‘Weird as hell’: Dems taunt Trump with messages on his Chicago hotel as DNC kicks off


The messages played on numerous taunts wielded against the Trump-Vance campaign over the past months

Myriam Page

Democrats are sure to have left their mark in Chicago after beaming anti-Trump-Vance messages onto Trump’s Chicago hotel last night ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC).

The various images touched on what have become staple taunts against the Republican ticket in this year’s presidential election, including the line that Donald Trump and JD Vance are “weird” – originally coined by Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in his first speech after Kamala Harris tapped him as her running mate.

Democrats pull a prank on Donald Trump ahead of the Democratic National Convention (NBC Chicago)

“Trump-Vance ‘weird as hell’,” reads one of the messages.

In another, “Harris-Walz joy and hope” is emblazoned on the side of the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

“Project 2025 HQ” also makes an appearance, referring to a conservative blueprint for what Republicans hope will be Trump’s second presidency driven by the Heritage Foundation and more than a dozen former Trump administration officials

Despite trying his best to distance himself from the program, a leader of Project 2025 last month told an undercover journalist and a paid actor from the Centre for Climate Reporting that Donald Trump is “very supportive.”

One of the many posts on X about the projections came from DNC spokesperson Abhi Rahman, who accompanied a photo of the tower with:

“While @TheDemocrats are joyfully celebrating in Chicago, residents of Chi-town are seeing a special message projected on Trump tower.”

He also confirmed to Rolling Stone that Democrats were behind the prank, telling the media outlet the party used a high-powered projection aimed at the tower from a room booked in the opposite building.

The Chicago tower will be used in the coming days as the main site for Republicans to develop counter plans against the Democratic National Convention, which is taking place in the city from Monday to Thursday this week.

Sure to be a star-studded event, Hollywood stars including John Legend, Kerry Washington and David Cross are set to make appearances, and fans are even hoping for a surprise appearance from Beyonce or Taylor Swift, if not both.

Meanwhile, Trump will be trying to use the Democrat concentration on Chicago to his advantage by hosting his own events in battleground states in what will be his busiest campaign week since he faced challengers in the Republican primary.


The former president will try to secure as many votes as possible in those states, as polls show him trailing behind Harris by 2.5 points.

Vietnam Then, Gaza Now: Bill Ayers & Juan González on 1968 and 2024 Antiwar Protests at Chicago DNC

DEMOCRACY NOW!

August 19, 2024

GuestsJuan González
co-host of Democracy Now!

Bill Ayers
longtime Chicago activist, author and founding member of the Weather Underground.

Links"When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer"

The 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, taking place against the backdrop of an unpopular war opposed by a growing number of voters, carries echoes of the 1968 DNC in the same city, when police violently attacked protesters calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. Much of the police riot unfolded on live national television, showing police, members of the National Guard and U.S. Army soldiers brutally assaulting and arresting protesters, many of them students. After four days and nights, more than 650 people were arrested and more than 1,100 injured. We look back on the infamous 1968 DNC with Bill Ayers, longtime Chicago activist, author and founding member of the Weather Underground, and Democracy Now! co-host Juan González. Both of them were in Chicago to take part in the protests. “It was really an eye-opening period for all of us who attended, who were out in the streets,” says González. “Chicago showed us what the crisis in the country was, the crisis of racism and white supremacy, the crisis of empire and war,” adds Ayers.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” We’re “Breaking with Convention,” broadcasting from the studios of CAN TV here in Chicago. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, as protesters prepare to march on the Democratic National Convention today, we look back to the 1968 DNC here in Chicago, when police violently attacked protesters calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. Much of the police riot unfolded on live national television.

The 1968 Democratic National Convention came in the middle of a year of mass protests against the Vietnam War. Those protests had also erupted in April when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Then, on June 5th, Robert Kennedy was killed as he sought the Democratic Party nomination for president.

Democrats had to select a nominee after Lyndon Johnson, President Johnson, announced he would not seek another term and amid fallout over Vietnam. His vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was ultimately nominated for president without competing in the primaries, after party bosses arranged for his support from most delegates.

AMY GOODMAN: Despite months of organizing that brought tens of thousands of people to Chicago during the DNC, Chicago refused to issue permits for almost any of the demonstrations. Instead, protesters were met by an estimated 24,000 police officers, Illinois national guardsmen who patrolled the streets with fixed bayonets, and 5,000 regular Army soldiers.

This is a clip from the documentary by Newsreel that captures the tension of the protests and how police escalated the situation on August 28th after someone lowered an American flag in Grant Park. The police, under apparent orders of then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, responded by tear-gassing and clubbing their way through a crowd of about 10,000 protesters.


UNIDENTIFIED: This rally is extraordinary. It began for us when one of our brothers, quite rightly, lowered an American flag to half-mast. No one since then has mentioned the rightness of his act. It followed with an unprovoked charge of the pigs into our space.


TOM HAYDEN: They’re not going to let us out of this park in any organized way. So, for the purposes of survival, you should move out. You should float out in small groups and do whatever you’re going to do outside of the park around the city. Don’t get trapped in some kind of large organized march, which can be surrounded. I’ll see you in the street.


UNIDENTIFIED: How long would it mean leaving these people alone?


POLICE OFFICER: We are not aware of the conversation that you’ve been holding here with Captain Green.


DAVID DELLINGER: This is a nonviolent march, that so far we are only on the sidewalk. We are not even on the street yet, although it is certainly our intention to march to the amphitheater in the street, because we think that the street is necessary to accommodate this many people. We’re stubborn bastards. We may be nonviolent, but we’re stubborn. And so, we are appealing publicly, through the press, through Deputy Commander Riordan —


POLICE OFFICER: There will be no march today.


DAVID DELLINGER: We’ve made very clear that you have no conflict with you.


POLICE OFFICER: The order is, sir, that there will be no march today.


UNIDENTIFIED: Be able to march on the sidewalk.


POLICE OFFICER: There will be no march today.


DAVID DELLINGER: Well, we’d like to have the reason so that it could be communicated to the world.


POLICE OFFICER: We will let you know at the proper time. But right now there will be no march.


UNIDENTIFIED: This is a legal walk.


POLICE OFFICER: There will be no march today!

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: On August 28th, the day Hubert Humphrey got the nomination for president at the DNC, police again brutally attacked protesters who had marched to the convention headquarters at the Conrad Hilton Hotel.


PROTESTERS: [bleep] you, LBJ! [bleep] you, LBJ! [bleep] you, LBJ!


UNIDENTIFIED: I take one look at the troops in Vietnam, I know what American foreign policy is about. America now, that’s America of the Democratic Party. Most of us here didn’t come to support McCarthy. Troops are out!


UNIDENTIFIED: The troops are out.


UNIDENTIFIED: Hey, don’t panic! Keep talking!


UNIDENTIFIED: Cool it! Cool it!


UNIDENTIFIED: Keep talking! Keep talking!

AMY GOODMAN: Those video clips come from Newsreel, which was in the streets of Chicago. After four days of protests outside the Democratic convention here in Chicago, more than 650 people were arrested, more than 1,100 were injured. Despite the police attacks, thousands headed back to their communities as reenergized and radicalized activists. This is the legendary activist, the late Tom Hayden, who helped organize the 1968 protests.


TOM HAYDEN: What we are battling for is not simply for an end to the war in Vietnam or to move these racist dogs out of the Black community. We are beginning to fight for our own survival. We came here. We fought. We did not run from the tear gas. We did not run from the bayonets. We stayed in the streets. And we did survive. And if we can survive here, we can survive in any local community in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined now by two people who were in the streets of Chicago in 1968: our own Juan González and Bill Ayers, longtime Chicago activist, retired education professor at University of Illinois at Chicago, author of many books. His book When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer is coming out in September. In 1968, Bill was arrested in Chicago during the DNC in front of the Hilton Hotel and held at Cook County Jail. At the time, he was a member of Students for a Democratic Society. He later helped form the Weather Underground and spent years living underground with his wife Bernardine Dohrn.

