The Genocide Continues to Post a Problem for the Democrats

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Aug 24, 2024 7:32 PM
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The decision by the DNC to refuse the speaking request of the Uncommitted movement proves that the Democrats can be nothing else but a party for the imperialists

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

The DNC might not have been as tightly produced as the RNC, but over the its four days it offered a number of compelling and strong statements from all sectors of the Democratic Party on why the base of the party must mobilize for Harris.

Well, almost all sectors of the party.

One sector that the Democrats didn’t feature in the DNC is the voice of Palestinians and the Uncommitted delegates. These delegates come with a clear political mandate the Democrats have failed to oblige. Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, supports a temporary ceasefire but has opposed the one thing that could make a true ceasefire possible — an arms embargo against the state of Israel.

The Democrats, in fear of being labeled soft on defending Israel, took care to minimize how much space the war in Gaza took up in the convention. However, their efforts to keep the elephant in the room from taking center stage may have backfired as many news publications reported on the conflict between the DNC and the Uncommitted Movement.

The DNC is getting a lot of push back, even from the UAW, for not allowing Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian, to speak at the convention as a representative of the Uncommitted Movement. Her speech, which has been published in Mother Jones and shared on instagram, tries to unify the party behind Harris, even its Uncommitted wing. However, it puts the issue of Gaza too much at center stage, even if it portrays the Democratic Party as more of a consistent fighter against the genocide than it is.

The refusal to allow Romman to speak has already cost the support of Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, who released a statement saying they “cannot in good conscience, continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, in light of this new information from the Uncommitted Movement that VP Harris’s team declined their request to have a Palestinian-American speaker take the stage at the DNC.”

Palestinian Voices Ignored and Silenced By Democrats

Even in the face of opposition from the UAW, Muslim Women for Harris-Walz, and other activists in the party, the Democratic Party held the line against allowing Romman to speak. This decision risks losing important support from Arab Americans, who are key voters in the swing state of Michigan. Still, the DNC refused to allow a Palestinian wishing to speak on behalf of the Harris campaign.

In fact, Harris, in her formal acceptance speech of the Democratic Party nomination, delivered a speech that NBC says was “a full throttle defense of Israel,” which is a settler colonial project that serves as a beachhead for U.S. imperialism. Harris doesn’t seek to fundamentally change that, or anything else for that matter. The New York Times said that, “Ms. Harris did not try to sell her supporters on a presidency that would be wildly different from the one held for the past three and a half years by President Biden, who, as a candidate, fought against a leftward drift in his party during the 2020 presidential race…”

While Harris claimed that she supports “dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination” of Palestine, her commitment to these ideas are questioned by her refusal to allow the uncommitted movement the chance to address the convention and speak for themselves. One of the ways the Democratic Party has been such an effective tool of co-optation is its willingness to adopt the language of movements all the while refusing to take action to make the demands of the movement real.

It is worth pointing out that repression of protests in Chicago and at the convention is yet another way in which the voice of the movement in solidarity with Palestine was silenced.

Drawing Lessons From Our Experiences

This moment should cause deep reflection for the movement in solidarity with Palestine and the broader Left. The Democratic Party cannot be anything else but a party for the capitalist class which fully backs imperialism. Israel is a crucial pillar for U.S. imperialism, ensuring its influence in a strategic region of the globe. Since the Democrats and Republicans represent the interests of U.S. imperialism, there is no way they could do anything else but show unwavering support for Israel. The only way to guarantee the voice of the working class and oppressed are represented by a party is if we built a workers’ party ourselves, one that fights for a real socialist program to combat reformism and the Far Right..

What decides the future of the struggle for a liberated Palestine is not what happens Nov 5. Instead, the future of the movement is determined by whether we are fighting for the working class to utilize its social and economic power to oppose U.S. military aid and support of Israel by taking strike actions and work stoppages, by building blockages against weapons shipments, and by refusing to produce weapons for Israel. The movement on the streets and college campuses must continue to demand that unions like the UAW and SEIU organize labor actions to impose their demand for an arms embargo on the state of Israel.

As part of our deep reflection, we must reflect on the facts about capitalism as a system that lives off of exploitation, oppression, misery, and war. Capitalism too, has proven itself incapable of being reformed. A revolutionary solution is needed.

For Left Voice, the fight for Palestinian liberation can only be achieved through an internationalist and anti-imperialist socialist revolution that expropriates the means of production from the capitalists and puts them under the democratic control of the working class and oppressed.