Democratic Convention Denies Speaking Spot To Gaza War Critics

CHICAGO ― Critics of President Joe Biden’s role in the war in Gaza said Wednesday night they had lost a high-profile battle to secure a speaking spot during the Democratic National Convention ― and blamed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee.

Abbas Alawieh, a DNC delegate from Michigan who lived through U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment in Lebanon when he was young, said outside the convention that “Vice President Harris, unfortunately, has made the decision that the child in me, the American child in me, who was certain my own government was going to kill me, is not going to get to be heard at this convention.”

Alawieh announced Wednesday evening that he was launching a sit-in outside the convention unless there is a shift in policy from the DNC, despite risking arrest.

The “uncommitted” campaign had sought speaking time on the DNC’s main stage for a representative of their group, which had won support from hundreds of thousands of voters. They initially requested two slots ― the other for a doctor who had served in Gaza, to address the humanitarian crisis there ― but later in the week said they sought only one: a Palestinian American speaker. They and their allies said that was vital to show equal concern for Israelis and Palestinians amid the latest cycle of violence in the region following the Oct. 7 attack inside Israel by the Gaza-based militant group Hamas, and they highlighted that the DNC agreed to give a high-profile speaking slot to the parents of an Israeli-American hostage captured by Hamas in that assault. That was appropriate, they said, but could appear one-sided.

The developments represented a new escalation in a simmering confrontation between the “uncommitted”