We welcome you, Bill, to Democracy Now! And, Juan, it is great to be with you here for the first time in years together, as we co-host every week, but to be together with you in your now town of Chicago. This was amazing, what took place in 1968. Why don’t you lay out for us how you got involved?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, well, actually, you played the clip of Tom Hayden. It was Tom who convinced me to come to Chicago, because I didn’t think that the Democratic Party convention was worth the activists going to, because both parties, we felt back in those days, were capitalist parties that would not produce any progress for the American people. But I met Tom at a student convention again, because we had been at Columbia during the Columbia student strike there. And he told me, “Juan, we’ve got to go to Chicago. We have got to. The American people have to let the rest of the country, the leaders of the country know that the Vietnam War must end.” So I said, “OK, Tom, I’m not sure this is going to work, but I’ll go ahead.” And so, he was the one, actually, who recruited me to go, because I was not planning to at the time.

And I think it was really an eye-opening period for all of us who attended, who were out in the streets. And Bill can tell you, the number of different organizations and groups that participated in that protest was amazing. It was not only supported by the Panther Party and “Cha Cha” Jiménez and the Young Lords, but there were the Yippies, there were the McCarthy people, there were those of us in SDS. And maybe, Bill, you could talk about this strange coalition of folks that came together.

BILL AYERS: Yeah, when you say “the McCarthy people,” it’s the Eugene McCarthy people —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Eugene McCarthy.

BILL AYERS: — the peace, the “Clean for Gene” kids, who were there supporting a peace candidate who had run in the primaries, which Humphrey had not, and they came in support. And, of course, it’s interesting — Tom Hayden also organized us to come, because I was a regional traveler for SDS. I had been arrested, starting in 1965, maybe a dozen times by 1968. And we had organized. We had demonstrated. We had been activists in the street. And now was a time when Tom felt and others felt that we could make a coalition that would really show the whole world. And that’s why the slogan was “The whole world is watching,” because we wanted to project to the whole world that not only were there Americans who were against this; we wanted to educate Americans to the horror of the war and the reality of the political class having to meet behind police barricades.

AMY GOODMAN: And look at what you had just come out of. I mean, April 4th, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis. Just two months later, you have Robert Kennedy, who defeats McCarthy in California, as he heads off the stage announcing they are moving on, what, to Chicago —

BILL AYERS: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — he is also gunned down. He was assassinated.

BILL AYERS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: This is what you came out of.

BILL AYERS: Well, and for all those months, starting in January, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, which proved that the Americans could not win the land war in Vietnam, and then Lyndon Johnson saying, “I won’t run for president,” the last day of March 1968. And we were ecstatic. We felt like three years of organizing and activism had worked, and we had now driven a president from office.

We weren’t happy long, because, as you say, five days later, Martin Luther King was assassinated, a couple months later Bobby Kennedy, and a few months after that, Henry Kissinger emerges from the swamp he was living in — I think it was Harvard — and he has a plan to extend the war. So, that was the reality we were facing. Every week the war went on, 6,000 Vietnamese were killed — every week, with no end in sight. So, the question was: What do you do? It was a crisis for democracy. It was a crisis for the antiwar movement. And we felt that we had escalate and bring the war home.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what Mayor Daley did. Let’s talk about the inside of the convention and the outside. What was taking place in both places? Start with Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Daley was, one, leading the Illinois delegation on the floor of the convention, while at the same time he was instituting a police state. Even many of the delegates at the convention said, “We’re in a” — the reporters, Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, all of these people were saying, “This is a police state that we’re operating in here.” And so, he was playing both roles, as a political leader of the party, but more as the mayor of Chicago, creating a situation where — in essence, not goading, but leading the police in their attacks on the protesters.

BILL AYERS: And a year later, the Kerner Report — Governor Otto Kerner issued a report, mandated by the federal government, and they called it a police riot. And that’s indeed what it was. We had hoped to have a million people in the streets of Chicago. We failed miserably. And part of our failure was that Mayor Daley had made it very clear: If you come to Chicago, you will be hurt, you will be arrested. And it dampened the enthusiasm for the demonstration.

Interestingly, the impact was so great, I’ve never met anyone my age who wasn’t there. Now, that couldn’t possibly be true, but it felt true, because we were all there in spirit. And I think that that’s — the symbolic importance of it cannot be, you know, overestimated. It was huge.

AMY GOODMAN: Very interesting that the mayor today, that now you have protests that, well, didn’t look like they were going to be permitted, and people were talking about: Are there going to be parallels to 1968? You have a president who decides not to continue to run for reelection — Biden now, Johnson then. But at the very end, they have permitted these protests that are going to be taking place this week, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes. And according to the media reports, the mayor personally called some of the protest organizers and said that toward the end, when the police were refusing to give the permits, he said, “I’m going to get it done.” And so, he did use his office at least to allow the protests. Now we have to see how the police function, because, you know, political leaders don’t often control their police. I’ve learned that the hard way over many years of covering urban politics.

BILL AYERS: It’s true. They don’t.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You don’t always control the Army. And we have to see what happens now between the mayor and the police department in terms of how they handle these protests.

BILL AYERS: But it’s a significant difference to have a mayor who’s a labor organizer, who comes out of the movement, to honor and to name the moment, I think, correctly. But I also think it depends so much on what comes next. And we will see, but I’m confident that the expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people against this preannounced genocide will be heard loud and clear, inside and outside.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Bill, I’m wondering also what you think, because back then we had a problem even within SDS, that after the convention, many people were saying, “This election is not worth voting in,” and the result was, what we got was Richard Nixon and the law and order era that he ushered in. And I know that many of the protesters today are facing the same issue. After this convention, what do they do when the presidential election comes?

BILL AYERS: Well, I think that we overestimate sometimes the presidential election. Our job is to build an irresistible social movement. But it is also true that voting is not a Valentine. It’s a practical, tactical move. It’s not a moral question; it’s a practical question. And two things can be true at the same time. The lesser of two evils can be evil, and the lesser of two evils can be lesser. And so, recognizing all the contradictions in voting, it takes 15 minutes. You can be an activist for 365 days a year and vote for 15 minutes, and that is probably worth doing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Bill, I want to go to Black Panther leader Bobby Seale. We have two clips. We’re going to talk about the trial in a second. But right now this is Bobby Seale speaking in Chicago during the ’68 DNC protests.


BOBBY SEALE: We go forth as human beings to remove these pigs, these hogs in the power structure, murdering and brutalizing people not only here in the confines of racist, decadent America, but murdering, brutalizing and oppressing people around the world. And when we go forth to deal with them, the devil always send out their racist, dirty, rotten pigs to occupy the people, to occupy the community, such as the way they have this park here occupied. Now, just a second. There’s a lesson that Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton teaches, that whenever the people disagree with the political decisions that have been made upon their heads, that whenever the people disagree with those political decisions, the racist power structure sends in guns and force to see that the people accept those political decisions. But we are here as revolutionaries to let them know that we refuse to accept those political decisions that maintain the oppression of our Black people and other people in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Black Panther leader Bobby Seale in 1968, later arrested for inciting a riot. In 2018, he appeared on Democracy Now! and talked about being gagged during the historic Chicago 8 trial.


BOBBY SEALE: So I argued in the courtroom every time. Every time my name was mentioned, I would jump up and interrupt the whole thing. “I object! My lawyer’s not here. He’s mentioning my name.” “Sit down, Mr. Seale!” the judge would say. And I would say, “No,” and I would argue. And then, I remember the judge one time says — he talked to the court recorder and asked her, “Did she get that?” [She] says, “Yes.” I said, “Did you get mine’s, too, ma’am?” She says, “Yes.” I says, “Thank you very much,” and then turn right back around and told the judge, “You’re a racist, a fascist and a bigot.” You know, so, that was the argument with me. And I run that all the way through. Ultimately, those contempt charges and everything was totally thrown out. In fact, everybody who was convicted — they even convicted the lawyers of contempt, etc., of us. But when it got to the higher circuit courts, higher circuit courts threw all that crap out. Judge Julius Hoffman violated all our rights.


