CHICAGO — As Asma Mohammed walked the halls of the United Center on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention Monday, she said she felt an immense pressure to properly represent her community in Minnesota.
The "uncommitted" delegate for the North Star State said she wanted to ensure she continued to negotiate in "good faith" with Vice President Kamala Harris' nascent campaign and remind other attendees that, as the violence in Gaza continues into its eleventh month, a majority of Democrats support a permanent ceasefire in the region and many want the United States to place an arms embargo on Israel.
"If we want to be the party that saves lives, then we need to do that now," Mohammed told Salon, wearing a bright red Palestinian keffiyeh scarf and a similarly colored "Not Another Bomb" pin.
"I saw someone today that was wearing a 'Screw your thoughts and prayers' pin. And that's really how I'm feeling in this moment," she said, adding: "We're feeling that in this moment. I've talked to so many other delegates who feel the same way but were like, 'Yeah, I feel like we can't do anything,' But we can. We as delegates have power to put pressure on the current nominee for president and say this is what we need in the platform."
Mohammed is one of the 30-some "uncommitted" delegates to the DNC representing the hundreds of thousands of voters who chose the option on their Democratic primary ballots in protest of President Joe Biden's unconditional support of Israel's retaliatory bombardment of Gaza. Their white stoles and scarves, some of which read "Democrats for Palestinian rights" on the ends, crisscrossed with the distinct black or red Palestinian design dotted the halls of the arena Monday night, serving as a visual reminder of the tension over the war that's created a rift through the Democratic Party.
Still, uncommitted delegates and pro-Palestinian attendees at the Democratic National Convention remain cautiously optimistic about the vice president's ability to turn the tide in their favor and meet their demands compared to her former running mate. While Harris' more sympathetic outreach efforts have made them feel hopeful that she's at least listening, they say her words fall flat in lieu of concrete action.
Without clearly articulating a different policy on Israel — which they hope includes a permanent immediate ceasefire and an arms embargo on the Middle Eastern nation — that they can bring back to their voters, their communities' votes are effectively hers to lose, "uncommitted" delegates and DNC attendees said.
"That's what we're hearing from people," Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Democrat who is Palestinian-American, told Salon. "We would not be spending this much time and energy and effort begging people to listen to us if we didn't hear from actual voters, this is what they're asking for. We would not be doing any of this. If all it took was for us to get in line and go, 'Yeah, like, let's endorse Harris tomorrow,' we would absolutely do it."
Since the latest outbreak of violence in Gaza began, Democrats have hemorrhaged support from its leftwing flank over the Biden administration's unconditional military support of Israel. Muslim and Arab-American voters, who comprise a critical part of the party's base, especially in battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin, have led the charge in the election protest while calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in the region among other demands.
The "uncommitted" movement, an initially Michigan-focused effort that ballooned into a national campaign, encouraged distraught voters seeking to apply pressure on the Biden administration to press Israel for a permanent ceasefire and arms embargo to check "no preference" or "uncommitted" on their ballots when voting in their state's Democratic primary.
Uncommitted voters in Michigan had an unexpected showing in the state's February Democratic primary, casting nearly 102,000 votes — five times more than the minimum movement leaders told Salon at the time they wanted to see — which accounted for 13 percent of the vote. By the close of the presidential primary circuit in June, the movement had amassed over 700,000 "uncommitted," "uninstructed" or "no preference" votes and, with the number of write-in and blank-ballot protests in states without those options, the number likely pushes three-quarters of a million, The Nation writes.
Romman said that the Uncommitted Movement is specifically focused on making the Democratic Party better and "addressing this very serious weakness" around its policy on Israel going into November.
"The reality is that even for those of us who are political people, we know what the options are for November," she said. "But [because of] the emotion around this and intensity around this, we cannot go back to people empty-handed and still ask them to vote."
Harris' campaign has attempted to toe the line between appealing to and assuaging the concerns of both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian voters. While Harris has advocated publicly for an immediate ceasefire, her national security adviser vehemently denied the suggestion that she would consider an arms embargo on Israel.
Since Harris took to the campaign trail just last month, demonstrators have sought to apply pressure during her appearances as they did while the president was still in the running, though on a much smaller scale.
At a campaign rally in Michigan last month, Harris delivered a sharp response to pro-Palestinian protesters chanting in the crowd, telling them that if they want "Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking."
Her response, Mohammed said, could have been "much more intentional" and worked to better clarify her position. Instead, Mohammed argued, the vice president "missed that opportunity in a swing state where Muslim, Arab and voters of color are saying, 'We don't know to feel.'"
"I think that missed opportunity could cost us the election," Mohammed said. "And that terrifies me."
While Romman agreed that the Democratic nominee's reaction to protesters was Harris and her campaign's "first misstep," she said how quickly Harris "corrected" and responded more empathetically at her subsequent rally in Arizona, however, demonstrated "she was open to feedback."
