By Bernie Sanders
October 29, 2024
I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them. While Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages, it did not have the right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people. It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, a third of whom were children, women, and the elderly, or injure over a 100,000 people in Gaza. It did not have the right to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure, housing, and Health Care System. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza’s 12 universities. It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation. And that is why I am doing everything I can to block US military aid and offensive weapon sales to the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel.
And I know that many of you share those feelings and some of you are saying how can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war? That is a very fair question. And let me give you my best answer.
And that is, that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his right-wing friends are worse. In the Senate, in Congress, the Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The President and Vice President both support getting as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible. Trump has said Netanyahu is “doing a good job” and has said “Biden is holding him back”. He has too suggested that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. And it is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office but even more importantly, and this I promise you, after Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change US policy toward Netanyahu. An immediate ceasefire; the return of all hostages; a surge of massive humanitarian aid; the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank; and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people. And let me be clear, we will have in my view a much better chance of changing US policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded right-wing extremist ally.
But let me also say this, and I deal with this every single day as a US senator. As important as Gaza is and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue at stake in this election. If Trump wins, women in this country will suffer an enormous setback and lose the ability to control their own bodies. That is not acceptable. If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against climate change is over. While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that climate change is real and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a hoax. And if the United States, the largest economy in the world, stops transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, every other country, China, Europe, all over the world, they will do exactly the same thing. And God only knows the kind of planet we will leave to our kids and future generations. If Trump wins at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, he will demand even more tax breaks for the very richest people in our country while cutting back on programs that working families desperately need. The rich will only get richer while the minimum wage will remain at $7.25 an hour and millions of our fellow workers will continue to earn starvation wages.
Did you all see the recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden? Well, I did and what I can tell you is that as a nation, as all of you know, we have struggled for years against impossible odds to try to overcome all forms of bigotry, whether it is racism, whether it’s sexism, whether it’s homophobia, whether it’s xenophobia, you name it. We have tried to fight against bigotry. But that is exactly what we saw on display at that unbelievable Trump rally. It was not a question of speakers getting up there, disagreeing with Kamala Harris on the issues. That wasn’t the issue at all. They were attacking her simply because she was a woman and a woman of color. Extreme, vulgar sexism and racism. Is that really the kind of America that we can allow?
So, let me conclude by saying this: this is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Kamala Harris on Gaza. So do I. But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has got to be defeated. Let’s do everything we can in the next week to make sure that Kamala Harris is our next president. Thank you very much.
Bernie Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician, presidential candidate, and activist who has served as a United States senator for Vermont since 2007, and as the state’s congressman from 1991 to 2007. Before his election to Congress, he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. He has a close relationship with the Democratic Party, having caucused with House and Senate Democrats for most of his congressional career. Sanders self-identifies as a democratic socialist and has been credited with influencing a leftward shift in the Democratic Party after his 2016 presidential campaign. An advocate of social democratic and progressive policies, he is known for his opposition to economic inequality and neoliberalism.
Source: Bernie Sanders
I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them. While Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages, it did not have the right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people. It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, a third of whom were children, women, and the elderly, or injure over a 100,000 people in Gaza. It did not have the right to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure, housing, and Health Care System. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza’s 12 universities. It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation. And that is why I am doing everything I can to block US military aid and offensive weapon sales to the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel.
And I know that many of you share those feelings and some of you are saying how can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war? That is a very fair question. And let me give you my best answer.
And that is, that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his right-wing friends are worse. In the Senate, in Congress, the Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The President and Vice President both support getting as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible. Trump has said Netanyahu is “doing a good job” and has said “Biden is holding him back”. He has too suggested that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. And it is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office but even more importantly, and this I promise you, after Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change US policy toward Netanyahu. An immediate ceasefire; the return of all hostages; a surge of massive humanitarian aid; the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank; and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people. And let me be clear, we will have in my view a much better chance of changing US policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded right-wing extremist ally.
But let me also say this, and I deal with this every single day as a US senator. As important as Gaza is and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue at stake in this election. If Trump wins, women in this country will suffer an enormous setback and lose the ability to control their own bodies. That is not acceptable. If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against climate change is over. While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that climate change is real and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a hoax. And if the United States, the largest economy in the world, stops transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, every other country, China, Europe, all over the world, they will do exactly the same thing. And God only knows the kind of planet we will leave to our kids and future generations. If Trump wins at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, he will demand even more tax breaks for the very richest people in our country while cutting back on programs that working families desperately need. The rich will only get richer while the minimum wage will remain at $7.25 an hour and millions of our fellow workers will continue to earn starvation wages.
Did you all see the recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden? Well, I did and what I can tell you is that as a nation, as all of you know, we have struggled for years against impossible odds to try to overcome all forms of bigotry, whether it is racism, whether it’s sexism, whether it’s homophobia, whether it’s xenophobia, you name it. We have tried to fight against bigotry. But that is exactly what we saw on display at that unbelievable Trump rally. It was not a question of speakers getting up there, disagreeing with Kamala Harris on the issues. That wasn’t the issue at all. They were attacking her simply because she was a woman and a woman of color. Extreme, vulgar sexism and racism. Is that really the kind of America that we can allow?
So, let me conclude by saying this: this is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Kamala Harris on Gaza. So do I. But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has got to be defeated. Let’s do everything we can in the next week to make sure that Kamala Harris is our next president. Thank you very much.
Bernie Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician, presidential candidate, and activist who has served as a United States senator for Vermont since 2007, and as the state’s congressman from 1991 to 2007. Before his election to Congress, he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. He has a close relationship with the Democratic Party, having caucused with House and Senate Democrats for most of his congressional career. Sanders self-identifies as a democratic socialist and has been credited with influencing a leftward shift in the Democratic Party after his 2016 presidential campaign. An advocate of social democratic and progressive policies, he is known for his opposition to economic inequality and neoliberalism.
Arizonan Palestinians On Voting For Kamala And The Election Aftermath
October 30, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Original Statement available here
Three days ago I received a copy of an article titled “Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election.” The document had a hundred co-signers/co-authors. I found it warranted, worthy, and compelling—an exemplary collective statement and all the more so with a hundred public signers. I was able to get in touch with one who I happened to know, and so emerged what follows. I hope that if you haven’t already, you will click the above title and read the collective document before continuing with this article, because the intent in this “interview” is to get behind the article, not reiterate it.
My experience in recent weeks has been that a good many people feel intense emotional, moral, and pragmatic qualms about voting for Harris in swing states in order to stop Trump even while they already agree with most or even all of the sentiments and intentions in the collective document. So with little time before the election, and with no opportunity for follow up, I emailed five questions hoping for some responses that might help others in the week ahead. With less than a day to reply, four Palestinian signers sent back answers.