And then the last day of gagging, I was bound up, my head. The only thing you could see is my eyes and my nose. I was bound up with ACE bandages. You know, the ACE bandage, you put them around the knees when you’re playing basketball and stuff, to tighten up the — that’s what I was — and then, right around here, all the arteries that’s going down. And they brought me in the courtroom. My arms are strapped down to the chair. My legs are strapped to the legs of the big heavy wooden chair, the last day of gagging. And when I got in, I mean, I was losing blood pressure, circulation. And it caused a big commotion in the room. And then the judge says, “Well, take him out.” And they tried to pick me up in this heavy chair, three guards. And the big guard started beating me in the head. Jerry Rubin jumped up out of his chair. Abbie jumped up out of their chair, trying to help me. Guards slammed them back in their chair. I’m trying to turn my hand over, my right hand over, to get my — to get my fingers up to the top of the gag. And then the other guard would turn my hand down and then hit me and knock me back, you know, and stuff like that. They really brutalized me.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s former Black Panther leader Bobby Seale speaking on Democracy Now! in 2018 with Juan and me, talking about the Chicago 8 trial. As we begin to wrap up this segment, Bill, the significance of this trial?

BILL AYERS: Well, I think the significance of the events in ’68, the trial later, really show us what — Chicago showed us what the crisis in the country was, the crisis of racism and white supremacy, the crisis of empire and war. And it was just demonstrated. It was laid out, and it was so perfectly kind of on display that no one could avoid it. And so, for Bobby Seale to be gagged and dragged off, with his seven white comrades sitting there, and with people like Dave Dellinger with the courage to stand up and fight that, I think it was a remarkable —

AMY GOODMAN: Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin.

BILL AYERS: All of them.

AMY GOODMAN: The judge, Julius Hoffman, you said, no relation to Abbie Hoffman.

BILL AYERS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did Abbie Hoffman say? No one ever feared there anyone —

BILL AYERS: Yeah, exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: No one ever thought there was any relation.

BILL AYERS: Exactly. But it was an important statement to the country and to the world that we had these contradictions. And as you pointed out, it’s not that history repeats itself, but the contradictions have not gone away. White supremacy abides. War and empire and genocide abide. And we have to stand up against them. Our task today is very similar. We have to end this system of oppression. And that was a great moment of showing the world what it looks like.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what happened afterwards. What happened with the trial, Bobby Seale gagged to a chair, tied up?

BILL AYERS: And eventually, they were — you know, the trial was seen as an atrocity, and Judge Hoffman was seen as some troglodyte from a former era who was trying to suppress justice, not serve justice.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Bill Ayers, we want to thank you for being with us, in your hometown of Chicago. Your new book, coming out in September, When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer. Bill Ayers, a longtime Chicago activist, retired education professor at the University of Illinois Chicago. I want to thank you for being with us.

BILL AYERS: Thank you very much.

This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today. Donate

“It’s the Democratic Party’s War”: Gaza Protests Planned Throughout Week as DNC Begins in Chicago

DEMOCRACY NOW!

August 19, 2024

GuestsHatem Abudayyeh
spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention and chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network.

LinksCoalition to March on the Democratic National Convention

U.S. Palestinian Community Network


As the 2024 Democratic National Convention opens Monday in Chicago, we look at the protests planned throughout the week to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party on key policies, including the ongoing U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza. Meanwhile, at least 36 delegates are also inside the convention as official delegates representing the “uncommitted” movement and are advocating an antiwar agenda to push for an end to U.S. arms sales to Israel. Although protesters this week come from a range of communities advocating on various issues, from economic injustice to reproductive rights, “Palestine is at the center,” says Hatem Abudayyeh, spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention and national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. “All of those communities are standing up very publicly and very proudly, saying, 'Free Palestine. End U.S. aid to Israel.'”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Democratic National Convention kicks off today here in Chicago. The four-day convention will culminate on Thursday with Vice President Kamala Harris accepting the Democratic nomination for president. We’ll be bringing you coverage all week from the suites to the streets to the convention floor.

While Harris has energized the Democratic Party following President Biden’s decision to pull out of the race last month, the issues around the election have not changed, from economic injustice to reproductive rights to U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza. And thousands of protesters are converging on Chicago to make their voices heard.

In addition to the protests on the streets, inside the convention at least 30 pro-Palestinian delegates are representing the “uncommitted” movement and are advocating an antiwar agenda to push for an end to U.S. arms sales to Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Over the course of the week, there are at least six major protests planned. The demonstrations kicked off on Sunday, on the eve of the convention, with the March for Bodies Outside Unjust Laws, which was organized by a coalition of different activist groups to demand action on reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights and for an end to the war on Gaza. The largest group, the Coalition to March on [the DNC], has planned demonstrations on the first and last days of the convention, with a major protest planned for today. Activists sued Chicago earlier this year, saying restrictions over where they can demonstrate violate their constitutional rights.

For more, we’re joined here in Chicago by Hatem Abudayyeh. He is the spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention and national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. He was born here in Chicago, is a longtime organizer in the Palestinian community.

Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us.

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can start off by talking about what are the plans today?

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: So, the plans today are relatively simple. We’re going to start with a — launch with a press conference at 10 a.m. And then, at 12:00 noon on the dot, hopefully, we will start our program from a stage at Union Park, historical Union Park, where in 2006 — if you remember, the Sensenbrenner bill, the anti-immigrant bill, and an explosion of immigrant rights sentiment in this country — 500,000 people were in Chicago on March 10th of 2006 in that very park. So we’re really proud and honored to be there for this protest today.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk about the difficulty you’ve had in terms of arranging permits and the negotiations that went back and forth with police and the city?

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: Yeah, we had a really, really hard time with the law department at the city of Chicago, you know, very conservative, very reactionary. They did not negotiate in good faith with us. They made some promises that they reneged on. And originally, when they denied three of the organizations within the Coalition to March on the DNC, when they denied their permits, they tried to bury us four miles away on Columbus Drive. We rejected that, of course, immediately, and we sued in federal court, saying that if we were not within sight and sound of the United Center, the convention center, that they would be violating our First Amendment rights. So, then, my organization, USPCN, filed the fourth permit application. They rejected that, as well, but they recognized that they better put us within sight and sound, and they did.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And there was intercession by the mayor himself on some of this. Could you talk about that?

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: So, listen, I think the mayor, from day one, has said that he believes in the right of people to protest. He believes in a First Amendment right of everyone to protest. He talked about how he came to City Hall because of the protest movement, because of the Black liberation movement that he was a part of. And he also many times talked about the relationship between the Black liberation movement and Palestine liberation. So, he broke the tie in the City Council to pass a ceasefire resolution, the biggest city in the entire country that has done that. So, we see that, you know, Brandon Johnson has been an ally to oppressed communities generally, definitely an ally to the Palestinian community in Chicago and beyond, and we’re proud to have that relationship.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very interesting what he said in a recent interview. This is the mayor of Chicago saying, “What’s happening right now is not only egregious, it is genocidal. We have to acknowledge and name it for what it is and have the moral courage to exercise our authority.” And if you can talk about not only that, but the fact today — and do you think the pressure you have all brought for these protests to be seen and heard has led to another first ever? You have the DNC hosting a panel on Palestinian human rights today at 3:00, which will be probably in the midst of your protest. The leaders and among those who will be speaking will be the heads of the “uncommitted” movement and Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, which they’re still pushing for her to actually address the convention from the stage.