That move, coupled with Harris' voiced sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza, increased engagement with Uncommitted leaders and outreach to Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities represents a "very marked shift" from her former running mate's approach, according to Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted Michigan delegate and a leader of the national movement.
"It was very clear that she made the decision to engage rather than continue the policy of effectively boycotting our communities, so I'm feeling like there's opportunity in that to push for policy change," Alawieh told Salon.
According to Reuters, the Democratic Party released a draft platform in mid-July that called for "an immediate and lasting ceasefire" in the war and the release of the remaining hostages taken by militant group Hamas during the deadly Oct. 7 attack, which Israel says killed around 1,200 people. But the platform, which the DNC officially approved Monday, makes no mention of the now more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of whom are civilians, the Gaza health authorities say have been killed by Israel's counteroffensive, and does not reference halting weapons sales to the country.
Convention planners have allotted speaking slots to progressive Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, one of the most prominent Muslims in national politics, and approved a first-of-its-kind panel discussion on Palestinian human rights organized by Uncommitted Movement leaders held Monday afternoon.
Last week, Harris' campaign manager, Julie Chavez-Rodriguez, also held a spate of meetings to hear the concerns of Arab Americans and some uncommitted delegates, according to The New York Times. She also flew out to Detroit to meet privately with Abbas Alawieh and Arab American and Jewish leaders.
But as the Harris campaign conducted its outreach last week, the U.S. approved another $20 billion in arms sales to Israel just last Tuesday. Monthslong negotiations mediated by the U.S., Egypt and other nations seeking to broker an agreement between Hamas and the Israeli war cabinet based on a plan Biden put forward in May have so far failed.
"Certainly, it feels like something fundamentally is broken. It's so clear that what this administration is doing is not only deeply offensive and immoral, but also deeply illegal," Alawieh said, expressing disbelief that the violence in Gaza is still happening. "The Biden administration is sending more and more weapons that are being used to kill civilians, and that's against international law, and that's against U.S. law, and that's to say nothing of all of the international inquiries around apartheid and around genocide."
In the face of rising stakes, the Democratic Party and Harris' delicate dances around the nation's role in the war in Gaza and responses to appease opposing yet key factions of its base are insufficient, Alawieh, Romman and Mohammed said.
"In this case in particular, we need accountability," Alawieh said. "We don't need private expressions of sympathy or even public expressions of sympathy. The time for that is long past due."
"As [Uncommitted National Movement founder Layla Elabed] has said, unfortunately, words are not going to feed a starving child, and they're not going to protect somebody under the bombs," Romman added. "The whole point of all of this is to get a commitment to stop the bombs."
Efforts to apply pressure on Harris and the Biden administration and advocate on behalf of "uncommitted" voters also continued at the DNC with varied results. A protest of 3,500 people demanding a ceasefire took place Monday afternoon in Chicago as the DNC got underway just streets over, while a small protest in the arena as Biden spoke Monday night was quickly snuffed out.
At the top of each morning, the Uncommitted Movement has held daily press conferences platforming pro-Palestinian voices at a location nearby the arena alongside afternoon vigils inside the United Center. Uncommitted delegates have also been urging Harris' pledged delegates to sign a petition pushing the Harris campaign to add an arms embargo to its platform, according to Mother Jones.
"It feels like we have an opportunity to push Vice President Harris. Given that there's been a change at the top of the ticket, we can use this as an opportunity to push her to adopt a new approach that isn't hellbent on killing Palestinian children," Alawieh said. "She hasn't articulated a new approach yet, but we're hopeful that if we apply enough pressure, that she'll see that not only is it the right thing to do morally, but also it matters to a lot of voters in key swing states like Michigan, voters who — 740,000 plus of us — voted uncommitted because we want a change in Gaza policy."
Though recent polling indicated voters under 40 had mixed feelings toward the U.S. sending military aid to Israel — and Harris' entrance into the race has reinvigorated the electorate around the Democratic Party in ways Biden's campaign did not — uncommitted delegates say voters in their districts remain steadfast in their convictions. Mohammed said voters she represents have told her they intend to skip the election or vote third-party should Harris fail to meet their demands.
"It presents an urgent need to get a policy that is more humane because if we're going to re-energize and reengage voters in Michigan for whom this is a top policy issue, we have a very short run," Alawieh said. "What we're offering vice president Harris is like, 'Help us help you.' Help us have a message that we can go to voters who voted uncommitted and deliver a proactive 'here is what Vice President Harris' plan would be.'
If Harris doesn't deliver an arms embargo, Alawieh said he and other delegates would continue to warn their communities of the "horrific" truth of former President Donald Trump's "destructive policies." But a scenario in which the vice president fails to meet their demands would be less effective at persuading uncommitted voters to go to the polls or cast a vote in her favor, he suggested.
"We feel like it would strengthen our hand with the communities with whom we've built trust, communities for whom Gaza is a top policy issue, to be able to go to those communities and deliver a proactively pro-Kamala message," he said. "But we need to be empowered to do that."