Maher Arekat Answers:Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would your reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
My name is Maher Arekat. I’m a Palestinian American refugee. My family left in 1967 during the second Nakba. I reside in Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve been in this lovely country for 53 years. I’m a peace activist. I work for human rights in Palestine. I’m the founder of the Palestine Community Center of Arizona. I help a lot of charities. I try to do the best I can for the US and also for the Palestinian people.
One of the main reasons I helped do this statement obviously is we don’t want that fascist in office. The best outcome of this election would be Harris, because I see hope in the Democratic Party even though the majority of elected officials like in Congress are not on board with fighting for Palestinian human rights. Many are. More and more. Basically none of the Republicans are. The best outcome would be Harris for President. We can’t have Trump for many, many reasons — obviously the top reason is what’s going on in Palestine and Gaza and how he would make it even worse. And also as an American for many other reasons with a lot different causes and what this country is going through.
The statement is creating a lot of controversy and we’re getting a lot of pushback. But it’s also showing a lot of people that we need to be on the right side of this for the right reasons. It’s a wake up call for our community, our families, our people whether they are Palestinians, Muslims, or Arabs — to be a matter of fact and to show leadership that we need to do this. We cannot afford to be on the sidelines. America is a two party system. Democrat or Republican. We can either have the crazy fascist Mr. Trump or it’s gonna be Kamala. And I have a good feeling that Kamala will be the first Madame President and be better for us. She’s part of the administration, but it wasn’t her call. It was Mr. Biden’s call to be complicit in this genocide.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide. And, if you did, how did you overcame it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you yourself didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it?
It’s been a tough call. It’s been a tough decision. Until about 2 or 3 weeks ago I wasn’t. I’ve been thinking long and hard and actually losing sleep over it. But I’m looking long term and long term is the right judgment that I have to make for myself and our people back home. Hopefully this decision will be the best for us and in our country. We cannot afford to have another four years of Trump destroying this country and attacking our movement. That’s why I came through. I’m hoping we can rally the troops here in Arizona and do the right thing. Obviously we are in a battleground state and we cannot vote Jill Stein or not vote. That’s why I decided to back Harris for President.Even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
Not so much anger, but I have to do a lot of explaining. When I do explain it makes sense to the family, friends, and community members. They can relate to what the statement is saying. The statement makes the argument clearly and it shows the variety of different people who take this position. It has persuaded a lot of them to come to my camp and back Harris and Democrats. A lot of them were going to vote for Democrats down ballot but not for President, but now they’re coming on board to vote for a Democrat for President. Yes, it’s been tough but I’m a reasonable man. I have a lot of people with open minds. They were pushing back but I had a lot of one on one phone calls. I’m an old timer. I do a lot of phone calls instead of texting or emailing or whatever. I’ve had to do a lot of explaining on the phone in the last few days since the statement came out. Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post election?
Of course it will encourage us and give us more hope to push her and the Democrats to come out and do the right thing and start with a peace process to give our people back home, the Palestinian people, hope. A lot of people back home feel our hope can only come through the USA and who leads this country. It’s going to be a lot of work for us afterwards to keep pushing and to have this administration to do the right thing and solve this problem once and for all and have peace. Because neither the Palestinians or Israelis are going anywhere. America has to be an honest broker through Kamala and help us find a solution. America has to do the right thing and start the peace process immediately. It should be a top priority. A stable Middle East is gonna come through solving this problem and the Palestinian people gaining freedom.
Mohamed El-Sharkawy Answers:
Note: Mohamed lost 50 family members in one strike early in the war in Gaza last year. He can’t reach some family members currently.Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would your reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
A- Mohamed El-Sharkawy, Palestinian American, born and raised in Gaza City, went to Aviation school in Cairo, Egypt, Came to the USA after college and work and now works for one of the major airlines.
I signed on the document in the hope that the new president would stop the genocide in Gaza.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide? And, if you did, how did you overcome it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it.
Yes, absolutely, until 2 weeks ago, I was one of the advocates for “Abandoning Harris”, but the more I listen to Trump speaking in his rallies, I realized that we can have a fascist, selfish, unhinged, and corrupt person to be a president of USA.Even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
Yes, I had backlash from family members and friends because the genocide and the holocaust are still going on in Gaza and the current administration is aiding in that. But I say, anyone but Trump.Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post-election?
I hope Kamala Harris would do what she said she would do, end the wars immediately, work on peaceful solutions to the conflict, and bring justice and peace to the region. Otherwise, I think it will be the time to start thinking about and encourage the Third Party.Finally, were there any other lessons you took from being part of the collective document process that you would like to share?
No more wars, No more bloodshed.
Stephen Mufarreh responses:Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would you reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
I am a first generation American. My father was born and raised in Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestine. He was forced to immigrate to the United States due to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
My hope is that the letter sends a clear signal to the Democratic Party that they need to do better than just being the “lesser evil” choice. I would like to see the Democratic Party break free from the shackles of the Israeli Lobby by upholding human rights and International law consistently.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide. And, if you did, how did you overcame it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you yourself didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it?
I was 100% set on voting for Jill Stein so I was very resistant to signing the letter. I felt I would be betraying my community by publicly endorsing Kamala Harris. But more importantly, Kamala Harris has done nothing to earn the Arab or Muslim vote. However, I have spent the last several weeks in deep conversations with a diverse coalition of human rights activists. I was presented with an alternative perspective, one that was not grounded in my desire to rightfully punish the Biden/Harris administration, but one that accepts the terrible reality of a second Trump presidency. It was hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I would vote for Harris while she was part of the genocide administration, but we fair a sliver of hope pressuring Harris. We stand zero chance with Trump.Even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
People have rightfully criticized me for voting for Harris and I do not blame them. It hurts to hear people cut us down and question our motives when we care so deeply about our Palestinian brothers and sisters. However, my feelings are irrelevant to the loss experienced by those living the horrors on the ground in Palestine. Hopefully with time, our community will come to see that we based our decision to vote for Harris after carefully evaluating this decision from all angles, just as I know they did with their decision to vote for Dr. Jill Stein.Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post election?
The short answer is NO. We already know that neither the Democrats nor the Republican have ever been fair and neutral regarding Palestine. We have been told by many insiders that AIPAC has too much control in Washington. Therefore, our fight for human rights is a long one. Irrespective of who we vote for, everyone in our community has a few bruises from this journey and we are all a bit wiser. You will see a multi-pronged approach with even more community building and activism after this election.Finally, were there any other lessons you took from being part of the collective document process that you would like to share?
Intentionally left blank.