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: And that’s a public panel that’s happening in the convention center. I hadn’t even heard that. I have to shout out to my colleague. When we were in our press conference yesterday, I got the quote in Mother Jones, and I presented it to the media gaggle there, as well. It was a powerful quote from the mayor, again, an example of how, you know, he’s really from the movement. And I think it’s very, very powerful also that there’s a panel in there.

I believe that, you know, the action outside is what the world will be watching. People are talking about the excitement of Kamala Harris going to the top of the ticket, but I think the excitement today and this week is going to be outside. We’ve got almost 300 organizations that have joined the Coalition to March on the DNC. Palestine is at the center. After October, the coalition made a shift and recognized that we had to call for a stop to U.S. aid to Israel and a stop to the genocide. But at the same time, of course, we’re still addressing all the other issues that we initiated this coalition to do: reproductive rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, LGBTQ rights, the Black liberation movement, immigrant rights. All of those issues are going to be addressed. They’re going to be addressed from the stage. They’re going to be addressed in the posters and in the banners and in the puppets. It’s going to be an incredible sight, diverse, children and seniors, people of all different physical abilities, people of all different immigration statuses. And the powerful element of it is the fact that all of those forces and all of those communities are standing up very publicly and very proudly, saying, “Free Palestine. End U.S. aid to Israel.” For that to happen and for the entire world to be watching it is going to be a really, really powerful moment.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk, for those people around the country who are not familiar with the size and the influence of the Palestinian community here in Chicago?

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: Yeah. We believe that there’s approximately 80,000 Palestinians that live in greater Chicago. We think there’s about 250,000 Arabs in the entire state. And so, yeah, I believe we’re very influential. I believe we did an incredible job of helping to win the ceasefire resolution with our allies, mostly Black and Latino city councilmembers, and of course the mayor breaking the tie. And so, it is the largest community in the United States, and I think that is obviously significant.

The other thing is, on Wednesday at 3:30, the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, of which USPCN is also a member and a leader, will be organizing a protest. That coalition locally has organized over 50 protests since October. And clearly, clearly, Chicago is the hub of the Palestinian community in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, isn’t the concentration of Palestinian Americans in Chicago is the largest concentration of Palestinian Americans in the country? It’s called Little Palestine.

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: It is. It is, yeah. And it’s the largest community — we believe it’s the largest community in the entire world, outside of the Arab world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you — you’ve been quoted as saying that Palestine is this generation’s Vietnam War. Could you talk about that, the similarities and the limits of that comparison?

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: Yeah. Listen, I think that, obviously, there are no U.S. boots on the ground, except for the advisers and the CIA and the others that are working directly with the Israelis to repress the Palestinians, but it is a U.S. war. And I think the entire world recognizes that. You know, Biden could have turned off that tap of funding and weapons from day one, if he wanted to. If he wanted to stop this genocide, he could have stopped it. He could stop it today. So it is a U.S. war. It’s recognized across the world as a U.S. war. And so — and the way that the rest of the world has responded to it reminds me a lot of the way the world responded to the Vietnam War, saying we have to stop these attacks on the people of Vietnam.

The other comparison is that the Vietnamese lost 2 million beautiful souls in that battle to defeat U.S. imperialism and to rid themselves of colonialism. In Algeria, the Algerians lost a million to get their independence and to boot the French colonialists out of there. And so, we recognize that there have been 40,000 Palestinians who have been killed, maybe 10,000 still under the rubble, 100,000 injured, 2 million displaced. But we look at the history, and we think about Vietnam and Algeria, and we say, “We are on the path to liberation.” And if it takes 40,000 martyrs — it’s hard to say this. It’s hard to watch every day, 24/7, on our hands, a genocide in real time. But we know that this will lead to the liberation of Palestine, and the liberation of Palestine will lead to the liberation of all the Arab masses in the Arab world.

So, we are supporting our people in Palestine. We recognize that they are incredibly strong and steadfast in resisting the Israeli occupation and colonization and this brutal genocide, and the rest of the world is with them. They know that. We just have to battle the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, because those are the only people who are not with the Palestinians in this world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You were also in Milwaukee for the Republican convention. Could you talk about what happened there?

HATEM ABUDAYYEH: Yeah, I was there. And I get questioned all the time, “Well, how come you’re not protesting the Republicans?” Well, we did protest the Republicans. “Well, how come this one is going to be a lot bigger, and why are you putting more resources here?” And I said, “That’s not necessarily the truth. If the Republicans were in power and the Republicans had the presidency, then the event of the season would have been Milwaukee and the RNC. But the reality is it’s Joe Biden’s war, it’s the Democratic Party’s war. And Biden and Harris, and Blinken especially, and, you know, Jeffries and Schumer and Pelosi and all of them, the top leaders of the Democratic Party, are complicit. And that’s why we’re protesting the DNC.” And that’s why there’s going to be thousands, if not tens of thousands, in the streets this week.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you for being with us, Hatem Abudayyeh. You mentioned Vietnam. Well, we’re going to go back to 1968 here in the streets of Chicago. Hatem is spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention and national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, born in Chicago, longtime organizer in the Palestinian community.

When we come back, we look back at the 1968 DNC, when police violently attacked protesters who were calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. We’ll be joined by longtime Chicago activist Bill Ayers, who was arrested then as a member of Students for a Democratic Society, and our own Juan González, in the streets in 1968 here in Chicago, where he now lives. Stay with us.

Voices from the Streets of Chicago: DNC Protesters Call for Gaza Ceasefire & Economic Justice

Story August 19, 2024

Democracy Now! is in Chicago for the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where protesters have actions planned throughout the week. The demonstrations kicked off on Sunday, on the eve of the convention, with the March for Bodies Outside Unjust Laws, which was organized by a coalition of several different activist groups to demand action on reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights and an end to the war on Gaza. We hear from protesters on the ground who say they will withhold their votes in the presidential election until the Democratic Party commits to reversing the Biden administration’s policy of “warmongering.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Democratic National Convention opens today here in Chicago, where Vice President Kamala Harris will be accepting the Democratic nomination on Thursday. While the delegates gather in the United Center for the convention, thousands of protesters are converging on Chicago to make their voices heard. Over the course of the week, there are at least six major protests planned.

The demonstrations kicked off on Sunday, on the people of the convention, with the March for Bodies Outside Unjust Laws, which was organized by a coalition of several different activist groups to demand action on reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights and on an end to the war on Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now! was on the streets to cover the demonstration. These are some of the voices of the protesters.


PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine!


JEX BLACKMORE: My name is Jex Blackmore, and I am the organizing director of Shout Your Abortion. You cannot talk about reproductive justice without talking about Palestinian liberation. We are talking about body autonomy. We are talking about the freedom to control what happens to our bodies, our families, our futures, our ability to move between places. This is not something that’s exclusively granted just to the American voter. This is something that we protect and stand in solidarity with people around the world and around the globe. And so, we stand just as much about bodily autonomy and reproductive justice as we do for people here as we do in Palestine.


EMAN ABDELHADI: My name is Eman Abdelhadi. I’m an organizer here in Chicago. I’m also a professor at the University of Chicago.


MARÍA TARACENA: What specifically about queer and trans movements and reproductive rights connects to Israel’s war on Gaza and the horrors that people are experiencing in Gaza today?


EMAN ABDELHADI: The genocide has had massive amounts of sexual violence and has had a disproportionate impact on women and their access to healthcare. But more broadly, genocide always starts with the decision that some bodies need to be controlled, contained or exterminated. And that’s exactly what reproductive justice is about, and that’s exactly what freeing Palestine is about, is about ending the state’s right to do that to any population.


