Reports From the DNC: Gaza in the Spotlight, with Sarah Lazare (The Nation) and Eman Abdelhadi (In These Times)

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.

[00:00:00] What is up, everybody? Welcome to Block and Build, a podcast from Convergence magazine. I’m your host and the publisher of Convergence, Caden Mock. On this show, we are building a roadmap for the movement that’s working to block the ascent of authoritarianism while building the influence of a genuinely progressive trend in the broad front that we need to win.

[00:01:20] Before we get started, I want to acknowledge our newest Movement Builder and Movement Champion subscribers, Stephanie Luce and Alethea Jones. Thank you both for supporting Convergence. And if you want to join these folks who make our work possible, you can become a subscriber at convergencemag. com slash donate.

[00:01:37] On the show today, we’ve got a Movement Media Roundtable featuring two movement media reporters who are on the ground of the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago. I’m joined today by Sarah Lazar, who’s reporting on the DNC appeared in The Nation, and Iman Abdelhadi, who’s covered the DNC for In These Times.

[00:01:53] But first, some headlines to get us started. Last week the Institute for Middle East Understanding policy project, at YouGov, released polling from key battleground states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona, asking registered democratic and independent voters in those states how the current administration’s policy on Gaza affects them.

[00:02:11] would impact their votes. In all three states, over 40 percent of polled voters said that they were more likely to vote for Harris if Biden were to secure a ceasefire. Between 35 and 40 percent of voters also said they’d be more likely to vote for Harris if she pledged an arms embargo against Israel.

[00:02:27] We’ve been hearing that U. S. support for genocide is so uniquely unpopular that it could impact voter turnout this fall, which is unusual for a foreign policy issue, and now we have some concrete numbers to prove it. Remember, polling is not an indicator of what is going to happen, but rather what we need to do.

[00:02:44] And what we need is an arms embargo and a permanent ceasefire. Seems pretty simple. The FDA approved another round of COVID, updated COVID vaccines, focused on the newer variants of the virus that are circulating right now. Unfortunately, it also looks like the government’s support for free vaccines for everyone, regardless of insurance status, will not be renewed for this round of vaccines.

[00:03:04] Creating more barriers for poor people to access a tool to prevent serious illness and death is frankly negligent, especially in the middle of the biggest summer surge we’ve seen in several years. The Department of Justice also announced a new lawsuit against a tech platform called RealPage, alleging that the platform’s algorithm, which monitors supply, demand, and pricing in the rental housing market, constitutes collusion, mainly with big corporate landlords for price By helping property managers coordinate across geography, amenities, and prices, the suit alleges, it’s helping set prices in 90 percent of large apartment buildings in places like Washington, D.

[00:03:41] C. This is the first civil suit of its kind brought by the DOJ, which was has been intentionally staffing up with technologists and data scientists to help it better understand the ways that capital is using computing technology to exploit people and violate laws, including antitrust law. We are also monitoring back to school developments as students return to college campuses around the country.

[00:04:04] I’m not going to be surprised if we see student organizing return full throttle this fall, and it seems that a lot of university administrators are thinking the same thing. For example, at my alma mater, the University of Michigan, there were several reports of employees being sent letters notifying them that their contracts would not be renewed, and while those letters didn’t say why, All of those affected employees participated in protests on campus last academic year, calling on the university to divest from Israel.

[00:04:31] And of course, on Thursday night, Kamala Harris accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party to be their candidate for the President of the United States. And to talk about what happened at the DNC I’ve got Sarah and Iman here. Thank you so much for joining me on the show this week. I imagine both of you are pretty pretty worn out from a long week of tracking what’s going on.

[00:04:53] How are you doing?

[00:05:03] Eman Abdelhadi: I booked myself a cabin in the woods for tonight so that I could, I was like, I know it’s gonna be hell. I need a crunch. 

[00:05:11] Yeah, that’s amazing. Good call. That seems correct. How are you holding up, Sarah? 

[00:05:17] Sarah Lazare: I’m doing all right. I’m just Snuggling my kids a lot today and this weekend. 

