How Can Palestine Advocates Respond to DNC Snub Without Helping Trump?

Trump's return absolutely must be avoided, but Harris' support for genocide and Democrats' insult to Palestinian-Americans can't go without response

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The Democratic Party and its nominee for president, Kamala Harris, made a terrible mistake at their convention this past week. Their refusal to allow a Palestinian-American speaker to address the main room was a foolish misstep.

Harris and the party had a chance to address a thorny issue that has dogged them from the beginning of this campaign. They could have done that in a way that was relatively low risk, politically. The speech that Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romann wanted to give at the DNC was mild, emotional, tremendously supportive of Harris and the Democratic Party, and affirming of the humanity of Palestinians, Israelis, and everyone.

Instead, they refused to allow a Palestinian speaker, leaving the parents of an Israeli-American hostage to show more empathy for Palestinians in Gaza than the prospective next President of the United States. It was shameful and it renewed the message Joe Biden has been sending for nearly eleven months: that the Democratic Party has little regard for Palestinian voters and even less for the lives of the people of Gaza.

Harris’ and the Democrats’ behavior during the DNC reignited the debate among Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents over Gaza and the entire issue of Palestine and Israel. It was needless; anyone reading Romann’s speech can easily see this would have quelled concerns.

Romann never even mentioned Israel, except to call for the release of Israeli, as well as Palestinian, hostages. There was no blame in the speech—a point which, doubtless would have opened Romann up to criticism from some in the Palestinian and solidarity communities.

The result of disallowing even this mild statement was the devastation of what little hope Harris had kindled among Palestinian-Americans. One group, Muslim Women for Harris, immediately announced it was disbanding after this disgraceful action.

Romann herself could not hide her disappointment in her own party, even while she remained determined to continue to fight for change from within.

The Uncommitted Movement has little choice but to continue to back Harris, despite having been insulted in so blatant a manner, and having to deal with the reality that their party and its leader are engaged in an unprecedented level of genocide denial. But that behavior has created a backlash that has invigorated a group that has just changed its name from “Abandon Biden” to “Abandon Harris.”

The dilemma: Trump is worse

It is impossible for anyone with liberal, progressive, or leftist values to make the case that Donald Trump, on matters of policy, is better than Harris or Biden. There is a strain of thought that suggests that things need to get worse before the masses of people will be willing to embrace and act for radical change, but the devastation to millions, even billions, of lives both in the United States and around the world that a second Trump term would bring makes that an exceedingly cold-hearted calculation.

But if there is one issue on which Trump does give the Democrats a run for their money, it is the Middle East, especially Palestine.

Recall Trump’s record: He recognized Israel’s illegal claim of sovereignty over the Golan Heights; he broke with years of policy and moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, effectively recognizing it as Israel’s capital, removing that issue from the mythological list of “final status” issues; he ushered in the shuttering of the PLO office in Washington; he slashed aid to the Palestinians; he brokered normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco without any concessions on the occupation; and he made it clear that human rights was not part of his agenda, ignoring growing Israeli violations throughout his time in office. And there’s much more.

Joe Biden built on many of those crimes, ignored others, and continued most of Trump’s policies, except for restoring a portion of the aid to Palestinians that Trump cut off.

Obsessed with Barack Obama, Trump abandoned the Iran nuclear deal and all efforts to bring Iran out of isolation and, gradually, into regional diplomacy. Despite Obama’s policy proving effective (something even Trump officials and Israeli military and intelligence leaders agreed on), Trump tore up the agreement and embarked on a program of belligerence which he called “Maximum Pressure” that Biden largely retained.

Most of the Middle East policies Biden could be blamed for were birthed by Trump and simply continued by Biden. Worse, much of Trump’s motivation in doing these things was to distinguish himself from Obama, making it likely that he will have cause to do worse in a post-Biden Trump administration.

But the one thing Biden did all on his own was also the worst: the full partnership, funding, lying, and political cover in aid of Israel’s genocidal program in the Gaza Strip.

Would Trump have behaved any differently? As with any counter-factual, we can construct a narrative for any argument, but based on what Trump has done and said, it seems like he would have been at least as bad and probably—though this is hard to imagine—even worse.

One of the few principles Trump claimed and stuck to in his first term as president was that he would not “lecture” other countries about their human rights record. He didn’t. Even with China, he only signed a bill condemning its treatment of Uighurs grudgingly, and his own advisors said that he personally supported China’s treatment of the Uighurs.

The loss of life and destruction in Gaza would not have bothered Trump even in the most cynical way, as it eventually did when Biden was forced by his own party and against his personal contempt for the lives of Palestinians to express concern over the massive devastation in Gaza.

