The Uncommitted National Movement, a grassroots effort in the United States that is seeking to pressure the Democratic Party to shift its policy towards Israel amid the Gaza war, says it cannot endorse Kamala Harris for president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group said on Thursday that Harris\u2019s team had failed to respond to its request for a meeting with representatives and families of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip by a September 15 deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The movement has been pushing for Harris, the U.S. vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, to agree to suspend American weapons transfers to Israel during the war, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since early October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But with less than 50 days before the election, Harris has repeatedly doused the prospect that she would support conditioning military aid to Israel, extinguishing hopes she would represent a significant pivot from the policies of Democratic President Joe Biden, the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur movement cannot endorse the vice president,\u201d Abbas Alawieh, one of the Uncommitted National Movement\u2019s leaders, said during a virtual news conference on Thursday morning. \u201cAt this time, our movement opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of antiwar organising,\u201d Alawieh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd our movement is not recommending a third-party vote in the presidential election, especially as third-party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency, given our country\u2019s broken Electoral College system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, political analysts say the nonendorsement could spell trouble for Harris, who needs to turn out a broad base of Democratic voters in an election that is expected to be decided by a razor-thin margin. It also underscores the alienation of not only Arab and Muslim voters in must-win, battleground states, but also progressive activists with a proven ability to get people to the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Layla Elabed, an uncommitted leader and the sister of Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, said the group will not leverage its wide network to mobilise voters for Harris even as they continue to advocate for Palestinians and for other down-ballot issues. \u201cAn endorsement is a very specific thing,\u201d Elabed said during the virtual news conference. \u201cIt would mean that we would come out and mobilize thousands of voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thursday\u2019s announcement is the latest chapter in a months-long campaign that began in the weeks before the Michigan Democratic primary in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democratic voters were urged to go to the polls and select \u201cuncommitted\u201d on their ballots to send a message to Biden, then the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee, that they were opposed to his staunch support for Israel during the Gaza war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The effort spread to other primaries \u2013 including in the significant Midwestern states of Minnesota and Wisconsin \u2013 with a total of 700,000 voters casting uncommitted ballots during the primary season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, it remains impossible to know how many did so in protest against Biden\u2019s Israel policy. The turnout spurred the launch of the Uncommitted National Movement, which eventually sent 30 protest delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The movement\u2019s leaders had expressed cautious optimism in Harris, who took the mantle of the party after Biden dropped out of the race in July. Her selection of Tim Walz \u2013 the governor of Minnesota, who had spoken sympathetically about uncommitted voters \u2013 also buoyed that hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the group\u2019s request for the Democratic Party to feature a Palestinian American speaker at the convention went unheeded. In outrage, the group staged a sit-in outside the Chicago, Illinois, convention centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Harris has repeatedly closed the door on conditioning aid to Israel. The US provides its top Middle East ally with $3.8 billion in military assistance annually, and the Biden administration has greenlit additional support during the Gaza war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most recently, during a debate with Trump this month, Harris said she \u201cwill always give Israel the ability to defend itself\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harris added that she would continue to work for a long-elusive ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution \u201cwhere we can rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It remains unclear what effects Thursday\u2019s announcement will have on the November election. Recent polls have shown a large percentage of Americans \u2014 and Democratic voters in particular \u2014 are opposed to continued arms transfers to Israel amid the Gaza war, which has plunged the Palestinian enclave into a humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surveys also have found widespread disenchantment among Arab American voters, a relatively small but significant demographic in key battleground states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A report released this month by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found support for third-party candidate Jill Stein surpassed support for either Harris or Trump among Muslims in several battleground states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arshad Hasan, a progressive Democratic strategist, said that by not engaging with the Uncommitted National Movement, the Harris campaign had failed on both a human and an electoral level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a group of people who are generally ideologically aligned [with Democrats] and who are energetic, and it doesn\u2019t cost the Harris campaign anything to meet with them and to meet with impacted families, which is what they were asking for,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m entirely disappointed in the Harris-Walz campaign,\u201d Hassan said. \u201cAnd I say this as a supporter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sally Howell, director of the Center for Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, said Democrats were taking a \u201chuge hit\u201d with Arab voters.
The Uncommitted Movement\u2019s nonendorsement could prove particularly damaging for voters \u201cwho are not in the progressive camp and were already struggling with the [Democrats]\u201d, she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis weakens the progressive Arabs in their own community for certain, even as they are appreciated for their courage and outspokenness on this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the at times emotional virtual news conference, Uncommitted National Movement leaders recounted their personal struggles in determining how to cast their votes as they have watched their own families struggle to survive in the occupied Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elabed, a Democrat, said with family in the occupied West Bank, \u201cI can\u2019t make the decision to vote for Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket.\u201d \u201cBut I also would never vote for someone like Donald Trump,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lexis Zeidan, another leader of the movement, said she felt the Harris campaign was \u201ccourting people like Dick Cheney\u201d while pushing aside key segments of the Democratic base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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