Fadi Zenayed Answers:
Fadi resume: Former President of the Youth Federation of Ramallah, Palestine (AFRP) (1980); former board member of AFRB (various years); former President of the Chicago Club of Ramallah, Palestine (1984) current Vice-President of the Phoenix Club of Ramallah Palestine; Chicago Regional Director of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) 1984-1985); former President of ADC-Chicago (1988-1990 and 2009);author of Observations of Israel’s Apartheid System (2024); former Secretary Palestinian American Congress (1995)Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would you reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
My name is Fadi Zanayed. I have been involved within Arab-American politics for 45 years. I signed the document because I believe strengthening the Progressive Party within the Democratic Party is our best hope for establishing peace in the Middle East. Leading the community to this direction is in the best interests of the Progressive and Arab communities.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide. And, if you did, how did you overcame it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you yourself didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it?
I came out in favor of Harris 10 days before this statement came out. I wanted to lead on this issue because I believe that this is in the best interests of the community. I received much criticism. I was called a traitor, genocide supporter. I pushed back knowing that people were expressing emotions rather than expressing clear constructive thinking. I answered with reasoning and logic.It is a related question, and I hope legitimate to ask, even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
I have not received any backlash from the statement. I gave noticed that it is widely distributed having thousands of retweets and hundreds of comments, many being positive. Harris is the only logical choice and people are being to realize it.Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post election?
I believe that whoever wins we need to strengthen the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party. If Harris wins we need to have a strong Progressive wing to influence her in the right direction. If Trump wins, the Progressive wing needs to organize for 2026 and 2028.Finally, were there any other lessons you took from being part of the collective document process that you would like to share?
I believe that a reasoned statement always needs to be part of the process. The statement acknowledges all our concerns with the genocide, how reluctant we are in the choice we have to make but the right choice we did make.
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Michael Albert
Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.
Original Statement available here
Three days ago I received a copy of an article titled “Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election.” The document had a hundred co-signers/co-authors. I found it warranted, worthy, and compelling—an exemplary collective statement and all the more so with a hundred public signers. I was able to get in touch with one who I happened to know, and so emerged what follows. I hope that if you haven’t already, you will click the above title and read the collective document before continuing with this article, because the intent in this “interview” is to get behind the article, not reiterate it.
My experience in recent weeks has been that a good many people feel intense emotional, moral, and pragmatic qualms about voting for Harris in swing states in order to stop Trump even while they already agree with most or even all of the sentiments and intentions in the collective document. So with little time before the election, and with no opportunity for follow up, I emailed five questions hoping for some responses that might help others in the week ahead. With less than a day to reply, four Palestinian signers sent back answers.
Maher Arekat Answers:Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would your reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
My name is Maher Arekat. I’m a Palestinian American refugee. My family left in 1967 during the second Nakba. I reside in Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve been in this lovely country for 53 years. I’m a peace activist. I work for human rights in Palestine. I’m the founder of the Palestine Community Center of Arizona. I help a lot of charities. I try to do the best I can for the US and also for the Palestinian people.
One of the main reasons I helped do this statement obviously is we don’t want that fascist in office. The best outcome of this election would be Harris, because I see hope in the Democratic Party even though the majority of elected officials like in Congress are not on board with fighting for Palestinian human rights. Many are. More and more. Basically none of the Republicans are. The best outcome would be Harris for President. We can’t have Trump for many, many reasons — obviously the top reason is what’s going on in Palestine and Gaza and how he would make it even worse. And also as an American for many other reasons with a lot different causes and what this country is going through.
The statement is creating a lot of controversy and we’re getting a lot of pushback. But it’s also showing a lot of people that we need to be on the right side of this for the right reasons. It’s a wake up call for our community, our families, our people whether they are Palestinians, Muslims, or Arabs — to be a matter of fact and to show leadership that we need to do this. We cannot afford to be on the sidelines. America is a two party system. Democrat or Republican. We can either have the crazy fascist Mr. Trump or it’s gonna be Kamala. And I have a good feeling that Kamala will be the first Madame President and be better for us. She’s part of the administration, but it wasn’t her call. It was Mr. Biden’s call to be complicit in this genocide.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide. And, if you did, how did you overcame it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you yourself didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it?
It’s been a tough call. It’s been a tough decision. Until about 2 or 3 weeks ago I wasn’t. I’ve been thinking long and hard and actually losing sleep over it. But I’m looking long term and long term is the right judgment that I have to make for myself and our people back home. Hopefully this decision will be the best for us and in our country. We cannot afford to have another four years of Trump destroying this country and attacking our movement. That’s why I came through. I’m hoping we can rally the troops here in Arizona and do the right thing. Obviously we are in a battleground state and we cannot vote Jill Stein or not vote. That’s why I decided to back Harris for President.Even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
Not so much anger, but I have to do a lot of explaining. When I do explain it makes sense to the family, friends, and community members. They can relate to what the statement is saying. The statement makes the argument clearly and it shows the variety of different people who take this position. It has persuaded a lot of them to come to my camp and back Harris and Democrats. A lot of them were going to vote for Democrats down ballot but not for President, but now they’re coming on board to vote for a Democrat for President. Yes, it’s been tough but I’m a reasonable man. I have a lot of people with open minds. They were pushing back but I had a lot of one on one phone calls. I’m an old timer. I do a lot of phone calls instead of texting or emailing or whatever. I’ve had to do a lot of explaining on the phone in the last few days since the statement came out. Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post election?
Of course it will encourage us and give us more hope to push her and the Democrats to come out and do the right thing and start with a peace process to give our people back home, the Palestinian people, hope. A lot of people back home feel our hope can only come through the USA and who leads this country. It’s going to be a lot of work for us afterwards to keep pushing and to have this administration to do the right thing and solve this problem once and for all and have peace. Because neither the Palestinians or Israelis are going anywhere. America has to be an honest broker through Kamala and help us find a solution. America has to do the right thing and start the peace process immediately. It should be a top priority. A stable Middle East is gonna come through solving this problem and the Palestinian people gaining freedom.
Mohamed El-Sharkawy Answers:
Note: Mohamed lost 50 family members in one strike early in the war in Gaza last year. He can’t reach some family members currently.Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would your reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
A- Mohamed El-Sharkawy, Palestinian American, born and raised in Gaza City, went to Aviation school in Cairo, Egypt, Came to the USA after college and work and now works for one of the major airlines.
I signed on the document in the hope that the new president would stop the genocide in Gaza.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide? And, if you did, how did you overcome it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it.
