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.
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.