Notably absent from Walz’s speech was any real substance on foreign policy — including discussion of the genocide happening against Palestinians in Gaza, which uncommitted delegates and their allies have been trying to discuss for days at DNC. Indeed, most of the night, if not the week, has ignored the issue, and where it has been mentioned, Israel’s role in the genocide has been glossed over.
Uncommitted delegates in support of Palestinian liberation and an end to the genocide have requested that the DNC allow a Palestinian speaker take the podium in the United Center, to discuss a permanent ceasefire and an embargo for weapons from the U.S. to Israel, which the U.S. is legally obligated to do.
“We are learning that Israeli hostages’ families will be speaking from the main stage. We strongly support that decision and also strongly hope that we will also be hearing from Palestinians who’ve endured the largest civilian death toll since 1948,” read a statement from the Uncommitted National Movement account on X. "Excluding a Palestinian speaker betrays the party’s commitment in our platform to valuing Israelis and Palestinian lives equally. Vice President Harris must unite this party with a vision that fights for everyone, including Palestinians."
A group of uncommitted delegates, joined by interfaith leaders and their allies, staged a sit-in just outside the convention hall on Wednesday night, saying they wouldn’t remove themselves from that spot until their demands for a Palestinian speaker were met.
Pushing the issue is fine.
The problem is the performative attacks on the only party that will ever help them.
If they say "We just want Democrats to call for a ceasefire", then when Democrats call for a ceasefire it does not help Palestinians to respond "Actually that's meaningless, fuck the DNC unless they embargo Israel".
Do you really think Palestinians who wanted America to call for a ceasefire suddenly changed their minds? No, it's a self-indulgent response by cynical Americans. And all it does is make Democrats question why they should put any more effort into helping Palestinians.
Look at every successful activist group. None of them ever said "You did what we wanted? Fuck you."
They all say things like "We applaud Lily Ledbetter/background checks/gays openly in military/automobile emissions standards. They are a good first step towards women's equality/gun control/LGBTQ rights/preventing climate change. We will support you, and let's work together towards the next step".
As another person put it, you can be a partner with Democrats or a problem for Democrats. Gaza activists generally want to be a problem for Democrats. But the Democratic Party pays a lot more attention to its partners.
It was always implied that a ceasefire would have to come with some sort of leverage, otherwise why would Israel do it? That's obvious to anyone with any sort of political or negotiation instincts, that's why the talks keep failing, because they have no reason to listen to the US and UN.
The US politicians are the ones who cynically seem to be trying to do a ceasefire without any leverage, which is why now an arms embargo has to be clearly put in demands so that the politicians know how to do their jobs. The idea is threatening a ceasefire for an arms embargo, that part has never changed, the politicians have just been cynically trying to avoid it while also avoiding the blame of it failing. They also keep trying to change the definition to these super short pauses, like 6 weeks, or letting the soldiers still stay in Gaza. That's a victory, not a ceasefire lol.
"Welp we tried to get a ceasefire, of course we're still selling weapons and using our veto to defend them and not applying any sort of material pressure, and they refused. Oh well, we tried."
"... Did you?"
"Nah, we just want you to stop complaining."
Also the movement has been interested in working with the party. Did you see the speech that representative from Georgia was going to give if they gave her speaking time? It's basically exactly that. The most milquetoast bringing up of the issue and no real criticism of the party at all, lifting up Kamala, bringing down Trump, saying it will help the hostages, no mention of arms embargo, our party's diversity is great, etc, the same as every other speaker basically.
These bad faith complaints and changing of arguments, cynically not really working towards the goals they say they are, and not even letting that speaker speak but allowing Israelis, too, proves it's the party that's not really interested in being partners with the movement, not the other way around. Biden more so, as he and Blinken have straight up lied about who has tanked the ceasefire talks multiple times and didn't even let their underlings say the word ceasefire for months. It's sad that Kamala didn't mention the Palestinians at all, except for ceasefire which again means nothing without withholding arms or money, but I still have a little hope, as foolish as it probably is, just because she's not Biden or Trump and she still picked Walz over IDF fan boy Shapiro.
Activists were calling for UN resolutions at the same they wanted Biden to call for a ceasefire. If Israel has "no reason to listen", then activists were wasting everyone's time and Biden should ignore them.
And calling for a ceasefire is not the same as threatening an embargo. If activists now want Biden to threaten an embargo then he should ignore that too. Embargos have never stopped a war. They have been used in North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and Iraq without solving the underlying problem.
