Chicago: Democrats gathered for their national convention, thousands of people assembled at a nearby park to protest the party’s military support for Israel’s Gaza offensive.
Hala Hijazi, a business executive from San Francisco, broke down in tears as she spoke to a panel on the war in Gaza attended by 300 people.
“I’m here because I’ve had over 100 of my family killed in Gaza, two just last week,” Hijazi said. “I’m here in their honor. I’m here because they can no longer speak, because that’s the least I can do as an American, as a person of faith and as a Democrat.”
The party voted on Monday to approve a 92-page policy platform that does not call for an arms embargo against Israel, a demand of pro-Palestinian groups. The United States approved $20 billion in additional arms sales to Israel on Tuesday.
Harris is riding a historic whirlwind into the convention: her campaign has broken records for fundraising, packed arenas with supporters, and turned opinion polls in some battleground states in Democrats’ favor.
Harris’ vice presidential running mate, popular Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, was greeted with chants of “We’re not going back” on Monday when he met with groups of delegates.
One prominent backer, however, cautioned fellow Democrats not to be overly optimistic. “Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in public,” said Chauncey McLean, who heads Future Forward, a committee that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Harris.
Rich Barnes says that opposing Israel’s war in Gaza is not a complicated issue.
“Are we for mass murdering babies, or are we against it? To me, it’s a pretty simple equation,” he said, holding Palestinian and Irish flags near the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago on Monday.
Barnes was one of thousands of protesters who blanketed the grass of Union Park, blocks away from the Democratic National Convention, to demand an end to United States support for Israel’s war.
As the Democrats gathered at the convention to present Vice President Kamala Harris as their presidential nominee, several Palestinian rights advocates told Al Jazeera that they will not vote for Harris unless she agrees to an arms embargo against Israel.
The demonstration, dubbed the “March on the DNC”, also demanded an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
“I’m worried because I feel like there’s not going to be any big, major change with her,” Barnes said. “We’re trying to put as much pressure on from the left to say: ‘Listen, you can’t expect our vote.”
The protesters held signs linking Harris and President Joe Biden to the atrocities in Gaza, which they describe as a genocide: an effort to destroy the Palestinian people through bombing and starvation.
“Both Democrats & Republicans have blood on their hands,” one poster read. Another one said: “No votes 4 Kamala until arms embargo 4 Israel.”
Amal Jaber, a teacher who drove from Wisconsin to join Monday’s protest, dismissed Harris’s professed empathy for Palestinians as “lip service”.
“We need to see action,” Jaber told Al Jazeera. “Palestinians are still being killed today. Unless we see real change, I don’t see the Muslim community in Wisconsin supporting Kamala Harris right now. Enough is enough.”
At the protest in Chicago on Thursday, one protester held a sign that said, “DNC = Decades No Change.”
“There’s been no change. There’s no reform by the murderous system. And the answer is to abandon the empire,” Tina, who chose to be identified by her first name only, told Al Jazeera.
She added that Harris’s expression of sympathy for Palestinians does not make any difference without a change in policy – “none whatsoever”.
Gaza-related protests are expected to continue throughout the week until the convention concludes on Thursday.
Chicago, which has a long history of political activism, is home to one of the largest Palestinian communities in the US.
A masked protester who chose to remain anonymous told Al Jazeera they found it incongruous that the Democrats decided to hold their convention in Chicago, the largest US city to pass a Gaza ceasefire resolution.
“But it also feels right that we’re doing this rally here, and we have the opportunity to show up.”
Demonstrators protest against Biden’s support of Israel’s war of Gaza with signs that read: “Democrats fund the genocide of Palestinians” and “Genocide Joe’s legacy: The Butcher of Gaza.”
Demonstrators held signs denouncing the Democratic Party’s support for Israel [Ali Harb/Al Jazeera]
Inside the halls of the Democratic National Convention, the antiwar movement will also be represented by the dozens of “uncommitted” delegates.
They represent the hundreds of thousands of people who voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primaries to protest Biden’s Gaza policy.
“We need a change in the Gaza policy. We need a ceasefire,” Abbas Alawieh, an “uncommitted” delegate from Michigan, told reporters at a news conference early on Monday.
“We need to stop sending weapons that are being used to kill families, to kill people we love, to kill civilians in Gaza and to perpetuate a crushing occupation of Palestinian lands and of the Palestinian people.”
Back at the protest, demonstrators cautioned Harris that they — and their demands — will not be easily dismissed.
“This isn’t going away,” said Kwabena Ampofo, a US military veteran. “What you see right now isn’t just a media moment. This isn’t just five minutes or 15 minutes of sun. This is an issue that — I’ve never seen in my almost 30 years of life — transcends so many people’s lives.”