[00:05:24] Great. Thank you for taking the time checking in before especially Iman, before you check out.

[00:05:31] You’re welcome. Let’s start our conversation today about the protests and the work the uncommitted movement took to bring the issue of U. S. military support for Israel’s genocide to the forefront. really front and center at this convention. Many observers anticipated that there would be some pretty big actions bringing in organizers and activists from around the country.

[00:05:48] And I think this is probably the part of this whole circus that our listeners are the most aware of and interested in hearing more about. And Iman, maybe we’ll start with you. Could you tell us a little bit about how what you saw in terms of uncommitted delegates. We saw the base stage, the sit in at the convention, once it became clear that the party wasn’t going to platform a Palestinian speaker on the main stage.

[00:06:10] What can you tell us about that action and what the impact was? 

[00:06:13] Eman Abdelhadi: Leading up to the action, there was a palatable sense of frustration. I kept speaking to the, I kept going to their press conferences and speaking to some of the founders of the campaign. And there was a sense of frustration that the DNC simply wasn’t responding to this request.

[00:06:30] Was occasionally asking for more names. They kept providing more and more names. And the sit in emerged out of that sense of frustration. It wasn’t something that Uncommitted had planned ahead of time. It was something, it was a sort of spontaneous action in response to the frustration of finding themselves shunned from the DNC in so many different ways.

[00:06:54] I think it’s important to note that there was, over and over, uncommitted folks were saying that there was two tones to the convention. The DNC programming committee and the top of the party was very intransigent, was not willing to give them what they asked for, was ignoring them thwarting them at every turn, but they were getting a lot of support from other delegates and from people simply attending the convention.

[00:07:21] And, they held a panel that was very popular with standing room only on Palestinian human rights. And I think that, that reflects this moment for the party, right? That you have a base that sees this genocide as completely unpopular, but a leadership that refuses to move on this issue.

[00:07:41] Yeah, that seems consistent with what we’ve been seeing, and maybe is I don’t know. One of the things that I found really interesting is the speech that Georgia state rep Rua Roman was prepared to give on the main stage. I think it’s in mother it’s published in full and mother Jones.

[00:07:56] So people can go and find it if they’re interested, but what are the, I guess one of the things I’m interested in excavating here a little bit is there’ve been a lot of reactions to it online ranging from This is so milquetoast. This is like nothing. Being like, this would have been super historic.

[00:08:13] What do you see as I guess the role that that speech could have played or really, also the speech that it does play knowing we know what she would have said. How do you think that maybe highlights some of that tension? 

[00:08:27] Eman Abdelhadi: Palestinians have been saying over and over that this party and the ruling elite more broadly, but definitely the Democratic Party, refuses to recognize even our most basic humanity, right?

[00:08:40] And so you have this tension. speech that many on the left have criticized for not going far enough for endorsing Harris, perhaps prematurely and even that’s not palatable enough, right? It’s not okay to, I think that’s what that says it all, right? You can’t stand on the stage and say, Here is the reality of having been Palestinian, that this is a, all of us have stories of displacement of loss there, there’s no way to be Palestinian in the world without that and the reality is the ruling elites are support for Israel for the last 75 years has been based on the erasure of Palestinian reality has been an attempt to do the American people into thinking that there were no indigenous people into thinking that this isn’t a settler colonial endeavor, even though, the founding the founding members of the Zionist project.

[00:09:30] very openly call it a settler colonial endeavor, right? And we see that, we see that in the Atlantic, right? The Atlantic saying settler colonialism was invented in the 1990s as a concept. It’s I think it really highlights. It highlights this erasure and how fundamental it is to the Democratic Party’s commitment to Israel that you really can’t have both and that even by the milquetoast standards of sort of Democratic Party identity, inclusion, diversity representation, there’s it really highlights the limits of that version of liberal politics, right?

[00:10:07] That says it’s okay. We can all get along this. As long as you can get your people on the stage, then you can, it’s, it exposes it for the farce that it is. 

