Mitchell Plitnick
Mondoweiss / August 31, 2024
The Democrats did not allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC because they did not want to encourage any possible sympathy for the Palestinian people who are facing a genocide fully supported by the Biden-Harris administration.
The Democratic National Convention is over and, for the most part, Democrats are taking a victory lap. They wanted to display unity and enthusiasm for the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket on the convention floor. Both were accomplished, although some chicanery was necessary for the unity display.
To achieve the appearance of unity, discussion of policy in Chicago’s United Center, where the convention was held, was minimized. Gaza is not the only foreign policy issue in this election, of course, but it is by far the most prominent one, the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia notwithstanding. Yet it barely got a mention at the convention.
Only a few words were devoted to Gaza by Democratic speakers, most of them framing the issue primarily in terms of the Israeli hostages still being held there. Much of the hope that some in the Palestinian-American community might have held that Harris would be materially different than Biden on Gaza was dashed when the Democrats refused to allow a Palestinian-American speaker to address the convention.
But why did the DNC make this decision?
The pro-Israel lobby is only part of the reason the Democrats made the foolish decision to disallow a Palestinian-American speaker, and it’s not the major one.
The pro-Israel lobby is only part of the reason the Democrats made the foolish decision to disallow a Palestinian-American speaker, and it’s not the major one. Of course, AIPAC and its fellow travelers contribute at all times to the overall trepidation among Democrats to be critical of Israel. AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups have certainly been flexing their financial muscles during this election cycle. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush can attest to that.
But in this case, they played a passive role, limiting their influence on this decision to the fact that Democrats would know they wouldn’t appreciate a Palestinian-American speaker at the DNC. Not only did they generally decline to weigh in publicly on the question, but there was also no buzz about them around this question. Even when these groups make no public statements, when they are actively opposing or supporting something, word gets around. There was none this time.
The reason for that lack of activism is simple: it was unnecessary. First, pro-Israel groups were more concerned that Harris affirm the mantra of “ironclad” support for Israel and enmity to Iran, both of which she did in hawkish terms.
The main reason a Palestinian speaker was refused was much simpler. Whatever Harris might do if she takes office in January, she and the Democratic party are, at least for the moment, fully committed to defending Joe Biden’s unqualified support for genocide in Gaza.
The kind of speech that would have any shot at coming to the DNC floor, like the one State Rep. Ruwa Romman wanted to give would have been perfectly in line with the sort of rhetoric Harris and even Biden have been using. Romman’s mild, very pro-Harris speech barely mentioned Israel and called for a ceasefire without even hinting that the Biden administration was not doing enough to bring one about.
But Romman’s speech would have humanized the Palestinian people. It would have put the face of her loving and doting grandfather on the cold statistics that tell us that over 40,000 lives have been snuffed out by Israel. More, given the call for a ceasefire and hostage deal that the crowd was so moved by from Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg—parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin who is being held in Gaza—and the widespread sympathy for Palestinians among attendees that has reported, the daily defense of ongoing arms shipments and sales to Israel would have become even harder to sustain.
Israel is already largely identified with Netanyahu, and far-right ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Democratic popular support for Israel is slipping, and not only regarding its actions in Gaza. While basic support for Israel’s real security and its existence as a Jewish state still seems to be the majority view among Democrats, this is no longer as clear as it once was.
The Gaza war is unpopular among Democrats, that much is clear. And the general view of Israel among Democrats, while still favorable, is declining. But polls have not yet fully explored how much support there is among Democrats for a Jewish state if that state cannot or will not be a democracy with full, equal rights for all.
These are questions the Democratic leadership does not want to raise.
These are questions the Democratic leadership does not want to raise. If there was a mission accomplished moment for Harris at the DNC regarding Israel, it was the loud applause that greeted her hawkish statements regarding Israel’s ability to “defend itself,” even if the applause was matched by her empty mantra about Palestinian self-determination.
That support for Israel—given that American weapons are not being used for self-defense but for illegal, offensive operations against civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank and have been since long before October 7—can emerge essentially unaffected by the sympathy shown to Palestinians by the parents of a hostage in Gaza. It can withstand a panel on the sidelines of the DNC about Palestinian rights.
But can it withstand putting a real, human face on the Palestinians being slaughtered en masse on a constant basis in Gaza and increasingly in the West Bank as well?
Democrats don’t think so, and they are likely correct.
If you look carefully at the words Kamala Harris spoke at the DNC and elsewhere, they are virtually identical to the words Joe Biden has been using for many months, well before he unveiled his ceasefire proposal at the end of May. The difference between the two of them is that Biden sometimes forgets or decides not to add the words of sympathy for Palestinians who have been killed and injured and that Biden comes across as utterly phony when he does speak those words. Harris projects more empathy, genuine or not.
That’s the Democrats’ tactic, as it has been for decades. Continue monstrous policies, but find political forces or others to blame for it while convincing American voters that this time they’re really and truly going to change their policies.
The tactic is only partially effective, but it’s enough for most Democratic voters to put aside genocide against Palestinians. A major factor in the tactic being even that effective is the anti-Palestinian racism most liberals and moderates hold, consciously or otherwise. Genocide can only be written off as just a policy debate if the people being killed are not seen as fully human.
That was the case for Jews in World War II. It was the case for Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, and the Timorese in the late 1970s. All of these, it’s worth noting, happened entirely or mostly with Democrats in the White House, and in each case, the administrations were heavily criticized, mostly after the fact, over their support or inaction. There are more examples, and it’s important to note that those further examples include numerous atrocities committed through the willful participation or indifference of Republican presidents as well.
Ruwa Romman, or someone like her, would have made it much harder for Democrats to see the people of Gaza as mere statistics, or unfortunate casualties of a war that, Americans are constantly and falsely told, “was started by Hamas.” Of course, it dates back many decades further than October 7, 2023.
Republicans have no such concerns. The base there sees Israel on a divine mission and sees all Muslims and Brown Christians as lesser and easily killed if they stand athwart “God’s plan.” But Democrats, with some exceptions, need to be able to see Israelis as the “good guys” even if they don’t see the Israeli government that way. Concomitantly, they need to see Palestinians as unrelatable, as abstract images that can be reduced to casualty statistics. Humanize them, and it becomes much harder to reconcile being progressive except for Palestine. The Democrats couldn’t have that at the DNC, and they didn’t need AIPAC to tell them so.
Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy; he is the co-author, with Marc Lamont Hill, of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics
