It was late in the evening when Ruby Chen, whose son Itay was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October and later killed, approached and kneeled down next to Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from the “Uncommitted” pro-Palestinian movement who was planning to bed down for the night on the cement outside the venue where Kamala Harris this week formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.
For the four days of the Democratic National Convention, while many visiting delegates were popping bottles of champagne at parties across Chicago, the two men were busy working the rooms at delegate breakfasts, juggling media interviews and courting high-profile Democrats to try to influence the administration’s policies in Gaza.