[00:10:17] Yeah, totally. I think that, that seems like such an important observation, and it seems like a lot of the conversations that I’ve been seeing post convention have very much been about these sort of like tensions about, how we understand identity in this moment and like the way in which like those the politics around representation and visibility are like we’re seeing those fault lines much more clearly than I think we ever have.

[00:10:44] Sarah, if 

[00:10:45] Sarah Lazare: I could just jump in really fast. So the uncommitted delegates and the broader uncommitted national movement. are demanding an arms embargo on Israel pursuant to a permanent ceasefire. This is their key demand. 

[00:11:00] Sound on Tape: This 

[00:11:00] Sarah Lazare: is the demand that they went into the DNC with. This is the demand that they were trying to and having some success organizing delegates around.

[00:11:09] It’s calling on Harris specifically to commit to an arms embargo. And this focus On withdrawing material support reflects a much, much broader consensus within Palestine solidarity movements and movements in general, we’ve seen six major labor unions call for an arms embargo pursuant to a permanent ceasefire.

[00:11:33] Those. Sorry, seven, seven major unions. And those seven unions collectively represent almost half of all unionized workers in the United States. We saw the thousands of people who took to the streets in Chicago to protest the DNC as part of the March on the DNC, or sorry, the coalition March on the DNC.

[00:11:54] They also had material demands. Their demand was a little different. It was a demand for an end to all USAID and also demand to stop the genocide. But what those have in common is the focus on withdrawing material support. And when you talk to the uncommitted delegates, like Asma Mohammed, the uncommitted delegate from Minnesota when she did her sit in when she was sitting on the cold concrete in front of the DNC, she said to me, That she’s so frustrated because the ask for a speaker is the lowest possible bar.

[00:12:27] And I don’t think any of those folks think that’s the ceiling. They see it very much as the floor or even, one level beneath the floor. That’s the basement. Step 

[00:12:36] zero. Yeah. 

[00:12:36] Sarah Lazare: Yeah. And I, and the demand for not another bomb, that is the, that’s what was written on their banners. That was.

[00:12:43] Primary in their press releases that was present at every event that the panel that Iman talked about that was a central demand and Iman talking about two tones and the gulf between the base of the democratic party and the democratic party leadership I just want to second that I think that’s a theme that I heard about a lot and then also just the jarring contrast between Iman The, the grief and urgency of those organizing to stop us support for what Israel is doing to Gaza, and then the sort of spectacle and pageantry of the DNC main stage where the theme of joy and.

[00:13:26] Was the primary theme like that the whiplash between those two tones as well. It’s just completely jarring. 

[00:13:34] Yeah, I do. I am interested in like the affective quality of the spectacle because it seems like the other contrast to have is like the contrast between the DNC and the RNC as well.

[00:13:47] It’s that those are also two wildly different vibes. But I guess I’m curious to hear from both of you about like your reads on also like the vibes both inside and outside. And the, what are the, what were the vibes in the streets and like, how are people feeling? Cause I definitely feel like, for anybody who watched any slice of the sort of mainstream coverage of the DNC that sort of joy, that sort of, the Tim Waltz down home folksiness, the we’re trying to make these people relatable to you.

[00:14:16] Vibe was like very front and center the like star studded surprise guests, whatever but what was the vibe in the streets? Like I know sarah you talked a little bit about It’s like grief and pain, but what are the other sort of like affective experiences that people are having?

[00:14:36] Eman Abdelhadi: I would say that, there, I think there’s a sort of a sense of disgust at the Democratic Party at a very at a very open attempt to get us to set aside the genocide, to set aside the fact that 200, 000 people have now died in Gaza, 40, 000 directly 41, 000 directly through the bombs sent by the U.

[00:14:57] S. And the rest through disease and famine, conditions that didn’t exist before and that were, orchestrated by the Israeli government with the support of the U. S. So I think, there’s this sort of sense of one of the speakers at one of the marches says, the emperor the emperor is not wearing clothes, right?

[00:15:16] Like we see what’s happening. So this attempt at there was a sort of, a disgust at this. But I think there was also a lot of joy and solidarity. The marches were really high energy. There was a lot of dancing and chanting and drumming and a sense that, the movement is not going away, that the coalitions that brought together these marches are coalitions that have been cementing for decades.

