’s Gaza policy, which includes unconditional military aid to Israel, hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters marked “undecided” in last year’s primaries. The Uncommitted National Movement includes Democratic delegates from Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Mexico and Oregon. Their movement has continued to push Harris’ campaign to turn away from Biden’s policies and is calling on the party to include an arms embargo in its platform.
Proponents of an arms embargo point to the Leahy Law, a 1997 law that prohibits the United States from supporting “a unit of the security forces of another country if the Secretary of State has credible information that that unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.”
“We need to hear from Vice President Harris specifically how she will support a policy that will stop the supply of weapons in violation of U.S. and international law that are used to kill civilians,” said Abbas Alawieh, co-chair of Uncommitted, during a press conference at the convention on Monday. “We need to see a change in Gaza policy, because if we go to them and they say, ‘Hey, there’s a change at the top… and we feel like Vice President Harris thinks differently in her heart’ — that’s not going to win back voters. We need a plan, we need to know how the killing is going to stop.”
Organizers, including the Coalition to March on the DNC, are expected to lead large Palestinian solidarity protests outside the convention every day, at both sanctioned and unsanctioned rallies.
In the run-up to the convention, protesters who were arrested during pro-Palestinian protests outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters last year sued the Washington DC police over officers’ violent response, suggesting that police violence could also occur in Chicago. Two protesters were arrested during a demonstration on Sunday.