Yes, absolutely, until 2 weeks ago, I was one of the advocates for “Abandoning Harris”, but the more I listen to Trump speaking in his rallies, I realized that we can have a fascist, selfish, unhinged, and corrupt person to be a president of USA.Even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
Yes, I had backlash from family members and friends because the genocide and the holocaust are still going on in Gaza and the current administration is aiding in that. But I say, anyone but Trump.Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post-election?
I hope Kamala Harris would do what she said she would do, end the wars immediately, work on peaceful solutions to the conflict, and bring justice and peace to the region. Otherwise, I think it will be the time to start thinking about and encourage the Third Party.Finally, were there any other lessons you took from being part of the collective document process that you would like to share?
No more wars, No more bloodshed.
Stephen Mufarreh responses:Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would you reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
I am a first generation American. My father was born and raised in Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestine. He was forced to immigrate to the United States due to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
My hope is that the letter sends a clear signal to the Democratic Party that they need to do better than just being the “lesser evil” choice. I would like to see the Democratic Party break free from the shackles of the Israeli Lobby by upholding human rights and International law consistently.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide. And, if you did, how did you overcame it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you yourself didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it?
I was 100% set on voting for Jill Stein so I was very resistant to signing the letter. I felt I would be betraying my community by publicly endorsing Kamala Harris. But more importantly, Kamala Harris has done nothing to earn the Arab or Muslim vote. However, I have spent the last several weeks in deep conversations with a diverse coalition of human rights activists. I was presented with an alternative perspective, one that was not grounded in my desire to rightfully punish the Biden/Harris administration, but one that accepts the terrible reality of a second Trump presidency. It was hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I would vote for Harris while she was part of the genocide administration, but we fair a sliver of hope pressuring Harris. We stand zero chance with Trump.Even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
People have rightfully criticized me for voting for Harris and I do not blame them. It hurts to hear people cut us down and question our motives when we care so deeply about our Palestinian brothers and sisters. However, my feelings are irrelevant to the loss experienced by those living the horrors on the ground in Palestine. Hopefully with time, our community will come to see that we based our decision to vote for Harris after carefully evaluating this decision from all angles, just as I know they did with their decision to vote for Dr. Jill Stein.Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post election?
The short answer is NO. We already know that neither the Democrats nor the Republican have ever been fair and neutral regarding Palestine. We have been told by many insiders that AIPAC has too much control in Washington. Therefore, our fight for human rights is a long one. Irrespective of who we vote for, everyone in our community has a few bruises from this journey and we are all a bit wiser. You will see a multi-pronged approach with even more community building and activism after this election.Finally, were there any other lessons you took from being part of the collective document process that you would like to share?
Intentionally left blank.
Fadi Zenayed Answers:
Fadi resume: Former President of the Youth Federation of Ramallah, Palestine (AFRP) (1980); former board member of AFRB (various years); former President of the Chicago Club of Ramallah, Palestine (1984) current Vice-President of the Phoenix Club of Ramallah Palestine; Chicago Regional Director of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) 1984-1985); former President of ADC-Chicago (1988-1990 and 2009);author of Observations of Israel’s Apartheid System (2024); former Secretary Palestinian American Congress (1995)Please introduce yourself a bit to readers and to me for that matter, and then if you would you reasons for signing on to the document, basically your hopes for what it might accomplish.
My name is Fadi Zanayed. I have been involved within Arab-American politics for 45 years. I signed the document because I believe strengthening the Progressive Party within the Democratic Party is our best hope for establishing peace in the Middle East. Leading the community to this direction is in the best interests of the Progressive and Arab communities.Can you indicate if you felt a kind of resistance or obstacle in yourself to signing a document that was in the end urging votes in swing states for Harris, even while acknowledging and hating her complicity in genocide. And, if you did, how did you overcame it and so decide to attach your name? On the other hand, if you yourself didn’t feel such hesitancy, perhaps you have encountered it in others. If so, perhaps you could indicate why you feel warranted in asking others to overcome it?
I came out in favor of Harris 10 days before this statement came out. I wanted to lead on this issue because I believe that this is in the best interests of the community. I received much criticism. I was called a traitor, genocide supporter. I pushed back knowing that people were expressing emotions rather than expressing clear constructive thinking. I answered with reasoning and logic.It is a related question, and I hope legitimate to ask, even in the few days since the document appeared, or perhaps earlier in discussing it with others, have you encountered from family, friends, workmates, or fellow organizers criticism or even anger over your choice to sign, and, if you have, how do you feel about that and respond to it?
I have not received any backlash from the statement. I gave noticed that it is widely distributed having thousands of retweets and hundreds of comments, many being positive. Harris is the only logical choice and people are being to realize it.Whether Harris or Trump wins, how do you see your own broad post-election personal priorities? Will the fact of your voting for Harris in Arizona have any impact at all on what you do post election?
I believe that whoever wins we need to strengthen the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party. If Harris wins we need to have a strong Progressive wing to influence her in the right direction. If Trump wins, the Progressive wing needs to organize for 2026 and 2028.Finally, were there any other lessons you took from being part of the collective document process that you would like to share?
I believe that a reasoned statement always needs to be part of the process. The statement acknowledges all our concerns with the genocide, how reluctant we are in the choice we have to make but the right choice we did make.
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Michael Albert
Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.
How Can Movements Advance Palestinian Rights This Election — And Beyond?
Image credit: Nissa Tzun via Flickr
For the first time, those seeking change in U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine have real leverage. Wielding it effectively requires both moral and strategic considerations.
This is a crucial inflection point in the movement for recognition of Palestinian rights. A moment of unprecedented opportunity. But, potentially, also a moment of tragically missed opportunity.
The opportunity is that there is a powerful movement, finally, pushing U.S. foreign policy toward a more just position on Israel-Palestine. The U.S.’s bipartisan consensus for an ironclad relationship with Israel has long relegated claims for basic Palestinian rights to the margins. The Democratic Party side of that previous bipartisan consensus has, however, been slowly cracking over the last decade. Even before Hamas’ unconscionable Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians, Democratic voters were for the first time more sympathetic to Palestinians (49 percent) than to Israelis (38 percent). In the year since Oct. 7, an unprecedented coalition has mobilized to protest Israel’s brutal response of accelerated ethnic cleansing, systemic war crimes and forever war.
This leads us to where we are on the eve of the 2024 elections: For the first time, voters who want to stop U.S. support for Israel’s war machine have both a base in one major party and the leverage in a few key states to be politically salient.