[00:15:40] In some cases, but certainly have cemented even more over the last 11 months. So I think there was e there was all of those tones on the street as well. 

[00:15:51] . 

[00:15:51] Sarah Lazare: Yeah, I can. So I, I interviewed some organizers just like maybe around a month ago to hear about what the mood was like ramping up to the big protests.

[00:16:02] I talked with Nazarre and Hassan from the. Palestinian feminist collective and USPCN and she described a mood of extreme grief and extreme mourning. Chicago has the biggest Palestinian diaspora community in the US or rather the Chicago area, the Chicago metropolitan area. And a lot of people in her community have lost family members in Gaza or have people who are there that they’re worried about.

[00:16:34] She described every day being like a funeral. She said it feels inappropriate to do anything celebratory or fun, given what’s happening. Really the exact opposite of the whimsical, joyful messaging that’s being put out right now by the Harris administration, or Harris campaign, rather and media outlets.

[00:16:59] She did also emphasize that there’s this word in Arabic, the mood, which means steadfastness. And there’s definitely a lot of determination to keep showing up and protesting. And, I think one of the things about the big DNC protests that folks should know is that Chicago has had so many protests for the past 10 months, every single week, there have been multiple protests.

[00:17:24] Some of them enormous in the many tons of thousands. People have been protesting lawmakers doing sit ins, doing creative direct actions, blocking intersections, huge participation from Palestinian American communities, also progressive Jewish organizations like Jewish voice for peace. And if not now And people have been protesting lawmakers at their homes.

[00:17:47] It’s been an incredibly heightened time of mobilization in the broader Chicago area. And just, there’s just been this real feeling that the stakes are incredibly high and incredibly personal. I interviewed one person who. Whose husband’s entire family lives in Gaza. And she said something like, not only is, are my tax dollars going to murder my people, but our literal family members are being targeted.

[00:18:13] There are a lot of people in this area who have literal family members. Who are directly harmed by what the U. S. is supporting. And yeah, I just want to speak to this sort of air of incredibly high stakes. 

[00:18:28] Eman Abdelhadi: I think if, sorry, if I may add to this, I think there was also a deep sense of frustration at the way that the city.

[00:18:35] Basically isolated protestors from the DNC, so you couldn’t get anywhere near the convention. There was I stood, in the smaller park that, we started at Union Park and then marched to a smaller park with a playground where you could see the DNC, but you were at least like three blocks away and it really felt surreal.

[00:18:57] To see this crowd of people, right? Looking on to this convention center that they had no way to access because the police set up these labyrinth like this labyrinth around of perimeters around these people. And you really have to ask yourself, what kind of democracy do we live in that the, that they need to be so removed from the people that they’re ruling?

[00:19:21] And so I think there was a real sense of frustration at how our rights. To assert our voice and our discontent and our dissent was curbed by the city in terms of the protests. 

[00:19:36] Sarah Lazare: I’m so glad, sorry, I’m so glad you mentioned that, Yvonne. I actually Chicago has a really wonderful community of movement lawyers and legal workers and mass defense organizers, and I want to, if it’s okay, I’m just going to read a quick quote from their DMV postmortem.

[00:19:50] So they, earlier this morning, they released a post mortem report just on how the CPD responded to DMC protests, and they said massive shows of force, brutality, and mass arrests defined the police response to protests during the week. CPD conducted a total of 76 arrests from Sunday through Tuesday, 2 on Sunday, 13 on Monday, 59 on Tuesday, and 2 on Thursday.

[00:20:17] Which resulted mainly in municipal citations for disorderly conduct, but also several people charged with misdemeanors as well as four felonies. NLG Chicago received reports of several people who were injured as a result of the police melee on Tuesday outside the Israeli consulate. One protester is in the court process, and all other protesters arrested this week were ordered released on their DNC related cases.

[00:20:44] I think the other thing that this also highlights for me and, Iman, I know that you live in Chicago is like how all of this sort of just like the layers of security, the sort of like security labyrinth, as you describe affects the people who live in Chicago, right? But there’s a real impact on just Regular folks who are like probably just like trying to get their kids to daycare to school to go to work, whatever Were there any conversations that you had in the past week about what?

[00:21:12] This ramped up police presence was doing to just like people living in the area. 

[00:21:18] Eman Abdelhadi: I think that in general there was a sense, I live not too close, not too far from the area and, you couldn’t get. They’re like layers and layers of like security parameters that were set up so that you couldn’t get anywhere close to the convention center unless you had credentials and even then you had to enter through very particular areas, but you could see that entire blocks of residential neighborhoods were blocked off.

[00:21:43] You couldn’t park in front of your house. You couldn’t, bike as usual. There’s no doubt that it affected individual people. I know that many Chicago and many companies based in Chicago gave their employees directives to work from home. So many moved to working from home.

[00:22:00] So I think that actually also affected the businesses. You know that we talk about businesses all the time and these events are sold to us as being good for the city and being good for the city’s economy. But in reality, downtown and River North and all these areas that are usually bustling were actually quite dead.

[00:22:17] And there was the sense for Chicago residents that this was a week to stay home that this, the city was not ours anymore. 

[00:22:24] Yeah, that’s I also feel like in addition to like protest access to decision makers and the positions of power, there’s also a way in which has an isolating effect on protesters as well, that you’re not encountering everyday people on the street to talk about some of these issues.

[00:22:42] I think that’s really, I don’t know, the way in which the like, security, quote, unquote, needs is. Transcribed by https: otter. ai Real or perceived around events like this have such a material effect on the communities that they take place in. It’s something I think we often forget about in the spectacle.

[00:22:58] Yeah. One of the things that I’m curious to talk about a little bit is of the people that you talked about There’s, we talked a little bit about the sort of disgust that people had for the disconnect between the leadership of the Democratic Party and sentiments at the grassroots.

[00:23:17] I’m curious if either of you talk to any, just like regular folks and like what their thinking is on the next couple months and like what their sort of like stance towards the election is, like what they see as their job. So to speak in the next couple of months knowing that like we are like in this like weird tense time in between caught between an ascendant far a seemingly out of touch, like center.

[00:23:47] I wouldn’t even say center right. Democratic candidate. But what are people’s thoughts on, the task of block and build that you’re seeing in the streets.

[00:23:56] Sarah Lazare: I can start if that’s helpful. I’ve seen a variety of perspectives. I wouldn’t say that there’s a single strategy being embraced by movement folks right now. When I interviewed organizers with USPCN and, with Palestinian Feminist Collective and with other sort of Palestinian Chicago based organizations I was told by the organizers I talked to that there is no circumstance under which they would be willing to support anyone who served in the Biden administration for the presidency.

[00:24:32] And Nasserine Hassan, who I mentioned before, for example, said she, there’s just no coming back from this for her. But she does still think it’s worthwhile to try to push Harris. And she also wants people who plan to vote for Harris to try to push her. And then with the sort of uncommitted national movement, my understanding of their position is, that it’s different from that.

[00:24:56] Their position is They want Harris to agree to an arms embargo and back an arms embargo. And if they receive sufficient evidence that she is taking a new path on Palestine, then they will endorse her. And that’s my understanding of their position. Although I know that, among the delegates and among the many people who would consider themselves sort of part of uncommitted, various individuals may take different positions, but my understanding based on interviews is that the position is we want to see you take a different path on Palestine.

[00:25:37] Before we’ll start endorsing you and working to get you elected. And then, and then as far as the seven major labor unions that have called for an arms embargo, which I should say, is a really escalated demand from what labor had been saying the demand before was for a ceasefire and Unions representing the majority of unionized workers had already issued calls for a ceasefire, but the thing that’s been tough about that is that the word ceasefire has been appropriated by the Biden administration.