Trump’s issue with Israel in Gaza is that it’s been bad public relations, and that Israel should “get the job done,” absurdly criticizing Biden for “restraining” Israel. This does not sound like a man who is going to stop a genocide. It sounds like a man who wants to make it complete.

In the best-case scenario, Trump would simply want to avoid the whole issue as much as possible and would just continue supplying Israel with weapons and running interference in international arenas. In other words, the best case, and it’s an unlikely one, is that Trump will be just as bad as Genocide Joe on Gaza. Much more likely, he will be worse.

And that is aside from the deadly threat Trump poses to the planet with his opposition to any action regarding climate change and his lascivious lust for nuclear and other weap0ons of mass destruction. Trump will be a key part of the growing international, far-right, faux-populist team that we are seeing in France, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere, joining existing countries like Russia, Belarus, and Hungary. That represents a global crisis for marginalized communities of all sorts.

Moreover, American citizens will be much more limited in our ability to work for change under Trump. This is a man who wants the police and military to use live rounds against protesters; who wants the federal government to go after his political enemies, which includes not only individuals with whom Trump has a personal vendetta, but also nonprofits and volunteer-based activist groups; who wants to strip away voting rights, and already has a stacked Supreme Court to do it with; and who encourages vigilante groups to help pursue all of these goals.

Those things will severely hamper Palestine solidarity in this country, creating a far greater disadvantage than they have now. No one in power will care. Right now, Democrats must worry about the votes they might lose from Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Americans as well as young voters and progressives. Republicans have no such concerns.

In every way imaginable, Trump is not just worse than Harris for Palestine, he is much worse. That is true even when we don’t know for certain how bad Harris will actually be once in office and exactly what corrupt temptations might greet Trump if he regains the White House.

Democrats know this, and Kamala Harris—who, contrary to the hateful messaging coming from Republicans is a lot smarter than Joe Biden, putting her light years ahead of Trump—knows it even more. Even though Democratic voters do not support the current approach in Gaza, she continues to believe that the overwhelming majority of pro-Palestine voters will have no choice but to vote for her in November, despite her clearly antagonistic and contemptuous actions.

That reality is what birthed both the Uncommitted and Abandon Biden/Harris movements. So, is she right?

The dilemma: Democrats’ disregard for genocide in Gaza is intolerable

As someone deeply involved in Israel and Palestine, I’ve focused on that issue, but there are many other reasons to be fundamentally unhappy with the Democrats. The DNC was frequently called “a celebration of joy” and similar things. But the attempt to project positivity—which was, it must be said, quite successful—obscured a distinct lack of vision, and a troubling dearth of policy discussion.

Palestine, even at this moment of genocide in Gaza, is not the only issue, and it’s not the only area where Democrats fall short. They have been woefully deficient in dealing with the crisis of policing and the carceral system in this country; income inequality continues at crisis levels; a shortage of living wage employment and a huge burden of individual debt are still at backbreaking levels; and for all the talk of being pro-labor, union membership is at an all-time low. That’s before we even talk about immigration where, as with Palestine, Democrats are eager to show they are even more right wing than Republicans, except with nicer words.

But through all that, the only issue generating arguments for Harris voters to abandon her is Gaza. That makes sense because genocide represents a moral, humanitarian, and political crisis of the worst kind, as well as being strategically disastrous for the long term. The Democrats’ entire approach to Israel and the issues raised by supporting an ongoing project of colonialist displacement in the name of creating an ethnic apartheid state is already strategically foolhardy. Supporting a genocide in that context has undermined what little credibility the United States has in the world. Both the specific pro-genocide policy and the overall approach to Israel and the Middle East in general is bad policy and bad politics.

Figuring out how to press for a better Middle East policy is similarly not the only issue. The strategy for doing that can and must be expanded to one which allows for progressive change on all the fronts listed above and more. Many on both the populist right and populist left complain that both parties are beholden to corporate and wealthy donors and powerful, skilled lobbyists. They’re not wrong.

But how can we act to change that at this moment when the threat of a literal fascist takeover of the United States, an economic behemoth with by far the most dangerous military in history, is before us?

An alternative strategy

It’s important to say first that it is unreasonable and unethical for any of us who are not Palestinian or have Palestinian family members to tell Palestinians or their family members that they must vote for Harris.