At the same time, a majority of Americans still sympathize with Israel over Palestinians with 68 percent viewing Israel “very or mostly favorably.” In an Oct. 2024 YouGov poll, 61 percent of Americans felt it very or fairly important for the U.S. to “cooperate closely with Israel,” versus 16 percent who say it is not important (22 percent don’t know). This increasingly fractured but still overall pro-Israel environment has been a conundrum for the Kamala Harris campaign. Despite shifts among Democratic voters, Joe Biden embodied the long-standing consensus in close support of Israel. Harris’ rhetoric is slightly more distant, but she clearly has made a choice to not break with Biden’s policies, at least for the duration of her presidential campaign.
That has led to the “Abandon Harris” movement — along with some prominent Palestinian figures — endorsing Jill Stein’s presidential campaign. The Green Party presidential candidate earned 0.26 percent of the vote in 2016. Stein is currently polling at roughly 1 percent nationally. By contrast, a recent Michigan poll has Stein at a considerably higher 2 percent in that swing state (with Harris having a 1 percent advantage over Trump). Consequently, while Stein may be a marginal candidate, she is also a serious factor in Michigan. This is evidenced by the attack ads Democrats are running there against Stein, as well as the Republican PAC-funded ads that seek to surreptitiously boost support for her.
The rage of those driven to support Stein is understandable. Yet, some have posited that it might also be self-defeating. The Green Party is after all a fringe party without national infrastructure (and led by an eternal candidate who Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently characterized as “predatory”). Aligning with it might very well lead to a path of political irrelevance, signaling a retreat from an ethical responsibility to engage in the frustrations of power politics in favor of virtue signaling from the sidelines.
Meanwhile, some on Stein’s campaign have openly proclaimed a far more nihilistic purpose, which is to punish Democrats by effectively costing them the election. This comes at a time when Trump has been openly supportive of Israel “finishing the job” in Palestine, saying that “Biden has been holding [Netanyahu] back” — not to mention his simultaneous promise to bring analogous ethnic cleansing/“mass deportation” policies to the United States (as well as the threats he poses to women, LGBTQ+ people, Black people, migrants and all who stand in the way of his White Christian supremacist movement).
Such a “strategy” runs the risk of fracturing a budding intersectional coalition for Palestinian rights in favor of one-issue politics, effectively ignoring allies who may be balancing their support with other issues they also consider urgent. Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman expressed her disappointment in the fragmenting of this coalition by saying “what Harris does after she is elected is going to be completely and entirely dependent on how well our coalition survives. That is the only way we can push her, whether it’s on Palestine, reproductive rights, housing, FTC regulations or unions.”
It is not just the spurning of intersectional alliances that is problematic. Absolutist rhetoric in demonizing potential allies can be equally counterproductive — a prime example being Stein’s running mate Butch Ware, who has been demonizing potential allies by suggesting that Muslims who vote for Harris will burn in hell for it. (Ware also commemorated Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks with praise for the operation and denounced Harris as, among other things, “a Nazi … married to a committed Zionist.”)
There is a political price to be paid for rhetoric that burns bridges with needed partners. These are tactics that can turn a moment of opportunity for positively impacting Palestinian rights into fringe shouting into the wilderness. It is not a path to substantive policy change. Humanizing opponents is key, even if their conversion is not likely. As Mark and Paul Engler put it: Movements don’t win by converting opponents, but rather by “turning neutrals into passive supporters and turning passive sympathizers into active allies and movement participants.”
The best way to do that is to foster a culture of empathy for the emotions felt by all — something the prominent reproductive rights advocate Lorettta Ross refers to as “calling-in.” Rhetoric that closes off possibilities for mutual recognition is self-defeating. In other words: It is both moral and strategic to think in ways that are nonviolent, inclusive and human.
Others, such as the Uncommitted National Movement, have taken a more calibrated position that moves at least partly in that direction. Uncommittedhas refused to endorse Harris, but in more reasoned language that recognizes the substantial difference between Harris and Trump. Uncommitted rejects Trump for his plans to “accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of antiwar organizing” and also spurns Stein out of fear a vote for her would “inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency.” Indeed, Uncommittedhas gone so far as to say that “It’s clear Netanyahu will be doing everything in his power to get Trump elected. And we have to do everything in our power to stop him.”
This equivocal Uncommitted position is understandable, given both Harris’ formal stances and her rejection of Uncommitted’s request to be represented by a speaker at the Democratic National Convention (a request supported by a broad range of Democratic Party actors, speaking both to the inroads mentioned earlier and their limits up until now). It is also, however, a confused position. It seemingly acknowledges that Harris is the better option and that Trump is an ideological bedfellow with Netanyahu, but doesn’t take that to its logical conclusion. Perhaps they are fenced in by the rhetorical maelstrom of those more eager to criticize Harris than Trump? Whatever the motivation, the mixed messaging might end up being self-defeating.
Uncommitted’s position is part of the difficult conundrum facing those advocating for change in U.S. policy. How do movements turn shifts in public opinion into real policy change? Or, to put the question more specifically: How do movements effectively push the U.S. to take positions that actively advance Palestinian human rights when there is no ideal champion in the race?
There is clearly no blueprint for a journey into uncharted territory, but there are both short-term and long-term considerations to take into account. In the short-term, if the Green Party receives enough support — or enough people stay neutral — thatcould help Trump win, thereby giving Netanyahu what he wants regarding Israel-Palestine. Alternatively, Harris nonetheless may win and Palestinian activists will have thereby shown their political irrelevance — i.e., that the nationwide mobilization on behalf of Palestinian rights can be and should be ignored by Democrats concerned with winning elections.
A third, more promising scenario for activists concerned with Palestine is that they find themselves in a position to take credit for slim margins of victory in key states like Michigan. That could potentially be leveraged — in the longer term — for further influence with U.S. policymakers, at least within the Democratic Party.
If the work of connecting the short-term to the long-term is to result in real change — both during and after the U.S. presidential election — there are guiding principles from nonviolent, coalition building movements around the world from which to learn. Here are a few such principles to consider in the hopes that the movement against Israeli war crimes in Gaza can be a powerful political force to change U.S. foreign policy toward Israel-Palestine as a whole.
1. Engage power: Change comes from engaging complicated structures of power rather than assuming they are static. Much of the hesitancy in supporting Kamala Harris comes from assuming change in the Democratic Party is not possible. This is naïve. The Democratic Party moved from being the party of slaveholders and Jim Crow to the party of the civil rights movement and affirmative action to rectify histories of racial discrimination. More recently, the energy behind Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign forced a more progressive Democratic Party platform, one element of which led to the creation and passage of the U.S.’s most meaningful climate legislation. These changes don’t happen without movements engaging power structures.
There are no perfect partners in a two-party system; change in imperfect partners is a more realistic goal. The radical climate change group Climate Defiance, drawing from author Rebecca Solnit, perhaps put it best, saying: “A vote is not a valentine. It is a chess move.” Self-righteous indignation from the fringes may be psychologically satisfying, but change comes from building power in the short and long-term, not being separate from it.
