‘Uncommitted’ delegates hold DNC sit-in after refusal to allow Palestinian speaker at convention
Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from Michigan and co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, called the decision by party leadership “shameful.”
Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from Michigan and co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, at a sit-in protest against party leadership's refusal to allow a Palestinian American delegate to speak at the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024.
Pro-Palestinian “uncommitted” delegates held a sit-in at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday, after party leadership refused their request to allow a Palestinian American speak.
Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from Michigan and co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, called the decision “shameful.”
“I’m deeply offended that this level of suppression would happen in today’s Democratic Party,” said Alawieh, who told WDET he participated in the sit-in protest all night.
Alawieh says a majority of Democrats want the U.S. to stop providing military aid to Israel, and that ignoring the plight of Palestinians will not stop protesters.
“We’re not going anywhere before November,” he said. “We’re people who mobilize people. We’re movement people. We’re not going anywhere in four years. We’re not going anywhere in eight years.”
“Today I watched my party say our tent can fit anti-choice Republicans, but it can’t fit an elected official like me.”
-Palestinian American Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman
Palestinian American and Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman said during the sit-in on Wednesday that the protest was not just about her being denied a chance to speak.
“It’s about the fact that today I watched my party say our tent can fit anti-choice Republicans, but it can’t fit an elected official like me,” Romman said. “I do not understand.”
The latest polling from Gallup says just 23% of Democrats approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza. The poll, conducted on June 3, 2023, showed 76% of Republicans and 34% of independents approve of the military action Israel has taken in Gaza. Americans’ public backing of Israel has increased slightly since Gallup’s prior reading in March.
Party officials allowed the parents of a 23-year-old American taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack in Israel to speak at the convention on Wednesday, calling for a ceasefire and for the release of all hostages that remain captive.
“This is a political convention. But needing our only son — and all of the cherished hostages — home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” said Jon Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin lost part of his left arm and was kidnapped while attending the Supernova music festival in Israel.
Polin and his wife, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, were greeted with chants from the crowd to “bring him home.”
“Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you, stay strong, survive,” Rachel Polin-Goldberg said.
She and her husband wore stickers with the number 320, drawing attention to the number of days their son has been held.
The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict has leveled much of the Gaza Strip and killed tens of thousands of people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish in its death count between militants and civilians.
While leaders of the uncommitted movement were granted a panel discussion on Palestinian human rights at the convention on Monday, the decision to exclude Romman from the convention stage was a “crushing” blow to the 36 uncommitted delegates representing the movement — as well as the thousands of pro-Palestinian and anti-war protesters in Chicago this week.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those who called on convention organizers to make space for a Palestinian speaker.
“Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment,” the New York lawmaker wrote on the X platform. “To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians.”
Multiple pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday after clashing with police during a protest that began outside the Israeli consulate and spilled out onto the surrounding streets.
Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday as the United States presses Israel and Hamas to agree to a “bridging proposal” that could lead to a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper contributed to this report.
Read more:
- DNC hosts first ever panel on Palestinian human rights
- ‘Uncommitted’ delegates at DNC aim to put pressure on Harris’ Gaza policy
- Assessing the impact of the ‘uncommitted’ vote in Michigan
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