KSHAMA SAWANT: I’m Kshama Sawant. I was a socialist on the Seattle City Council for a decade. We can see that we have two parties for the warmongering billionaire class. Harris and Trump are both warmongering candidates. And despite some of the differences between them, at the end of the day, it is the Biden-Harris administration that has presided over the support for this war. After Harris became the anointed, you know, crowned candidate for the Democratic Party, after that happened, you saw the Biden-Harris administration approving more than $20 billion more for military aid to Israel.


JANE STEINFELS HUSSAIN: I’m Jane Steinfels Hussain. I’m here with CodePink, and I’m here from the Nashville Peace and Justice Center in Nashville, Tennessee.


MARÍA TARACENA: And you were here in Chicago in 1968 for the DNC that took place that year.


JANE STEINFELS HUSSAIN: It was accurately described as a police riot, and I was a witness to it. I was a street medic. I was newly graduated from the University of Chicago and hugely pregnant. And I was stuck at one point right out in front of the Hilton Hotel, where the police were beating people and dragging them and putting them in paddy wagons. And the young man who was staying with us, I spent several days afterwards looking for him at hospitals and police stations. And he was left in an alley behind the Hilton by the police after both of his legs were broken. So, it was really, really violent.


And I think it is a pivotal moment, but there have been so many pivotal moments for the Democratic Party to take the right action, and so I don’t have an awful lot of hope for the Democratic Party. But I do have a hope for the people of America, because I think young people, in much greater numbers, are really clued into American imperialism and the whole war economy.


RABBI BRANT ROSEN: Brant Rosen. I’m the rabbi of the congregation Tzedek Chicago.


MESSIAH RHODES: And what do you say to people who are calling for, you know, arms embargo, calling for these simple demands, a ceasefire, who are pro-Palestinian, as being antisemitic?


RABBI BRANT ROSEN: It’s just astonishing to hear people say stop war is somehow antisemitic. I mean, on a very basic level, as a rabbi, my spiritual tradition is — demands that we pursue peace and we pursue justice. You know, the claim that it’s somehow antisemitic is just — it’s absurd on its face, and it shows the desperation of those who stand with Israel unconditionally. It shows the patent immorality of that position.


JUSTINE MEDINA: Justine Medina. I’m on the organizing committee at JFK8 with ALU-IBT.


MESSIAH RHODES: What brings you here today at the DNC?


JUSTINE MEDINA: The Palestinian trade unions, since this genocidal war started, have been asking for support from their labor and brother sisters around the world. So, as internationalists, as fighters for labor power, we cannot, you know, ignore that call. And we are going to come here, and we’re going to tell everyone — Republican, Democrat, independent, it doesn’t matter — we need a ceasefire now. We need an arms embargo now. We need a liberated Palestine, you know? We need to end the occupation, because the working class is global.


KSHAMA SAWANT: The possibility of Trump 2.0 is only a reality because of the many betrayals by the Biden-Harris administration. Biden and Harris, both as president and as vice president, and the Democratic Party as a whole, they broke their promise for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. They blocked the railroad workers’ strike, which is possibly one of the most anti-worker, anti-union actions that can be taken by politicians. And so, in other words, both the Democratic and Republican parties are anti-worker, and they are both pro-war.


RABBI BRANT ROSEN: I want people to know that there is a strong movement within the Democratic Party, certainly with the “uncommitted” movement but not only, inside the halls of the convention and out here in the streets, that there is a strong, strong constituency that is demanding a fair and humane and a just foreign policy, and, in particular, an end to this genocide. And, you know, people often say that, “Well, this is just focusing on one issue.” In a time of genocide, genocide is the only issue.


JUSTINE MEDINA: If the Democrats want us to get out the vote for them, they need to actually earn our votes by giving us a meaningful change on Gaza. They have not done that. We are not going to do the work for them of getting Kamala Harris elected if they cannot stop the most basic thing, which is the slaughter of our people abroad with our money. So, for Palestinian Americans, this is a fundamental issue. And we have spent 10 months watching our people die every day. To ask us to simply come out and just wait and hope that some change will happen before the election, it’s just offensive, and it’s completely insensitive to where we are as a community.

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices from the first protest leading up to the Democratic National Convention here in Chicago, beginning today, that protest yesterday. Special thanks to Democracy Now! producers Sam Alcoff, Messiah Rhodes and María Taracena.

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Rev. Al Sharpton: Jesse Jackson Helped Reshape Democratic Party & Paved Way for Kamala Harris

DEMOCRACY NOW!
Story  August 19, 2024

GuestsAl Sharpton
civil rights activist.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights icon who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr., ran for president twice, in 1984 and 1988, and founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is expected to appear on stage on the opening night of this year’s Democratic National Convention. We play footage of an event held Sunday in Chicago to honor Jesse Jackson, which featured fellow civil rights activist Al Sharpton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, among many other speakers. “We learned at his feet,” Sharpton said of Jackson’s impact on civil rights activism. “Every time a Black [person] opens their mouth and talks about democracy, Jesse Jackson is talking. Every time we march, Jesse Jackson is walking. And when you see Kamala Harris get on that stage this week, Jesse Jackson is on that stage.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency: Breaking with Convention.” I’m Amy Goodman, here with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, on Sunday, hundreds of people gathered here in Chicago to honor civil rights icon Reverend Jesse Jackson, the founder of Rainbow PUSH Coalition. In the 1960s, Jackson worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1984 and ’88, Jackson ran two groundbreaking presidential campaigns.

AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Jesse Jackson is expected to appear on stage tonight at the DNC. In 2017, he announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. On Sunday, the Reverend Al Sharpton praised Jackson as Jackson sat in the front row in a wheelchair, hundreds of people around him, family and friends. He praised Jackson for transforming the Democratic Party. This is the Reverend Al Sharpton.


REV. AL SHARPTON: I became a youth organizer under Reverend Jackson when I was 12 years old in New York. Many people do not understand the magnitude of what Jesse Jackson has done for this country. When Martin Luther King was killed in 1968, there was the vacuum of what was going to happen to the movement. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Some of the ministers, even though I was a young minister, seemed like they were not connected to what was going on in the urban North. Jesse Jackson came from the South but organized in Chicago and knew how to organize in urban centers. There would not have been a continuation of that movement had Jesse Jackson not bridged that gap and started fighting for collective economics at that time.


Way before we started talking about corporate accountability, he was boycotting Fortune 500 companies, dealing with the economic policy, dealing with the exploitation of the poor. He became a national figure holding corporate America accountable. What people are doing now was started by Jesse Louis Jackson.


But directly, as they start the Democratic convention on tomorrow, let me just talk about his historic reshaping of the party. In 1983, he started saying a Black should run for president. There was, in 1972, the Gary, Indiana, convention, National Black Political Convention. There was the fights between the Black nationalists and those that were in elective office. Reverend tried to bridge that. It led all the way to '83. He went around the country trying to get certain Blacks to run. In the middle of him doing that, he started a Southern voting crusade. As he was on the bus going through Mississippi, through Louisiana, registering voters, people started saying, “You should run, Jesse.” And we started to chant, “Run, Jesse, run!” Most of the Black elected officials didn't see it. He ran anyway. And he ran and won many of those primaries, and he put us on the agenda, saying, “Our time has come.” …


It’s a remarkable career to be born in the Deep South, in the back of the bus, and to grow into being a world figure that literally changed the political structures as we knew it, put two of his sons in Congress — Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who’s a constitutional scholar, Jonathan Jackson now — reshaped the civil rights movement. What we’re doing now with civil rights organization, we learned at his feet.