2. Engage morality: Taking power seriously means also taking morality seriously. Human rights scholar author Shadi Mokhtari wrote powerfully in the wake of Oct. 7 on the need to combine moral clarity (plainly calling out gross injustices by any and all parties) and moral complexity (recognizing the validity of multiple emotional frames through which communities see contentious politics). In her words, we need moral clarity to call out the “Israeli state’s deplorable and devastating violence against Palestinians as well as the maddening ways the United States government facilitates and funds it.” At the same time, we need moral complexity to shed light on “Palestinian suffering while also recognizing the immense pain wrought by Hamas’ cruel acts of violence … and within the context of Jewish populations’ historical traumas and suffering.”
In short: condemnation is important but insufficient. It is urgent that we develop a political morality that calls out injustices while also recognizing that, to end such injustices, we must confront the depths of emotion, memory and experience that justify them. If not, we risk being reduced to seeing politics as a futile zero-sum game in which one side must lose for the other to win. Unfortunately, a failure to engage moral complexity has too often characterized discourse around Israel-Palestine.
3. Engage law (consistently):Prizing a singular narrative over moral complexity results in mutual dehumanization — one side is less than human, hence not worthy of international humanitarian law’s protections. The relentless dehumanization of Palestinians has justified Israeli extermination tactics just as, in a vicious circle, Hamas’ targeting of Israeli civilians is justified by an analogous denial of humanity. The moral failure of mutual dehumanization has real world consequences; it justifies the endless cycles of war crimes that we see playing out on the ground.
Even if we must have the moral clarity to state the obvious — that the Palestinian side is paying a (far) higher price in these cycles of Israeli-Palestinian war crimes — it lacks integrity to only denounce violations from one side. As Ta-Nehisi Coates says, “If you lose sight of the value of individual human life you have lost something.” Selective denunciations of war crimes do not just surrender moral integrity, they also sap such denunciations of their political power. A clear position that all targeting of civilians is unacceptable is essential if law is to have moral and political weight, rather than be solely rhetoric evoked when convenient.
4. Engage agency: Activism grounded in all of the above principles helps us move past monolithic conceptions of identity and, instead, engage the agency of complex individuals and communities. One of the frustrations of recent arguments around Israel-Palestine has been how complex groups are reduced to a singular monolith, ignoring the intricate histories of Israel and Palestine. To the contrary, each “side” has a history of internal political divisions, ideological evolutions and battles over positions and tactics.
Monstrous acts are committed, but not all are monsters. It is true that after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the Israeli nationalist frenzy that has followed it is easy to reduce Israel to Netanyahu and Palestine to Hamas. In that context, it is tempting to feel the choice is solidarity with one of those actors against the other. To buy into this binary, however, empowers those most invested in total war without distinction. And it thereby erases the agency of those with a different political imagination of how to address this conflict.
There is a reason why Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders contributed to Hamas’ birth. It is the same reason that, prior to Oct. 7, Israel was invested in boosting Hamas’ power, diminishing the feckless Palestinian Authority, and focusing its particular ire on those organizing nonviolent resistance — be it through international law and human rights or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Israeli leaders knew the political advantage to their expansionist project of an enemy equally dedicated to total war. Nonviolent opposition is precisely what these leaders feared most.
Analogously, in the heyday of the post-Oslo peace process — with staged Israeli withdrawals from Palestinian territories underway and Hamas deeply unpopular among Palestinians — Hamas engaged in a series of suicide bombings to kill civilians in public places. The purpose was not a military victory but rather a rational political calculation on how to best undermine momentum behind implementing Oslo. Then, as after Oct. 7, Israel responded to Hamas’ bait with unrestrained collective punishments, unleashing a fresh cycle of violence which empowered Hamas.
In essence, those extremes got what they wanted: the marginalization of peaceful political possibilities in favor of the myth that violence is the only way to deal with the savage other. It is essential that activists not take the same bait. Israel is not simply Netanyahu and his extremist allies, and Palestinians should not be reduced to Hamas.
One can better and more honestly advocate both for an end to Israeli war crimes and Palestinian self-determination by embracing pluralism and agency on all sides. Forgetting this pluralism — and the agency of different Palestinian political actors — undermines the sort of political imagination needed not only to effectively resist Israeli war crimes in the immediate, but to also build a just Palestine in the future.
More than anything, what is needed is a movement informed by principles that effectively advocates in the immediate — but is also sustained by a vision of the future. The throughline in all of the principles listed above is that forms of resistance are not just tactics, they are how we constitute what such struggles hope to achieve in the future.
As feminist and gender studies scholar Judith Butler writes, “Liberation struggles thatpractice nonviolence help to create the nonviolent world in which we all want to live. I deplore the violence [in Israel-Palestine] unequivocally at the same time as I, like so many others, want to be part of imagining and struggling for true equality and justice in the region, the kind that would compel groups like Hamas to disappear, the occupation to end, and new forms of political freedom and justice to flourish.”
Activism that lacks such a vision of the future, contenting itself with immediate outrage, blinds itself to the world of political possibilities that human agency can bring. Without dismissing the righteousness of such outrage, we cannot be imprisoned by it. There is an urgent necessity to build power in ways that are grounded in self-conscious political practice. A practice that is informed by pluralist agency and engages power via principles of moral clarity, complexity and consistency is the path to movements that create real change.
Anthony Tirado Chase is a professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College. Chase has published widely on human rights and transitional justice in the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. His books include "Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Transnational Challenges" (co-edited with Mahdavi, Banai, and Gruskin, Bloomsbury, 2023); "Handbook on Human Rights and the Middle East and North Africa" (Routledge, 2017); "Human Rights, Revolution, and Reform in the Muslim World (Lynne Rienner, 2012); and "Human Rights in the Arab World: Independent Voices" (co-edited with Amr Hamzawy, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
October 30, 2024
Image credit: Nissa Tzun via Flickr
For the first time, those seeking change in U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine have real leverage. Wielding it effectively requires both moral and strategic considerations.
This is a crucial inflection point in the movement for recognition of Palestinian rights. A moment of unprecedented opportunity. But, potentially, also a moment of tragically missed opportunity.
The opportunity is that there is a powerful movement, finally, pushing U.S. foreign policy toward a more just position on Israel-Palestine. The U.S.’s bipartisan consensus for an ironclad relationship with Israel has long relegated claims for basic Palestinian rights to the margins. The Democratic Party side of that previous bipartisan consensus has, however, been slowly cracking over the last decade. Even before Hamas’ unconscionable Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians, Democratic voters were for the first time more sympathetic to Palestinians (49 percent) than to Israelis (38 percent). In the year since Oct. 7, an unprecedented coalition has mobilized to protest Israel’s brutal response of accelerated ethnic cleansing, systemic war crimes and forever war.
