by Brian Garvey
All people have a breaking point. We may like to think that the source of human patience, resilience, and resistance, are infinite. But it isn’t. In Chicago the thousands of antiwar activists who have traveled to the Democratic National Convention are quickly moving toward that point. The dissatisfaction with the inability and unwillingness of the Democratic Party to end Israel’s devastation of Gaza is growing. It has grown over the past 4 days, the past 10 months, and the past 75 years.
As Vice President Kamala Harris plans to take the stage of the United Center tonight, Thursday August 22nd, the energy in the street is rising, and demanding real concrete changes to the US relationship with Israel.
Outside the stadium hosting the DNC, the Uncommitted Delegates, the delegates sent to Chicago by the over 700,000 voters (including 60,000 in Massachusetts) who voted “uncommitted” or “no preference” in the Spring Democratic Primary, are staging a sit-in outside of the United Center, the main venue where the DNC is being held. It began on Wednesday night and continues, threatening to mar Vice President Harris’s plans to formally accept the nomination tonight. The minimum demand of the delegates is simple. They want a Palestinian-American to speak on stage at the DNC in Chicago, the city with the largest Palestinian-American population in the United States. So far they’ve been told no. So the sit-in continues.
As the peace movement in the US has been repeatedly ignored, rebuffed, and slandered in the past 10 months, the demands of that movement have appropriately evolved. The main call since the destruction of Gaza began has been for a ceasefire, but it’s beginning to seem like a ceasefire is not realistic. Like the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian “problem,” it’s becoming a line used by politicians that doesn’t have a significant meaning, except to distract.
The Biden Administration has consistently said that a ceasefire is right around the corner. For over 10 months it’s been just weeks, even days away. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been to the Middle East over 10 times since the war intensified in October of 2023. His efforts to secure a ceasefire have, so far, failed miserably. A ceasefire and an immediate end to the slaughter is desperately needed in Gaza, but as the movement has become disillusioned with false promises it has shifted to a new demand, a US arms embargo of Israel. The Not Another Bomb Campaign, a coalition of peace and antiwar groups, frames the issue this way:
“It is crystal clear: In order to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the U.S. must immediately stop arming Israel.”
On Monday night, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a progressive firebrand and the first member of “the squad” who got a seat in Congress by openly challenging the ineffectiveness of the Democratic establishment, claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris is, “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.” This is ringing hollow with activists. Not only is the claim questionable, as the Vice President is actively running for president, it’s also being seen as insufficient. And why is a progressive politician like Ocasio-Cortez carrying water for the Democratic establishment anyway? In just the past two months AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has already spent over 90 million dollars, helping to knock off 2 members of the progressive “squad,” first New York’s Jamaal Bowman and now Missouri’s Cori Bush. While AOC’s allies are picked off one by one, the Democratic leadership has done nothing to prevent this foreign interference in American elections.
Earlier that day, the first of the DNC, thousands of antiwar activists gathered at Chicago’s Union Park to march on the DNC. The mood of the rally and march was forceful but open-minded. People carried signs calling on VP Harris to speak out and change course, and even one that said “Kamala we’re trying to help you.” The march was peaceful. Despite thousands of police officers there were only a handful of arrests.
But this latest snub of the Uncommitted Movement is tiring for peace activists. They’re not tired of marching, rallying, and chanting. They’re tired of attempts to placate them. They’re tired of calls for them to shut up and get in line. They’re tired of the threats that if they keep protesting they’ll help to elect Donald Trump, making the plight of Palestinians even worse and plunging America into an authoritarian neo-fascist state. They’re tired of saying that their calls against an ongoing genocide are somehow less important than the political pageantry on stage.
Activists are gathering again tonight in Union Park as the program for the DNC begins. Again they will march on the DNC, this time as the nominee, Kamala Harris, takes the stage. Will the mood be as open-minded as it was on Monday? That may depend on how the Democratic leadership responds to the hand the Uncommitted Delegates are offering them. If Vice President Harris wants to continue to build support from activists, from people of color, and from young people across this country, she should make some room in her tent, and on the platform, for a Palestinian American voice.
Brian Garvey, the assistant director of MAPA, has staged and joined peace protests this week in Chicago.