Let me end by saying there’s some people that say that it’s sad Reverend Jackson, from Parkinson’s, can’t walk like he used to and talk like he used to. But I want you to know that every time a Black opens their mouth and talk about democracy, Jesse Jackson is talking. Every time we march, Jesse Jackson is walking. And when you see Kamala Harris get on that stage this week, Jesse Jackson is on that stage. He’s sitting there watching the results of his work. There wouldn’t be no us if it wasn’t for him. Thank you, and God bless you.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the Reverend Al Sharpton honoring the Reverend Jesse Jackson last night here in Chicago at a gathering at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters. Hundreds turned out. Jesse Jackson is expected to appear on stage at the Democratic National Convention tonight. He ran twice for president, in 1984 and 1988.

Democracy Now! is broadcasting two hours each day from the Chicago convention as we cover the DNC from the inside out. In our other hour today, we’ll be talking with Osama Siblani, who runs a newspaper in Dearborn, will talk about the “uncommitted” movement. We’ll also be talking about two men who were imprisoned for over 40 years and then exonerated, what that means. That does it for our show from Chicago, from CAN TV. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

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Protesters descend on Democratic convention, but aim to avoid chaos of 1968


Police line up on Wacker street in Chicago while preparing for protests against the Democratic Party prior to the Democratic National Convention on Sunday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

By Faith E. Pinho
and James Rainey

Aug. 19, 2024 


CHICAGO —

As Democrats from across the country convene in Chicago to officially crown Vice President Kamala Harris as their nominee, another group is descending on the city in protest of the Biden-Harris administration’s actions in the Israel-Hamas War — a sharp reminder of the divisions that still dog the party despite a show of unity for its new candidate.

The Coalition to March on the DNC — an affiliation of more than 200 activist groups from across the country — is planning two major protests during the four-day Democratic National Convention.

The first march is scheduled to step off Monday, just as the convention is getting started. The other, planned for Thursday, will coincide roughly with Harris’ headliner speech at the convention.

Several smaller protests are planned throughout the week. Organizers said they expect thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of demonstrators to descend on the Democratic convention.

It’s going to be family friendly. And, if there are any troublemakers, there are people trained to de-escalate that. 

— Carlos Montes, activist

Carlos Montes, a longtime activist from Boyle Heights, traveled from California to Chicago to join protesters this week outside the Democratic National Convention.
(James Rainey / Los Angeles Times)

While many Democrats are joyfully celebrating their new nominee, parts of the party’s left flank will be focusing protests on progressive issues. The coalition is demanding that Democrats support funding for jobs, housing, health and education — not money to fund the Israel-Hamas war.

But the broad array of imperatives advocated by the marchers also includes, for example, a demand for the government to grant legal status to the estimated 11 million immigrants now believed to live in the U.S. without legal documents.

The coalition already has experienced some pushback from city officials over the planned protests, first over the group’s permitting and then about a sound system.

On Friday the city agreed to a few concessions — including allowing protesters to set up a stage at Union Park, roughly a half mile east of the United Center arena, where Democrats will convene. The city also approved installation of a sound system and several portable toilets.

“The Law Department had to drop their unconstitutional denial of a sound system,” Hatem Abudayyeh, a coalition spokesperson, said in a statement Friday. “They knew it wouldn’t hold up in court, but they also knew that we have been organizing day and night to line up important supporters in Chicago who helped advocate for us too.”

Abudayyeh said at a midday news conference Sunday that group will continue to push the city to allow demonstrators to march up Washington Boulevard, which would put them within two city blocks of the United Center.

He said the thousands of marchers simply won’t be able to fit in the roughly 1.1-mile route approved by the city. The longer route that the Chicago-based activist favors would cover 2.4 miles.

Asked if the protesters would abide by the city-approved route, Abudayyeh said: “We will march the route,” adding: “Listen, we have a philosophy in Chicago that the numbers dictate what the route is.


Pro-Palestinian activists prepare to rally at Democratic convention in Chicago
Aug. 4, 2024

Organizers expect marchers to come from around America, many traveling overnight Sunday in car caravans and chartered buses and by train to be in time for the noon-time start of Monday’s rally.

Others speaking to the news predicted that months of planning would result in a well-managed and peaceful event — staffed with an internal security team, first aid workers and volunteer lawyers to monitor interactions with police and any outside agitators.

“It’s going to be very well organized and it’s going to be peaceful,” said Carlos Montes, a progressive activist since the 1960s, who came from Boyle Heights to participate in this week’s actions. “We don’t want to reenact ’68 in Chicago, right?”

During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, hundreds of demonstrators waged war with police and National Guardsmen on the streets of the city.
(Michael Boyer / Associated Press)

In 1968, protesters against the Vietnam War famously filled the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. The city’s police department responded with massive force and the violence that followed created indelible images, which Richard Nixon used to great effect in his successful campaign for the presidency against Hubert Humphrey.

“This time we are saying, ‘Bring your grandma, bring your kids,’” said Montes, 77, once a member of the leftist Brown Berets, a Chicano rights group. “It’s going to be family friendly. And, if there are any troublemakers, there are people trained to de-escalate that.”

Local leaders noted that the city had changed markedly since the reactionary administration of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who demanded a hyper-aggressive response by the Chicago police to the demonstrations of 1968.

Chicago today is governed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive who earlier this year helped pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza war, making his the biggest city in America at that time to approve such an action.

The protest leaders said they hoped the more liberal administrators running the city would help assure a more even-handed response by police, though Abudayyeh said it wasn’t clear that message was getting through to the police department’s leaders.

“It’s one thing to say that we have policies that say we respect the 1st Amendment and we respect protesters’ rights,” Abudayyeh said. “It’s another thing to see implementation [of that] by the Chicago Police.”

The demonstrations in Chicago will likely be the first major pro-Palestinian protests efforts since a rash of protests spread across American college campuses this past spring.

Asked whether there were any plans for protests or disruptions inside the conference hall, Abudayyeh said he did not.


Why her abbreviated campaign has helped Harris pull into the lead, for now
Aug. 18, 2024

While the activists promised to be peaceful, they expressed mixed feelings about Harris’ ascension to the Democratic presidential nomination. Some said they are hopeful she would work harder for Palestinian rights than Biden.

But others held her equally accountable for what they view as the Democrats’ blind support of Israel.

Faayani Aboma Mijana of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, blamed “genocide Joe Biden” and “killer Kamala Harris,” among many leaders, as guilty of supporting the violence by the Israel defense forces.

The activist said that the same kind of oppressive tactics on display in Gaza have been used by police against people of color in the U.S.

“The Democratic Party cannot bear to witness a coalition of nearly 270 organizations from all over the country,” said Mijana, who is Black, “composed of the very people they claim to represent from all sectors of society, marching on them and pointing out their hypocrisy.”

US: Pro-Palestine delegates at Democratic convention to push for Israel arms embargo


August 19, 2024

A Democrats sign is seen on the exterior of the United Center ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, United States on August 16, 2024. 

[Jacek Boczarski – Anadolu Agency]


Dozens of Muslim delegates and their allies, angry at US support for Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, are seeking changes in the Democratic platform and plan to press for an arms embargo this week, putting the party on guard for disruptions to high-profile speeches at its national convention in Chicago, Reuters has reported.

Calling itself “Delegates Against Genocide”, the pro-Palestine group says that it will exercise its freedom of speech rights during main events at the four-day Democratic National Convention convening on Monday. The convention is expected to nominate Vice President Kamal Harris as the party’s candidate for president in the 5 November election against Republican former President Donald Trump.

Group organisers declined to give details, but said that they were encouraging supporters to wear Palestinian keffiyeh scarves and to carry Palestinian flags, and would seek changes in the party platform, while urging delegates to speak on the convention floor. On Sunday night, a crowd of roughly 1,000 pro-Palestine protesters marched through downtown Chicago, chanting “Shut down the DNC”.

President Joe Biden is due to speak on Monday and Harris on Thursday. Pro-Palestine delegates say that they deserve a bigger role in the writing of the party platform. The group wants to include language backing the enforcement of laws that ban giving military aid to individuals or security forces that commit gross violations of human rights.

“We’re going to make our voices heard,” said Liano Sharon, a Jewish business consultant and delegate who signed an alternative platform along with 34 other delegates. “Freedom of expression necessarily includes the right to stand up and be heard even when the authority in the room says to shut up,” he explained at an event hosted by Chicago’s large Palestinian population. “They want the convention to go smoothly. They don’t want to have any kind of disruption or any kind of statement or anything like that. I’m sorry. A convention is a political engagement vehicle, okay? And if we’re not using it for that, then it’s just a beauty pageant.”

The Harris campaign declined to comment.

READ: UK, France, Germany, Italy back Gaza ceasefire mediation, saying ‘too much at stake’

The party’s draft platform released in mid-July calls for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire” in the war and the release of remaining hostages taken to Gaza during the 7 October cross-border incursion by Palestinian resistance fighters in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed. Media reports claim that many of the victims were killed by so-called “friendly fire” from the Israel Defence Forces.

The platform does not mention the more than 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel’s military offensive now in its eleventh month, nor does it mention any plans to curtail US arms shipments to the occupation state. The US approved $20 billion in additional arms sales to Israel last Tuesday.

Mediators including the US have sought to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, based on a plan Biden put forward in May, but, so far, the efforts have not succeeded.

The Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza has reduced support for Democrats among Muslim and Arab-American voters, who represent crucial votes in election battleground states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. While the activists make up a tiny fraction of convention delegates, disruptions inside the hall and large protests outside could mar the party’s plan to unite Democrats around Harris after Biden dropped out of the race in July.

Pro-Palestine activists say Harris has been more sympathetic to the Palestinians in Gaza than Biden has. Her national security adviser said on X this month, however, that she does not support an arms embargo on Israel. After meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Harris told reporters not only that Israel had a 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.”

Some 40,000 protesters are expected to gather outside the convention on Monday to demonstrate against the Biden administration’s position on Israel. Organisers say that the number could swell to over 100,000.

Nadia Ahmad, a law professor at Florida’s Barry University and a delegate, said that there were about 60 Muslim delegates, a fraction of the overall total of 5,000. However, their concerns are shared by others, especially young voters, some of whom have disengaged with the party, she pointed out.

The Uncommitted National Movement, a separate effort pushing Democrats to change policy on Israel that won over 30 delegates in primary elections, also wants an arms embargo.

It has focused, unsuccessfully so far, on winning a main-stage speaking slot for a Palestinian American or Gaza humanitarian worker, although organisers agreed on Saturday to add a daytime panel discussion on Arab and Palestinian issues to Monday’s agenda and one on anti-Semitism. Jewish Americans, traditionally Democratic voters, have voiced concern about rising anti-Jewish activity and Muslims have denounced rising American Islamophobia.

Layla Elabed, the Uncommitted National co-chair, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Muslim ally of Biden’s, and a doctor who has worked on the Gaza frontlines will be among speakers on the first panel, said informed sources.

Uncommitted, which said it is not planning to disrupt the convention proceedings, is pressing Harris to make a statement about the use of US weapons to kill Palestinians.

MBS ‘forged father’s signature’ to authorise Saudi war on Yemen

August 19, 2024 

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Jeddah on 20 March, 2024

 [VELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]


Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), allegedly forged his father King Salman’s signature to deploy ground troops to Yemen, a former royal adviser has claimed. According to the Times, citing a new BBC documentary, Saad Al-Jabri, an ex-aide to former Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Nayef (MBN), made the allegations.

Al-Jabri, who was a key figure in the Saudi intelligence community, stated that MBS, then the minister of defence, was the primary force behind the US-backed 2015 military intervention against the Houthi movement and allied forces in the Yemeni military.

In The Kingdom: The World’s Most Powerful Prince, which will air this evening, Al-Jabri said: “We started the war in March [2015] and MBS was pushing towards ground intervention. MBN — who was crown prince — said no. Our army was not tested and we do not think that they will do a job.”

“So MBN issued a decree by the king to prevent any ground interventions. Later on, we were surprised that there was a royal decree to allow the ground interventions.”

The joint Saudi and UAE-led coalition’s involvement in Yemen has resulted in nearly 400,000 deaths and displaced 4.5 million people, according to UN estimates. Saudi-led air raids also claimed the lives of almost 9,000 people, injuring over 10,000.

Al-Jabri, who now lives in Canada after fleeing the kingdom in 2017, insists his claim has reliable sources within the Ministry of Interior who confirm the forgery.

Sir John Sawers, former chief of MI6, said that although he did not know whether the royal forged the documents, “it is clear that this was MBS’s decision to intervene militarily in Yemen. It wasn’t his father’s decision, although his father was carried along with it.”

Report: Israel withholds $1.8bn in Palestinian tax revenues

August 19, 2024 

A man counts Israeli shekel banknotes in Khan Yunis, Gaza, on 30 November, 2023 [Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Over the last few years, the Israeli government has deducted approximately 6.93 billion shekels ($1.8 billion) from Palestinian tax revenues and has refused to return these funds, exacerbating the financial difficulties faced by the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to the latest statistics of the Palestinian Ministry of Finance.

The WAFA news agency said Israel’s policy aims to tighten the economic siege on the Palestinians to pressure the Palestinian Authority to stop payments to its employees and retirees in Gaza, including salaries for government employees in essential sectors such as health and education.

According to the agency, since the onset of the Israeli aggression on Gaza in October 2023, occupation authorities have deducted nearly 2.55 billion shekels ($500 million) from the tax revenues allocated for Gaza, averaging 255 million shekels ($50 million) per month.

In addition to these deductions, Israel has withheld 3.48 billion shekels ($600 million) in funds intended for the families of martyrs and prisoners, a practice ongoing since February 2019.

These deductions average 53.5 million shekels ($14.4 million) per month, with Israel continuing to block the release of these funds.

Israel has also retained over 900 million shekels ($242.6 million) in taxes collected from Palestinian travellers at crossings with Jordan, bringing the total deductions to around 6.93 billion shekels ($1.8 billion).

The Palestinian Ministry of Finance has reported that Israeli deductions for services such as electricity, water, sewage and hospital bills from tax revenues have accumulated to roughly 20 billion shekels ($5.4 billion) since 2012.

Opinion

Prolonging the genocide is a smokescreen for Israel’s other war in the West Bank



Israeli troops enter Nablus, West Bank on August 19, 2024. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]

by Dr Ramzy Baroud
August 19, 2024 


Promises of “absolute victory” in Gaza are nothing but “gibberish”, according to Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant’s comments were not meant to be public, but somehow were leaked and published by Israeli media on 12 August.

The explanation of why Benjamin Netanyahu is pursuing a losing war in Gaza has been largely confined to the prime minister’s personal interests, not least the avoidance of corruption trials, preserving his extremist government coalition and avoiding an early general election. Still, none of these rationales explain the absurdity of continuing with a war which, in the words of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, is “The worst failure in Israel’s history.”

What else could explain Netanyahu’s motive for the war? And why are his most crucial government allies, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, determined to prolong it? The answer may not lie in Gaza, but in the occupied West Bank.

While Israel is extending its failed military campaign in the Strip with no clear strategic objectives, its war on the West Bank is driven by very clear motives indeed: the annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory and the ethnic cleansing of large sectors of the Palestinian population. This is not only obvious through Israel’s daily actions in the West Bank, but also because of the clear statements made by Israel’s extreme far right government officials, including a commitment by Netanyahu’s own Likud party to “advance and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel – in the Galilee, Negev, Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria.” The latter, of course, is what Zionists call the West Bank.

READ: West Bank Bedouin communities affected by Israel’s policy of forced displacement

An audio recording obtained by the Israeli group Peace Now conveyed the following remarks by Smotrich at a June 9 conference: “My goal is to settle the land, to build it, and to prevent, for God’s sake, its division… and the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

To do so, the far-right politician has assigned himself the job of “change(ing) the DNA of the system.” This “system” was put in place decades ago, following Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank in 1967. It began a slow but determined process of illegal annexation of Palestinian territories. The process included the establishment, in 1981, of the so-called Civil Administration.