This leads us to where we are on the eve of the 2024 elections: For the first time, voters who want to stop U.S. support for Israel’s war machine have both a base in one major party and the leverage in a few key states to be politically salient.
At the same time, a majority of Americans still sympathize with Israel over Palestinians with 68 percent viewing Israel “very or mostly favorably.” In an Oct. 2024 YouGov poll, 61 percent of Americans felt it very or fairly important for the U.S. to “cooperate closely with Israel,” versus 16 percent who say it is not important (22 percent don’t know). This increasingly fractured but still overall pro-Israel environment has been a conundrum for the Kamala Harris campaign. Despite shifts among Democratic voters, Joe Biden embodied the long-standing consensus in close support of Israel. Harris’ rhetoric is slightly more distant, but she clearly has made a choice to not break with Biden’s policies, at least for the duration of her presidential campaign.
That has led to the “Abandon Harris” movement — along with some prominent Palestinian figures — endorsing Jill Stein’s presidential campaign. The Green Party presidential candidate earned 0.26 percent of the vote in 2016. Stein is currently polling at roughly 1 percent nationally. By contrast, a recent Michigan poll has Stein at a considerably higher 2 percent in that swing state (with Harris having a 1 percent advantage over Trump). Consequently, while Stein may be a marginal candidate, she is also a serious factor in Michigan. This is evidenced by the attack ads Democrats are running there against Stein, as well as the Republican PAC-funded ads that seek to surreptitiously boost support for her.
The rage of those driven to support Stein is understandable. Yet, some have posited that it might also be self-defeating. The Green Party is after all a fringe party without national infrastructure (and led by an eternal candidate who Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently characterized as “predatory”). Aligning with it might very well lead to a path of political irrelevance, signaling a retreat from an ethical responsibility to engage in the frustrations of power politics in favor of virtue signaling from the sidelines.
Meanwhile, some on Stein’s campaign have openly proclaimed a far more nihilistic purpose, which is to punish Democrats by effectively costing them the election. This comes at a time when Trump has been openly supportive of Israel “finishing the job” in Palestine, saying that “Biden has been holding [Netanyahu] back” — not to mention his simultaneous promise to bring analogous ethnic cleansing/“mass deportation” policies to the United States (as well as the threats he poses to women, LGBTQ+ people, Black people, migrants and all who stand in the way of his White Christian supremacist movement).
Such a “strategy” runs the risk of fracturing a budding intersectional coalition for Palestinian rights in favor of one-issue politics, effectively ignoring allies who may be balancing their support with other issues they also consider urgent. Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman expressed her disappointment in the fragmenting of this coalition by saying “what Harris does after she is elected is going to be completely and entirely dependent on how well our coalition survives. That is the only way we can push her, whether it’s on Palestine, reproductive rights, housing, FTC regulations or unions.”
It is not just the spurning of intersectional alliances that is problematic. Absolutist rhetoric in demonizing potential allies can be equally counterproductive — a prime example being Stein’s running mate Butch Ware, who has been demonizing potential allies by suggesting that Muslims who vote for Harris will burn in hell for it. (Ware also commemorated Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks with praise for the operation and denounced Harris as, among other things, “a Nazi … married to a committed Zionist.”)
There is a political price to be paid for rhetoric that burns bridges with needed partners. These are tactics that can turn a moment of opportunity for positively impacting Palestinian rights into fringe shouting into the wilderness. It is not a path to substantive policy change. Humanizing opponents is key, even if their conversion is not likely. As Mark and Paul Engler put it: Movements don’t win by converting opponents, but rather by “turning neutrals into passive supporters and turning passive sympathizers into active allies and movement participants.”
The best way to do that is to foster a culture of empathy for the emotions felt by all — something the prominent reproductive rights advocate Lorettta Ross refers to as “calling-in.” Rhetoric that closes off possibilities for mutual recognition is self-defeating. In other words: It is both moral and strategic to think in ways that are nonviolent, inclusive and human.
Others, such as the Uncommitted National Movement, have taken a more calibrated position that moves at least partly in that direction. Uncommittedhas refused to endorse Harris, but in more reasoned language that recognizes the substantial difference between Harris and Trump. Uncommitted rejects Trump for his plans to “accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of antiwar organizing” and also spurns Stein out of fear a vote for her would “inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency.” Indeed, Uncommittedhas gone so far as to say that “It’s clear Netanyahu will be doing everything in his power to get Trump elected. And we have to do everything in our power to stop him.”
This equivocal Uncommitted position is understandable, given both Harris’ formal stances and her rejection of Uncommitted’s request to be represented by a speaker at the Democratic National Convention (a request supported by a broad range of Democratic Party actors, speaking both to the inroads mentioned earlier and their limits up until now). It is also, however, a confused position. It seemingly acknowledges that Harris is the better option and that Trump is an ideological bedfellow with Netanyahu, but doesn’t take that to its logical conclusion. Perhaps they are fenced in by the rhetorical maelstrom of those more eager to criticize Harris than Trump? Whatever the motivation, the mixed messaging might end up being self-defeating.
Uncommitted’s position is part of the difficult conundrum facing those advocating for change in U.S. policy. How do movements turn shifts in public opinion into real policy change? Or, to put the question more specifically: How do movements effectively push the U.S. to take positions that actively advance Palestinian human rights when there is no ideal champion in the race?
There is clearly no blueprint for a journey into uncharted territory, but there are both short-term and long-term considerations to take into account. In the short-term, if the Green Party receives enough support — or enough people stay neutral — thatcould help Trump win, thereby giving Netanyahu what he wants regarding Israel-Palestine. Alternatively, Harris nonetheless may win and Palestinian activists will have thereby shown their political irrelevance — i.e., that the nationwide mobilization on behalf of Palestinian rights can be and should be ignored by Democrats concerned with winning elections.
A third, more promising scenario for activists concerned with Palestine is that they find themselves in a position to take credit for slim margins of victory in key states like Michigan. That could potentially be leveraged — in the longer term — for further influence with U.S. policymakers, at least within the Democratic Party.
If the work of connecting the short-term to the long-term is to result in real change — both during and after the U.S. presidential election — there are guiding principles from nonviolent, coalition building movements around the world from which to learn. Here are a few such principles to consider in the hopes that the movement against Israeli war crimes in Gaza can be a powerful political force to change U.S. foreign policy toward Israel-Palestine as a whole.