Kamala didn't mention Palestinians at all, except the part where she mentioned Palestinians. She also didn't mention climate change at all, except the part where she mentioned climate change. I hate to break it to you, but their campaign is not going to focus on Gaza or climate change. It's going to focus on women's rights and housing, because right now those things interest voters far more than Gaza or climate change.
Finally, the published speech by the Georgia rep was fine. But the DNC was concerned she would go off script, which would not be fine.
They're using our bombs and weapons, that's the big problem people have. The only reason Israel is that powerful is they are supported by Western empire, they are an extension of our imperialism. If we hold back our arm sales to them, then they can't use them. It's that simple. There's a big difference between using sanctions as a part of imperialism, which is most of the reason for the example countries you used, and to help stop it. It's also a big reason the South African apartheid regime fell. It probably won't cause regime change, which is the main goal the US had with those other countries, but it will stop Israel from using our weapons and money and it will act as a chip during negotiations. After all, it has made life worse in all those countries, so they still wouldn't want one. Even if they continue their genocide, then at least the US wouldn't be culpable and so hypocritical.
Israel only doesn't have a reason to listen because they're getting everything they want anyway thanks to unconditional US support. We just sent them another couple billion dollars a week or two ago and continue to veto UN resolutions against them. There's nothing they want from Palestine except for its land and the extermination of its people. I'm curious how you think their negotiations are going?
Mentioning Palestine is not enough. Trump mentions black people all the time in his speeches, and you think that means most black people should be happy to vote for him? Or Jewish people? Context matters.
She still mentioned the hostages a lot more, which means the matter is important to people, but only for one side of it, the pro-genocide side. This is mostly a matter of lobbyists power in our government, biased media, and Israel's importance to US empire in the Middle East.
I agree that Gaza isn't as popular as it should be probably, hence the calculus to not mention it and my cope is that she does care more than Biden but didn't make it a priority there because of all the old people at the DNC and Republicans they invited. But neither were black people during civil rights or LGBTQ people during the AIDS epidemic, or hell, the holocaust while it was happening was ignored by Americans too. Hopefully activists can continue to shine a light on the issue and push it more into the spotlight before the genocide has completely turned into another nakba. It's already a lot more popular than it was before, and the polls continue to show increasing opinions against Israel's occupation as people are educated about what's going on over there, so crossing my fingers.
Israel already has enough weapons to completely destroy Gaza, and it is perfectly capable of buying non-US weapons.
An arms embargo might make some Americans feel better about themselves but it won't do anything for Palestinians.
You cannot call them the only party who will ever help them, when the party has never helped them.
No one wants them to push its bullshit excuse of a ceasefire that solely benefits Israel, they want America to cease funding and supplying weapons to Israel to use to commit genocide.
You don’t push to meet halfway on genocide and call it progress.
A big part of activism is defining concrete goals.
If you don't actually want Democrats to call for a ceasefire, then don't ask them to call for a ceasefire.
Because if you decide that's your goal and later decide your goal is bullshit, then why should anyone pay attention to your next goal?
The goal is to stop supplying money and weapons to Israel, the very thing enabling them to continue the genocide.
Remove that and you will see a ceasefire actually happen.
OK. Defunding Israel is far less popular than a ceasefire. That doesn't mean it's impossible, after all there was a time when gay marriage was unpopular.
But if a goal is unpopular, then it will take a lot of time and effort to get it done. It took years for gay activists to bring the public around on gay marriage. It will probably take at least as long to achieve your goal of defunding Israel.
It will take even longer if you don't want to be friends with people in power. Gay activists didn't make that mistake.
More generally, this is why successful activists often stage their goals, and reward/partner with politicians who make incremental progress. Climate activists want to end all fossil fuel usage, but that's still unpopular so they started with popular things like more efficient cars and appliances. Gay activists want to end all forms of discrimination against them, but they started with minor things like letting gays serve in the military.
You may think those are "bullshit" goals, but a string of minor successes can often set the stage for major successes.
The movement for Palestinians predates Stonewall, so what’s that tell you? We’ve been “starting with minor things” for decades and the US still vetoes any UN resolutions that give Palestinians rights. Biden’s major positive while campaigning was that he is a deeply empathetic person because of the losses of his family members and how he can connect with grieving people, yet he never met a Palestinian family despite meeting and hugging Israeli families for the last 10 months and posting them all over his instagram and giving speeches about them. The empathetic president does. Not. Care. About. Palestinians. He only started talking about Palestinian suffering once his advisors showed him losing Michigan; prior to that Politico reported he removed any pro-Palestinian language from his speeches last October and he supported the attacks on Gaza hospitals. The only person who even bothered to talk to Palestinian-American victims was Harris and she did so quietly and even then the Biden campaign tried to downplay it.