This was and remains essentially a branch of the Israeli military.

However, it was described as “civil” as part of a government effort to convert a temporary military occupation into the permanent colonisation of Palestine. This entailed the practical annexation and continued expansion of the illegal Israeli Jewish settlements built on Palestinian land after the June 1967 Six-Day War.

The Oslo Accords in 1993-94 gave Palestinians nominal administrative control over small areas in the West Bank, designated as areas A and B. This necessitated the transfer of some of the Civil Administration’s responsibility to the newly-formed Palestinian Authority, based on the understanding that the PA will always prioritise Israel’s security. The arrangement allowed Israel to expand, unhindered, its illegal settlements in most of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, tripling both the size and population of the settlements between 1993 and 2023.

As Israel’s colonial plan in the West Bank reached its zenith, Netanyahu sought in 2020 to reinforce Israeli gains with the annexation of more than 30 per cent of the West Bank. Due to international pressure and growing Palestinian resistance, however, Netanyahu postponed his plan, albeit with the understanding that “annexation remains on the table”.

OPINION: It’s true, Netanyahu has never been a partner for peace

Without much fanfare, though, Israel swapped its hope for a sweeping de jure annexation of the West Bank with de facto control, through rapid seizures of Palestinian land and the expansion of its settlements, all of which are illegal under international law.


Although the Israeli military is faltering in Gaza, the genocide is being used as a smokescreen to finalise Israel’s settler-colonial plans in the West Bank.

This process was dubbed by Smotrich in 2017 as a “victory by settlement”. Now in a position of power and with access to a massive budget, he is making his life’s goal a reality.

For Smotrich’s dream to be realised, he needed to revitalise the once central role of the Civil Administration. In May, he invented a new position called “deputy head” of the administration, granting the position to his close associate Hillel Roth.

Now both men have unparalleled and sweeping rights to expand the settlements. Since coming to power in December 2022, Netanyahu’s latest government has approved 12,000 new housing units for illegal settlements, while ordering the demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes and other civilian infrastructure.

In the first three months of 2024, Israel declared nearly 6,000 acres of the West Bank to be “state-owned land”, and therefore made it eligible for settlement construction. The decision was described by the Israeli watchdog Peace Now as the “largest West Bank land grab in 30 years.”

The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is already under way. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, in the first half of 2024 alone, at least 1,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced while nearly 160,000 were affected by home demolitions.

The Israeli war on the West Bank has come at a high price in Palestinian blood. As of 12 August, at least 632 Palestinians had been killed with 5,400 wounded in the West Bank alone, according to the Ministry of Health. When the war on Gaza is over, the war on the West Bank will grow more intense and bloodier, but with the clear strategic goal of annexing the whole territory, even though the International Court of Justice resolved on 19 July that Israel’s “annexation and… assertion of permanent control” in the West Bank is illegal.

To avoid an even greater war and genocide than that which is taking place before our eyes in Gaza, the international community must use all available means to enforce international law and bring to an end Israel’s brutal, genocidal occupation of Palestine.

West Bank Bedouin communities affected by Israel’s policy of forced displacement

August 19, 2024 

A view of Al Meite village, Palestinian Bedouin village, in Al Aghwar, West Bank. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency


The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has said that at least 40 Bedouin communities across the occupied West Bank have been forcibly expelled as a result of Jewish settlers’ attacks and crimes, Anadolu agency has reported. The ministry said yesterday that it views with great concern the crime of forced displacement committed against the Bedouin communities throughout the occupied Palestinian territory by Israeli settler-colonial gangs, especially in Masafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley.

It expressed profound concern over “colonists’ attacks against Palestinian Bedouin communities, which are carried out with the support and protection of the [Israeli] occupation army and the direct supervision of the extremist Ministers in the Israeli government, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.” The latest of these was the forced expulsion of the last Palestinian Bedouin families in Umm Al-Jamal in the northern Jordan Valley.

Such Israeli acts, said the ministry, are on a par with “ethnic cleansing” as part of the “ongoing gradual annexation” of the occupied West Bank. “Israel wants to empty the area of its Palestinian residents in order to use it for its illegal settlement enterprise, with the aim of undermining any chance for the embodiment of the Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

The Palestinian ministry stated that it is following “this complex crime” and is “reporting it to the competent international courts”, adding that all decisions or sanctions issued by the international community or states on colonial activities as well as on colonists accused of committing crimes against the Palestinian people do not appear to deter the criminals responsible.

READ: EU warns of humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, West Bank amid rising dangers for aid workers

“There needs to be dissuasive international sanctions, not only on colonists and their armed militias, but also on ministers and officials in the Israeli government who provide protection, support and funding to the likes of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.”

According to the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Israeli settlers have carried out a total of 1,530 attacks in the occupied West Bank from the beginning of 2024 until the end of July. The data indicated that 18 Palestinians have been killed by settlers and more than 785 have been injured as a result of these attacks since 7 October last year.

The Israeli leftist Peace Now movement has said that half a million Israelis live in 146 large settlements and 144 settlement outposts established on the West Bank, excluding occupied East Jerusalem.

In parallel with its devastating war on Gaza since 7 October, the Israeli army has expanded its operations in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, while settlers have escalated their attacks on Palestinians there, killing 635 and wounding about 5,400 others, according to official Palestinian data.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed or wounded more than 132,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, with a further 10,000 missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by the occupation state. Much of the Gaza Strip has been laid to waste, and Israeli impediments to the distribution of humanitarian aid mean that starvation is now a reality for 2.3 million people in the enclave.

NAKBA II

Smotrich launches annexation campaign to expel Palestinians from ‘Area B’ of West Bank

August 19, 2024 

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gives a speech in front of the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem on June 3, 2024 [Saeed Qaq/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images]


Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich today launched an annexation campaign to expel Palestinians and demolish structures in ‘Area B’ of the occupied West Bank.

In a statement on X, the far-right politician detailed his recent visit to the area, which constitutes about three per cent of the occupied West Bank and falls under Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control.

He described the area as strategically vital as it will form part of the illegal Gush Etzion settlement cluster and connect the region with nearby Jerusalem.

Smotrich, who heads a pro-settler party and who himself is a settler, accused the Palestinian Authority of investing significant resources to create territorial continuity in the region, which he claims threatens Israeli control and causes environmental damage.

READ: West Bank Bedouin communities affected by Israel’s policy of forced displacement

He wrote: “The Palestinian Authority in concerted efforts with a great deal of money and energy is trying to take over the east, to create a territorial continuity from north to south, and also from east to west, thus essentially interrupting our continuity.”

“There is also a very, very serious scenic damage here, in one of the most valuable and important areas in the State of Israel.”

He added: “As I recall, about a month ago, my proposal to enforce the Wye Agreement, which mandates the protection of the agreed reserve against Palestinian construction and takeover, was approved in the political and security cabinet. In accordance with the decision, the authority for enforcement passed from the Palestinian Authority to the Civil Administration.”

This comes after Israeli media reported that the Israeli occupation government, at Smotrich’s request, approved the legalisation of five illegal settlements in Area B of the Occupied West Bank.

The Oslo II Agreement of 1995 divided the West Bank into three areas: “A”, which is subject to full Palestinian control; “B” is subject to Israeli security authority and Palestinian civil control; and “C” which is subject to Israeli civil, administrative and security control. The latter constitutes about 61 per cent of the total occupied West Bank area.

Israel’s illegal settlements are creeping deeper into the West Bank and taking up greater swathes of the area’s land, with occupation forces claiming some areas a “closed military zones” forcing Palestinians off their ancestral properties.