1. Engage power: Change comes from engaging complicated structures of power rather than assuming they are static. Much of the hesitancy in supporting Kamala Harris comes from assuming change in the Democratic Party is not possible. This is naïve. The Democratic Party moved from being the party of slaveholders and Jim Crow to the party of the civil rights movement and affirmative action to rectify histories of racial discrimination. More recently, the energy behind Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign forced a more progressive Democratic Party platform, one element of which led to the creation and passage of the U.S.’s most meaningful climate legislation. These changes don’t happen without movements engaging power structures.
There are no perfect partners in a two-party system; change in imperfect partners is a more realistic goal. The radical climate change group Climate Defiance, drawing from author Rebecca Solnit, perhaps put it best, saying: “A vote is not a valentine. It is a chess move.” Self-righteous indignation from the fringes may be psychologically satisfying, but change comes from building power in the short and long-term, not being separate from it.
2. Engage morality: Taking power seriously means also taking morality seriously. Human rights scholar author Shadi Mokhtari wrote powerfully in the wake of Oct. 7 on the need to combine moral clarity (plainly calling out gross injustices by any and all parties) and moral complexity (recognizing the validity of multiple emotional frames through which communities see contentious politics). In her words, we need moral clarity to call out the “Israeli state’s deplorable and devastating violence against Palestinians as well as the maddening ways the United States government facilitates and funds it.” At the same time, we need moral complexity to shed light on “Palestinian suffering while also recognizing the immense pain wrought by Hamas’ cruel acts of violence … and within the context of Jewish populations’ historical traumas and suffering.”
In short: condemnation is important but insufficient. It is urgent that we develop a political morality that calls out injustices while also recognizing that, to end such injustices, we must confront the depths of emotion, memory and experience that justify them. If not, we risk being reduced to seeing politics as a futile zero-sum game in which one side must lose for the other to win. Unfortunately, a failure to engage moral complexity has too often characterized discourse around Israel-Palestine.
3. Engage law (consistently):Prizing a singular narrative over moral complexity results in mutual dehumanization — one side is less than human, hence not worthy of international humanitarian law’s protections. The relentless dehumanization of Palestinians has justified Israeli extermination tactics just as, in a vicious circle, Hamas’ targeting of Israeli civilians is justified by an analogous denial of humanity. The moral failure of mutual dehumanization has real world consequences; it justifies the endless cycles of war crimes that we see playing out on the ground.
Even if we must have the moral clarity to state the obvious — that the Palestinian side is paying a (far) higher price in these cycles of Israeli-Palestinian war crimes — it lacks integrity to only denounce violations from one side. As Ta-Nehisi Coates says, “If you lose sight of the value of individual human life you have lost something.” Selective denunciations of war crimes do not just surrender moral integrity, they also sap such denunciations of their political power. A clear position that all targeting of civilians is unacceptable is essential if law is to have moral and political weight, rather than be solely rhetoric evoked when convenient.
4. Engage agency: Activism grounded in all of the above principles helps us move past monolithic conceptions of identity and, instead, engage the agency of complex individuals and communities. One of the frustrations of recent arguments around Israel-Palestine has been how complex groups are reduced to a singular monolith, ignoring the intricate histories of Israel and Palestine. To the contrary, each “side” has a history of internal political divisions, ideological evolutions and battles over positions and tactics.
Monstrous acts are committed, but not all are monsters. It is true that after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the Israeli nationalist frenzy that has followed it is easy to reduce Israel to Netanyahu and Palestine to Hamas. In that context, it is tempting to feel the choice is solidarity with one of those actors against the other. To buy into this binary, however, empowers those most invested in total war without distinction. And it thereby erases the agency of those with a different political imagination of how to address this conflict.
There is a reason why Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders contributed to Hamas’ birth. It is the same reason that, prior to Oct. 7, Israel was invested in boosting Hamas’ power, diminishing the feckless Palestinian Authority, and focusing its particular ire on those organizing nonviolent resistance — be it through international law and human rights or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Israeli leaders knew the political advantage to their expansionist project of an enemy equally dedicated to total war. Nonviolent opposition is precisely what these leaders feared most.
Analogously, in the heyday of the post-Oslo peace process — with staged Israeli withdrawals from Palestinian territories underway and Hamas deeply unpopular among Palestinians — Hamas engaged in a series of suicide bombings to kill civilians in public places. The purpose was not a military victory but rather a rational political calculation on how to best undermine momentum behind implementing Oslo. Then, as after Oct. 7, Israel responded to Hamas’ bait with unrestrained collective punishments, unleashing a fresh cycle of violence which empowered Hamas.
In essence, those extremes got what they wanted: the marginalization of peaceful political possibilities in favor of the myth that violence is the only way to deal with the savage other. It is essential that activists not take the same bait. Israel is not simply Netanyahu and his extremist allies, and Palestinians should not be reduced to Hamas.
One can better and more honestly advocate both for an end to Israeli war crimes and Palestinian self-determination by embracing pluralism and agency on all sides. Forgetting this pluralism — and the agency of different Palestinian political actors — undermines the sort of political imagination needed not only to effectively resist Israeli war crimes in the immediate, but to also build a just Palestine in the future.
More than anything, what is needed is a movement informed by principles that effectively advocates in the immediate — but is also sustained by a vision of the future. The throughline in all of the principles listed above is that forms of resistance are not just tactics, they are how we constitute what such struggles hope to achieve in the future.
As feminist and gender studies scholar Judith Butler writes, “Liberation struggles thatpractice nonviolence help to create the nonviolent world in which we all want to live. I deplore the violence [in Israel-Palestine] unequivocally at the same time as I, like so many others, want to be part of imagining and struggling for true equality and justice in the region, the kind that would compel groups like Hamas to disappear, the occupation to end, and new forms of political freedom and justice to flourish.”
Activism that lacks such a vision of the future, contenting itself with immediate outrage, blinds itself to the world of political possibilities that human agency can bring. Without dismissing the righteousness of such outrage, we cannot be imprisoned by it. There is an urgent necessity to build power in ways that are grounded in self-conscious political practice. A practice that is informed by pluralist agency and engages power via principles of moral clarity, complexity and consistency is the path to movements that create real change.
Anthony Tirado Chase is a professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College. Chase has published widely on human rights and transitional justice in the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. His books include "Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Transnational Challenges" (co-edited with Mahdavi, Banai, and Gruskin, Bloomsbury, 2023); "Handbook on Human Rights and the Middle East and North Africa" (Routledge, 2017); "Human Rights, Revolution, and Reform in the Muslim World (Lynne Rienner, 2012); and "Human Rights in the Arab World: Independent Voices" (co-edited with Amr Hamzawy, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
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