Dozens of Muslim delegates and their allies, angry at US support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, are seeking changes in the Democratic platform and plan to press for an arms embargo this week, putting the party on guard for disruptions to high-profile speeches at its national convention in Chicago.
Calling itself “Delegates Against Genocide”, the pro-Palestinian group says it will exercise its freedom of speech rights during main events at the four-day Democratic National Convention convening on Monday to formally nominate Vice-President Kamala Harris for president in the November 5 election against Republican former president Donald Trump.
Group organisers declined to give details, but said they would offer amendments to the party platform and use their rights as delegates to speak on the convention floor.
US President Joe Biden is expected to speak on Monday and Harris on Thursday.
Pro-Palestinian delegates say they deserve a bigger role in the writing of the party platform. The convention takes place in Chicago, which has the largest Palestinian American population of any city in the United States.
The group wants to include language backing enforcement of laws that ban giving military aid to individuals or security forces that commit gross violations of human rights.
“We’re going to make our voices heard,” said Liano Sharon, a business consultant and delegate who signed an alternative platform along with 34 other delegates. “Freedom of expression necessarily includes the right to stand up and be heard even when the authority in the room says to shut up.”
The Harris campaign declined to comment.
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The party’s draft platform released in mid-July calls for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire” in the war and the release of remaining hostages taken to Gaza during an October 7, 2023 attack by Islamist militant Hamas fighters in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed.
The platform does not mention the more than 40,000 people that Palestinian health authorities in Gaza say have been killed in Israel’s subsequent offensive. Nor does it mention any plans to curtail US arms shipments to Israel.
The US approved US$20 billion in additional arms sales to Israel on Tuesday.
Mediators including the US have sought to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, based on a plan Biden put forward in May but so far have not succeeded.
The war, now in its 11th month, reduced support for Democrats among Muslim and Arab-American voters, who represent crucial votes in election battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
While the activists make up a tiny fraction of convention delegates, disruptions inside the hall and large protests outside could mar the party’s plan to unify Democrats around Harris after Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 under pressure from fellow Democrats.
Pro-Palestinian activists say Harris has been more sympathetic to Gazans than Biden has been. Her national security adviser said on X, formerly Twitter, this month that she does not support an arms embargo on Israel.
But after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Harris told reporters not only that Israel had a right to defend itself but also in reference to Gaza: “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”
Some 40,000 protesters are expected to gather outside the convention on Monday to demonstrate against the Biden administration’s position on Israel. Organisers say the number could swell to more than 100,000.
Nadia Ahmad, a law professor at Florida’s Barry University and a delegate, said there were about 60 Muslim delegates, a fraction of the 5,000 overall. But their concerns were shared by others, she said.
The Uncommitted National Movement, a separate effort pushing Democrats to change policy on Israel that won over 30 delegates in primary elections, also wants an arms embargo. But it has focused, unsuccessfully so far, on winning a main-stage speaking slot for a Palestinian American or Gaza humanitarian worker.
Late on Saturday, convention organisers added a daytime panel discussion on Arab and Palestinian issues to Monday’s agenda and one on antisemitism. Jewish Americans, traditionally Democratic voters, have voiced concern about rising anti-Jewish activity and Muslims have denounced rising American Islamophobia.
Layla Elabed, the Uncommitted National cochairwoman, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Muslim ally of Biden’s, and a doctor who has worked on the Gaza front lines will be speakers on the first panel, sources said.
Uncommitted, which said it is not planning to disrupt the convention proceedings, is pressing Harris to make a statement about the use of US weapons to kill Palestinians.
