CHICAGO — On the first day of the Democratic National Convention, the Abandon Biden campaign held a counterconvention in which it unveiled a new Abandon Harris group in protest of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
“Today, we launch Abandon Harris, Abandon Harris. In the protests on the streets of Chicago, reminiscent of 1968, we now declare that the only option for people of conscience is to abandon Harris, to punish her and the party so that they know that they can never put genocide on the ballot,” said Hassan Abdel Salam, founder of Abandon Biden, during the press conference.
The movement has called for a permanent ceasefire in the battle between Israel and Hamas and called for the United States to end funding for Israel, which it alleges is committing genocide against Palestinians living in Gaza. Harris has endorsed a ceasefire in the war, but it has not appeased the Abandon Biden movement.
Speakers gathered at Alhambra Palace Restaurant and slammed Harris for not giving specific details on how a ceasefire would be enforced as others held Abandon Harris signs and repeatedly chanted, “Ceasefire now!” They also criticized Harris’s campaign for not meeting with the group despite invitations to address it and instead sending in surrogates.
“[Rep.] Ro Khanna [D-CA] has come to Las Vegas several times. And it’s sort of been to get the pulse from the Arab and Muslim community and, to a lesser degree, the black community in Las Vegas,” said Nicholas Klein, a Nevada Abandon Harris spokesman. “So, they have reached out with, you know, with requests as to what we would like to see and then given vague assurances.”
The Abandon Biden convention begins with chants of “ceasefire now!” #DNC2024 pic.twitter.com/DtwHXqUo78
— Mabinty
(@MabintyQ) August 19, 2024
“If we cut through the fluff, you’ll start to see that Kamala Harris’s position isn’t really that different from Joe Biden’s, not from policy and certainly not from rhetoric,” said Hudhayfah Ahmad, a Palestinian American from Arizona and national spokesman for Abandon Harris. “While her rhetoric may not be as vicious as Joe Biden, she’s paying the same lip service that Joe Biden eventually did pay for political reasons.”
The campaign is urging voters to buck the two-party system by supporting a new number of independent candidates running for president.
“We ask the American people to vote for these third parties that are part of a broader movement to end a system that claims that the only rational thing is to select the lesser of two evils,” Abdel Salam continued. “Make no mistake, you have choices. Do not be deceived by the doublespeak.”
Dr. Jill Stein and Dr. Cornel West, two third-party candidates running for president, were among the three dozen people gathered at the press conference.
“Harris has been a part of the Biden-Harris administration and is coming up to the election without having really taken any sort of changing direction for news policies with regard to genocide in Gaza,” Stein told the Washington Examiner. “So, there’s continuity here between the genocide of Biden and the genocide as vice president. She has really resided over them and has not taken steps to change that.”
West called the Democratic Party “corrupt” in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “You can’t have leaders who’ve been tied to genocide using their career and act as if they’re going to make a promise and then try to bring you in,” he said. “You get co-opted, and you end up selling out, and they turn away from that promise, which they’ve done in the past.”
Attendees of the convention refused to endorse Harris despite the Democratic enthusiasm since she replaced President Joe Biden in late July.
Kevin Aldwaik, an uncommitted Democratic-Farmer-Labor delegate from Minneapolis, Minnesota, told the Washington Examiner he plans to vote for former President Donald Trump in protest in November.
Aldwaik admits that Trump frames himself as more pro-Israel than Biden but suggested that Trump’s policies regarding the conflict aren’t set in stone.
Furthermore, Aldwaik conceded that, given the decadeslong violence in the region, a quick solution is virtually impossible. He said that he and Abandon Biden supporters are willing to deal with any short-term pains associated with a second Trump administration if it pushes Democrats to enact the change they want to see in the long term.
The Abandon Harris group is part of a larger movement of progressive Democrats, Arab Americans, and Generation Z voters furious over U.S. involvement in funding Israel that includes another group that urged Democrats to vote “uncommitted” during the primaries earlier this year.
The 30-some uncommitted DNC delegates attending the convention are mobilizing with daily events in Chicago. They claimed a key victory in that the DNC agreed to hold a panel discussion Monday on “Democrats for Palestinian Human Rights.”
They’re pushing for a Palestinian American speaker on the convention’s main stage but say they have not gotten that yet. The bigger picture, however, is they want an arms embargo, which was not included in the Democratic platform, an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and to hear directly from Harris.
“To be clear, our position is that all weapons transfers that the United States is engaged in … should never be used to kill civilians, to kill babies,” said Abbas Alawieh, a DNC uncommitted delegate from Michigan. “That feels like a very reasonable request. We need to hear from Vice President Harris what her plan is on this. It’s urgent.”
Layla Elabed, co-founder of Uncommitted National Movement, said votes are on the line in swing states like Michigan if Harris does not move on her policy.
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“I’m a voter from Michigan and a community organizer that has been on the ground speaking to Democratic voters, and right now, the majority of Michigan voters, which is a key swing state in the race to the White House … cannot put their support behind Vice President Harris,” Elabed, a Dearborn resident, said on Monday.
“I think that she is at risk for losing key swing states, especially in states like Michigan, where we have the largest concentration of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, people who know firsthand the effects and the impact of American-funded bombing,” she added.