Palestinian-Americans have, in some cases, lost their entire families, extended families, sometimes numbering over one hundred family members, to Israel’s genocidal campaign. Virtually everyone with remaining connections in Gaza has lost someone, seen their family’s home, village, or entire city destroyed, seen child relations orphaned, experienced a life-altering injury, or any of the many other traumas of Israel’s despicable actions.

Under no circumstances does anyone have the right to tell people who have that experience that they must vote for one of the people responsible for this horror, Trump or no Trump.

That said, those of us who are not Palestinian but are lucky enough to live in a solid Blue or Red state don't have to vote for Kamala Harris. She'll win in those states regardless. Therefore, strategically, it makes sense to vote third party in those states.

We saw this happen in the recent UK elections, when Labour trounced the Conservatives, yet barely secured more votes than when they lost in 2019. It is not lost on Labour that the British public voted much more against the Tories than for Labour. They know that people want something better. We can send that message to Democrats in Blue states as well.

If that message is to get through, we must not tolerate the uncritical way people approach voting for Democrats, especially now. As a party, they remain problematic on economic issues. They do as little on economic issues as they can while still retaining liberal voters. But in 2016 and 2020, progressive activists were able to team with the most progressive members of Congress such as Bernie Sanders and The Squad to create the pressure for some significant concessions, particularly on labor issues. In 2016, the Democrats chose to ignore the progressive voters they needed. The result is that too many of those voters didn’t vote for either Hillary Clinton or Trump and many progressives were discouraged from doing the grassroots work that Democrats needed. And Trump won.

In 2020, the Biden team recognized that mistake and, instead of alienating the many Sanders supporters, they worked with them, brought them in and made concessions to them. It was far from a panacea. Biden still did nothing to bring about most of what he promised in his Build Back Better bill, but did feel enough pressure to salvage some of it and turn a small piece of it into the Inflation Reduction Act. He appointed real advocates to the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Trade Commission. These things were far from revolutionary, but they mattered.

Unfortunately, this time around, without the motivation of emerging from the Covid pandemic and, for some, the more liberal leadership, and the congressional leaders—sadly, including Sanders—fell quickly into line behind first Biden and, after those same leaders realized what a disaster of a candidate he was, Harris.

The result has been a more Clinton-esque campaign, though with a more relatable, humane face in Harris. As a result, Harris has done little more than offer the very same talking points on Gaza as Biden, albeit with a tone that is less apathetic about Palestinians. But everything she has said communicates a similar policy direction as Biden, not only on Palestine and Israel, but on most other issues.

That is concerning for many reasons, but especially because Democrats are terrible on human rights, both domestically with their support for the prison-industrial complex, and globally. One reason for that deficiency is that there hasn't been enough pressure from within their voter pool to change it.

Advocates therefore need not just to vote for the lesser of the two evils—which will save lives in the near term and is an important component of strategy as abandoning Harris means Palestine advocacy will be blamed, rightly or wrongly, if there is a second Trump presidency—but also to use votes where they can, to force the kind of change they forced under Biden. In other words, vote third party where it’s safe to do so, but vote for Harris where you absolutely must, in any state that is or might be a battleground state.

At this moment, where people, including some who should know better, seem almost enraptured by a DNC that was orchestrated and deeply problematic on policy, it’s necessary to reinforce the notion that progressives are forced into supporting the lesser of two evils.

The Democrats say some good things. And, on social issues, they really aren’t bad.

But Harris is running on a more conservative platform than the one Biden ran in 2020 in many ways. On the Middle East, she is giving the appearance of someone who sounds different but is really saying the same thing we have been hearing for years.

At the DNC, she got thunderous applause for calling for a deal where Palestinians can “realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.” I’ve seen people claim that Biden would never have said that. He has, in fact, said it many times. Indeed, he said almost exactly that when presenting the current three-stage ceasefire plan: “And all of this would create the conditions for a different future and a better future for the Palestinian people, one of self-determination, dignity, security, and freedom.  This path is available once the deal is struck.”

Harris is trying to present a kinder, gentler rhetoric wrapped around the same failed policy. That need not be how she governs if she wins. But she is not ideologically committed to Israel, as Biden is. So, she can be moved with political pressure. That can be applied now by voting third party where we can; voting for her where we need to in order to block Trump; continuing to loudly call her out on her policy failures like those she demonstrated at the DNC; and boldly agitating for an end to the genocide that she remains a willing participant in.

It’s true, we cannot allow Trump back in office, for a myriad of reasons. Those reasons very much include Palestine and Gaza where, hard is it can be to conceive, he is virtually certain to be worse than Harris or even Biden. But equally, we cannot allow our fear of Trump to derail the movement for progressive change, on Gaza and on everything else.

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