Abdelhalim Abdelrahman
Foreign Policy / August 21, 2024
The Uncommitted Movement is putting pressure on Kamala Harris in key swing states, including Michigan.
During the Democratic primary election in Michigan in February, the Uncommitted Movement had a simple message for President Joe Biden: Implement an arms embargo on Israel, or we will not vote for you—potentially causing you to lose a key swing state in November. They were not bluffing; more than 100,000 Michigan Democrats—close to 13 percent of those who voted—chose uncommitted.
Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has hit home with Michigan’s 390,000 Arab Americans, who have continually expressed grievances with Biden and his administration’s supply of unfettered arm shipments to Israel, which they argue is enabling a genocide.
Because of those arms transfers, Michigan’s Palestinian and Arab voters view the United States as directly responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction Israel has unleashed in Gaza. This anger has been channeled into political action and mobilization.
These voters’ outrage is rightfully directed at Democrats, who claim to be in favor of Palestinian rights but often collaborate with their hawkish Republican counterparts to deny Palestinian freedoms.
Several months of dissent from Palestinians and Arab Americans, as well as student protesters and other Democrats who oppose the war, took their toll on Biden’s poll numbers, in July calling into question the president’s chances of winning Michigan.
While Biden may no longer be at the top of the Democratic ticket, many of Michigan’s uncommitted Arab American voters are still not backing Harris. Most of them told Foreign Policy that they plan to vote uncommitted if given the option, while smaller swathes of voters have said they may abstain from voting or explore third-party options come November.
This sentiment became clear at a Harris campaign event earlier this month, when 15,000 people gathered at a raucous campaign stop at Detroit’s airport. During Harris’s speech, two protesters chanted: “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide! We won’t vote for genocide!” The vice president lost her patience and admonished them: “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
One of the protesters Harris singled out was Salma Hamamy, a Palestinian American woman who is the president of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality and head of the TAHRIR Coalition at the University of Michigan. According to Hamamy, “This could have been a moment for her to express support with Palestinians and say ‘OK, I will take action and make changes,’” Hamamy said to FP. “Instead, Harris belittled us and used her event as a platform to say, ‘You are stuck with me and there is nothing we will do to help Palestinians.’”
Despite polls currently projecting Harris to win Michigan, the vice president should not get comfortable too quickly. Her lead is still slim, and she would be wise not to underestimate Arab American voters. Layla Elabed, co-chair of the Uncommitted National Movement, reinforced this notion at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday. “[Harris] is at risk of losing key swing states,” Elabed said at a press conference at the convention. “Right now, the majority of Michigan voters … cannot put their support behind Vice President Harris,” Elabed continued. “What we need right now is a policy change.”
At the same rally where Hamamy confronted Harris, Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, one of the founders of the Uncommitted Movement, were able to secure a brief meeting with the vice president. There, Harris indicated Democrats should be open to having a conversation about imposing an arms embargo on Israel, they said. Elabed reportedly told Harris, “Michigan voters want to support you, but we need a policy that will save lives in Gaza right now.”
The contrasting approaches—disruptive protests or direct engagement with Democratic Party leaders—raises the question of which strategy is more effective? For most of Michigan’s Arab American voters, voting uncommitted remains the objective.
Some in the Arab American community are voting uncommitted as an opportunity to express their fear Harris will be no different than Biden on the issue of supplying military aid to Israel. Of the 70 prospective Arab American voters that spoke with Foreign Policy, 65 referenced Harris’s commitments to Israel as Biden’s running mate four years ago. During that campaign, Harris stated that the Biden administration would continue providing Israel with unconditioned military assistance.
As many Arab Americans see it, Harris’s reported sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza is not translating into real policy changes on Israel. When meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Harris spoke sternly and highlighted Palestinian suffering in Gaza. Harris also expressed support for ending the war. However, for Palestinian Americans such as Ameen, who wished to have his last name withheld, Harris’s failure to successfully push for change makes her an extension of Biden’s policies and directly complicit in Palestinian suffering. “We do not want just kind words, because Palestinian life is not something to take lightly,” he said.
Many uncommitted voters think Harris’s support for military assistance to Israel will not change unless she is forced to do so by uncommitted voters applying political pressure. The hope is that, in the long term, such pressure will break the status quo of Washington’s unwavering support of Israel and swing the pendulum in favor of the Palestinians. Already, due to the movement’s efforts, the convention in Chicago held a first-ever panel on Palestinian human rights.
Another factor motivating voters to oppose Harris is the belief that the uncommitted movement can be leveraged to their advantage by demonstrating their frustrations over having to choose between the “lesser of two evils” (Harris and former President Donald Trump), local Lebanese American Samaria Bazzi said. Bazzi said she may vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein due to Stein’s stance on Palestine.
(A few weeks ago, Stein appeared to be a hot commodity in Michigan. An Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee poll found in late July that 45 percent of Arab Americans nationwide would vote for Stein. However, most voters who spoke with Foreign Policy expressed little support for Stein, instead indicating they would rather vote uncommitted or not vote at all in November.)
Farah Khan, a spokeswoman with the Abandon Harris movement (formerly Abandon Biden), told Foreign Policy that by voting uncommitted or for a third party, voters “can break the mentality of voting for the lesser of two evils. We need good candidates; we need to elect officials who are worthy of our vote.”
Khan believes the Uncommitted Movement has empowered the Arab American community in Michigan with political agency and power that it never had before. “We have become a credible threat politically,” Khan said. “We do not have the power to put someone in the office, but we have the power to take someone out of the office. [We] did not even know we could do this. We are now aware of this power [and] we should use it.”
There is a small segment of the community that sees influencing the party from within, rather than protesting from outside the tent, as the more effective tactic. “The Palestinian rights movement needs to increase its influence and power in the Democratic Party,” said Waleed Shahid, director of communication for Justice Democrats and one of the founders of the Uncommitted Movement, in an interview with +972 Magazine.
“Progressive, young, and Arab and Muslim Democrats have to provide some sort of infrastructure that can match the level of influence that pro-Israel organizations have,” Shahid added.
To some extent, Shahid sees signs of success, from Harris’s Selma, Alabama, speech hinting at a more progressive stance on Palestinian issues to the work of organizers. Shahid noted he was “skeptical of the Democratic Party and the White House’s appetite to respond to Muslim American and Arab American organizing …. But I was pleasantly surprised.”
Other uncommitted voters insist the movement should be leveraged in a manner that gets other Americans on board. According to Matthew Petti, a journalist at Reason magazine who is not part of the movement, those who chose to work with Democratic leaders to induce change made a smart choice, allowing the movement to be a part of the party and shielding it from accusations that it is helping Trump win. “One of the charges thrown at left-wing Palestinians and their allies is that they’re willing to throw the election to Republicans out of vindictiveness,” Petti said. “Rallying behind the Uncommitted Movement was a clever response, sending the message that they are a part of the Democratic coalition and willing to work with the party but need a seat at the table in return.”
Regardless of whether the Uncommitted Movement ultimately chooses public protest or internal pressure on Democrats, Harris’s resort to threatening pro-Palestine protesters with a potential second Trump presidency earlier this month is not likely to win her votes. That’s because there is a widespread sentiment among uncommitted voters that has gone unnoticed by national media pundits: On the issue of Palestine, not only do Arab Americans in Michigan not see a difference between Harris and Biden, they also do not see how Harris differs significantly from Trump.
While Palestinians and other Arab Americans are aware that Trump’s presidency could be more dangerous for them given that he has promised to reinstate his infamous Muslim ban and bar refugees from Gaza from the United States, they are not willing to give Democrats a pass. Those interviewed by FP noted that both Harris and Biden enforced Trump’s draconian anti-Palestinian policies once he left office.
Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo implemented the notorious “Pompeo Doctrine,” which asserted that settlements were no longer illegal, a departure from longstanding U.S. policy—going so far as to mandate the labeling of goods produced in settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as “Made in Israel.” During his tenure, the U.S. government moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, and stripped funding from UNRWA, the U.N. agency focused on Palestinian refugees.
As uncommitted voters are quick to point out, nearly six years have passed and many of these policies are still being actively enforced by the Biden administration today. The Palestinian consulate has not been reopened in Jerusalem, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington is still shuttered, and the UNRWA still does not have proper U.S. funding. As Biden’s vice president, Harris has not spoken out against these policies nor indicated whether she would reverse them if she were elected.
By continuing to apply pressure on Harris, uncommitted voters feel they might be able to shift her stance. “You want to try to and like Harris, even support her, but her and Biden continuing many of Trump’s policies is a major red flag,” said Saba Saed, a fourth-year student at Michigan State University and president of the university’s Cultural Society. “If Harris will not restore funding to UNRWA and end the Trump era policies, then good luck come November.”
A Palestinian man from Dearborn, Michigan, whose family’s roots are in the West Bank city of Ramallah, but who has also lost family members in Gaza, gave a morbid analogy to reinforce how Arab voters see Harris and Trump. “A famous Palestinian poet once said, ‘A killer can strangle you with a silk scarf or can smash your head in with an axe,’” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous to avoid future difficulties traveling to the region. “Kamala is the one with the silk scarf. She may not deport me, but she will still send bombs to Israel to kill my people in Gaza. Trump has the axe. He will both deport me and my people, then give Israel the bombs to kill us both. But what’s the difference between them?
“Either way, we are dead.”
Abdelhalim Abdelrahman is an independent Palestinian American writer and political analyst covering Palestinian affairs, U.S. politics, and the broader Middle East
