Written by Andrea Shalal
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Dozens of Muslim delegates and their allies, angered by U.S. support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, are seeking changes to the Democratic Party platform and planning to push for a weapons ban this week, putting the party on alert for potential disruption to keynote speeches at its national convention in Chicago.
The pro-Palestinian group, which calls itself Delegates Against Genocide, says it will exercise its right to free speech during the main events of the four-day Democratic National Convention, which begins Monday to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the Nov. 5 election against former Republican President Donald Trump.
The group’s organizers declined to provide details, but said they would propose changes to the party’s platform and use their rights as delegates to speak on the convention floor.
President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak on Monday, and Harris on Thursday.
Pro-Palestinian delegates say they deserve a bigger say in shaping the party’s platform. The convention is being held in Chicago, which has the largest Palestinian-American population of any U.S. city.
The group wants to include language supporting enforcement of laws that prohibit military assistance to individuals or security forces that commit gross human rights abuses.
“We will make our voices heard,” said Liano Charon, a business consultant and delegate who signed an alternative platform with 34 other delegates. “Freedom of expression necessarily includes the right to stand up and express an opinion even when the power in the room demands silence.”
Harris’ campaign declined to comment.
Biden seeks ceasefire
The party’s draft platform, released in mid-July, calls for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in the war and the release of the remaining hostages taken to Gaza during an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas Islamist fighters that Israel says killed 1,200 people.
But the program makes no mention of the more than 40,000 people that Palestinian health authorities in Gaza say were killed in the subsequent Israeli assault. Nor does the program mention any plans to curtail U.S. arms shipments to Israel.
The United States on Tuesday approved an additional $20 billion in arms sales to Israel.
Mediators, including the United States, have sought to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, based on a plan put forward by Biden in May, but have so far been unsuccessful.
The war between Israel and Hamas, now in its 11th month, has eroded support for Democrats among Muslim and Arab American voters, who are crucial votes in electoral swing states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
While activists make up a small percentage of convention delegates, the unrest inside the chamber and the large protests outside could scupper the party’s plan to unite Democrats around Harris after Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 under pressure from fellow Democrats.
“I will not be silent,” Harris says.
Pro-Palestinian activists say Harris has been more sympathetic to the people of Gaza than Biden, and her national security adviser said on the X show this month that she does not support an arms embargo on Israel.
But after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Harris told reporters not only that Israel has the right to defend itself, but also, in reference to Gaza: “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.”
About 40,000 protesters are expected to gather outside the conference on Monday to demonstrate against the Biden administration’s stance on Israel, and organizers say the number could swell to more than 100,000.
Nadia Ahmed, a law professor at Barry University in Florida and one of the delegates, said the Muslim delegates numbered about 60, a tiny fraction of the 5,000 total. But others shared their concerns.
The Uncommitted National Movement, a separate effort to push Democrats to change their policy toward Israel, which won more than 30 delegates in the primaries, is calling for an arms embargo, but has focused, so far unsuccessfully, on winning a chance to speak on the main stage for a Palestinian-American or a humanitarian worker in Gaza.
Late Saturday, conference organizers added a daytime panel on Arab and Palestinian issues to Monday’s agenda and another on anti-Semitism. American Jews, traditionally Democratic voters, have expressed concern about rising anti-Jewish activity, and Muslims have denounced rising Islamophobia in America.
Laila Elabed, co-chair of the nonpartisan National Party, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Muslim ally of Biden, and a physician who has worked on the front lines in Gaza, will be speakers at the first panel, sources said.
The “non-committee” organization, which said it had no plans to disrupt the conference proceedings, is pressing Harris to make a statement about the use of American weapons to kill Palestinians.
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