Inside and outside DNC, Palestinian voices advocate ceasefire and arms embargo

CHICAGO—“The mentions of a ceasefire on the main stage are certainly welcomed. But the leaders…could obviously be doing something,” said Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute. “However, this rhetoric tells us that what we’re doing is working. We’re going to continue doing what we need to do.”

Berry was referring to the fact that the Democratic National Convention hosted a first-of-its-kind panel on Palestinian rights Monday. There’s not yet a call for a permanent ceasefire and an arms embargo in the party platform, but the decision to host an official event focused on the subject is seen by many activists as a crack in the dam of what has otherwise been a stony response from the Biden administration.

The special session was reportedly the product of secret negotiations between Harris’ campaign and the Uncommitted National Movement.

“It is not the prize. The prize is a change in policy,” James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, said. “But what is historic here is we are having an officially sanctioned panel to talk about it.” Zogby was a deputy campaign manager for the Jesse Jackson presidential runs of 1984 and ’88.

The Arab American Institute posted a statement on X Sunday asking, “When was justice for Palestinians discussed at Dem National Convention? First time was 1984 during nominating speech and last time was 1988 during policy debate.” Zogby was responsible for both of those events.

In addition to celebrating the breakthrough that the hosting of a Palestinian panel by the Democratic Party represents, activists are pushing for more at events being held on the sidelines of the DNC.

Zogby’s Arab American Institute is hosting a three-day event at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition headquarters on Chicago’s South Side to highlight strategies and tactics to work inside the Democratic Party to pursue a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to weapons sales to Israel.

“Biden was a liability to the Democratic Party because of his unpopular and immoral policy” on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, said Layla Elabed, the founder of the Uncommitted movement and a participant in the event at Rainbow/PUSH. “With Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket, the window of opportunity to move the Democratic Party is slightly better.”

The panel at Rainbow/PUSH on Tuesday also featured a group of Palestinian-Americans from around the country. The voices of their community, along with those of the broad majority of voters who support a ceasefire and an arms embargo generally, are not being heard during the convention proceedings, they said.

The Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have been subject to Israel’s scorched earth campaign for nearly a year, resulting in the deaths of more than 40,000 people, the majority of whom were women and children. The Lancet Journal of Medicine, however, estimates that as many as 186,000 may have died as a result of starvation, disease, and other side effects of war.

Additionally, in the West Bank, there has been an increase in repression and support for illegal settlements, leading to a severe uptick in evictions and killings of Palestinians, with the United Nations estimating nearly 600 dead there as of Aug. 12, 2024.

“It’s gutting how disposable Palestinians still are,” said Rania Batrice, former deputy campaign manager for Bernie Sanders. “There has been [rhetorical] progress, but on the heels of genocide, apartheid, and some of the most atrocious human rights abuses in world history.”

She spoke of losing “progressive” clients due to her Palestinian nationality and advocacy because of “political stigma”—even losing some who waved the Palestinian flag “when it was convenient for them.” She also stressed that entities like AIPAC are financed by “majority far-right MAGA evangelical Christians.”

“We should make the taking of money from AIPAC [politically] disqualifying,” Batrice said. “Politicians accepting political donations from AIPAC should be seen as toxic as those receiving them from the NRA,” the notorious gun lobby.

State Rep. Ruwa Romman of Georgia’s 97th District described the unique challenges of being the first Palestinian-American and Muslim elected to the state legislature. She articulated frustrations she faced while being forced to grapple with the grief of her constituents, even in the face of AIPAC-funded laws aimed at blocking such grief from ever being spoken aloud.

The loss of Palestinian families and the anguish of seeing the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) defunded by the United States government was grieved by Hani Almadhoun, UNRWA USA’s Director of Philanthropy. He called for maintaining funding for that “critical,” even as the Israeli military killed more than 200 of its aid workers with U.S.-made bombs, claiming they were targeting “militants.”

“I’ve seen the Israeli media disinformation with my own eyes.” In December, he saw his own brother in a video allegedly showing arrests of militants in North Gaza, Almadhoun said. “But my brother, Mahmoud, he’s no fighter—this guy cannot run for a minute.”

“They paraded my brother like he was in an animal circus,” he added.

Each speaker expressed frustration and anguish in finding themselves standing on the outside of the Democratic National Convention.

The reality of it, Batrice said, feels more like “Oh, you can stay here, you’re an ‘okay’ kind [of Palestinian].” But if you speak up and challenge the dominant narrative, you are shunned and silenced, she said.

Elabed cited her father, a Palestinian immigrant, “He came here from Jerusalem and went to work at Ford. He was a proud member of the Auto Workers,” said Elabed. “He found his political home through the UAW.”

“It’s no coincidence that I do this work, and my sister Rashida Tlaib was the first Palestinian-American elected to Congress. It was our father who instilled these values in us.”

Elabed called for solutions: “It’s always the Democratic Party that’s first to say, especially when there is violence from mass shootings, that thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need policy change. In this situation, it is no different,” she told People’s World.

What is needed now to achieve a ceasefire is an arms embargo on Israel, Elabed said. Turning rhetoric into political policy is part of a full-spectrum campaign that engages voters in the streets and at the ballot box by casting votes that send a warning, like voters did in the Michigan primaries.

There, in the Feb. 27 Democratic primary, over 101,000 voters chose not to vote for President Biden and instead voted “uncommitted” in protest of the administration’s arming of Israel.

“We need to use every tactic we can. We are fighting against a fascist danger here at home as well as the fascist government in Israel,” she said.