[00:26:13] Which claims it’s working for a ceasefire, but then continuing to send over bombs, which is fundamentally a contradiction. And so that’s when it’s because of that sort of active appropriation of that term that movements have shifted the demand to no more bombs or no more aid at all, depending on which organizations you’re talking to just to sharpen the demand and make it clear no, we’re not interested in rhetoric.

[00:26:37] We’re interested in changing material reality. So among those unions that have called for an arms embargo, there’s a variety of approaches. Some have already endorsed Harris, almost all of them have. One that hasn’t is UE, United Electrical Workers. They are not endorsing anyone. However, they did release a statement recommending to their members that they consider a strategic vote against Trump.

[00:27:04] So all of this is to say that there are a variety of strategic orientations towards the election. And I have been hearing from all of those on the ground. But also, Iman, let me know if I’m leaving anything out or if that feels like a fair summation. I think that’s probably. Stuff that I’m missing.

[00:27:25] Eman Abdelhadi: No, I think that’s right. And I think that reflects similar divisions among the kind of the base of the movement. There are folks who are saying the threat of Trump both to, in terms of if he follows through on his promises. He’s, he said some very egregious things about Palestine.

[00:27:43] He’s, he’s openly calling for a continuation of the genocide. So some folks are saying the threat of Trump is real and is enough that even this horrible status quo is better. Others are saying if they’re both the same on foreign policy, then, We need to think about what this does to progressive coalitions at home.

[00:28:03] Avoiding Trump for that reason, there are some folks who think, Trump is an isolationist. Some I’ve heard folks say he doesn’t, he’s less interested in this image of the U S that. that Harris spoke of yesterday in her speech as the kind of, as the, as this kind of military overlord of the US is how I would paraphrase it.

[00:28:24] And so some folks are saying on this, it’s possible that he’s, they’re not excited to vote for him, but they’re like, they don’t see the threat of him as. As serious. So there’s a range both in terms of how people are viewing Harris and how people are evaluating the threat of Donald Trump.

[00:28:42] But everyone seems to agree that he’s a wild card, right? And that’s, and that his rhetoric is at. At least on the point of rhetoric that his rhetoric is worse. So I, I think that’s, that’s part of what’s going on. I think one important thing to remember about Uncommitted is that in order to be a delegate at the DNC, you have to be as June Rose, the Rhode Island delegate told me in an interview you have to be a career democrat.

[00:29:04] . So these are folks who are part of the Democratic Party. Usually they’re part of the Democratic Party on a local level, right? So someone like June Rose served in their city council of their town in Rhode Island. And so I think there’s a sense that the party, even if the top of the party, like we said, there’s two tones, even if the top of the party is not going to move, That there’s a lot of work that can be done in the kind of rank and file of the party and in the local version of the party.

[00:29:33] And so there’s a sense of I think there’s still some optimism there especially in terms of working towards long term shifts. But yeah, I think that, a lot of folks, I think what I’m seeing, and this is a little less official, but what I’m seeing just in, in the few hours of reactions from Harris’s speech is a lot of people who had been saying, okay, we can push her.

[00:29:56] She could still earn my vote. She could still earn my vote saying, okay, I’m done like this is, that the DNC sort of seals. I think there’s less hope that she can be moved and that she can offer this what a lot of people in the movement see as the bottom floor, which is the weapons embargo, that the weapons embargo is not a radical demand.

[00:30:14] It’s, folks are saying it’s actually, Just following us and international law, right? 

[00:30:20] Sound on Tape: To 

[00:30:21] Eman Abdelhadi: not fund war crimes, to not fund the killing of civilians. It is actually illegal to provide weaponry to Israel. So folks in the movement are seeing that as the bottom. 

[00:30:34] Sound on Tape: Yeah, 

[00:30:34] Sarah Lazare: I also just on the topic of election.

[00:30:37] I want to I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but I want to address a really bad faith critique that I’ve seen levied against protesters of the DNC, which is the, why are you supporting Trump critique? And I have a few things I want to say about that. So one members of the coalition did travel to protest the RNC and they also protested Trump’s Recent appearance in Chicago.

[00:31:03] So it’s not true to say that they’re not opposing the Trump administration. And there was a really great speaker at the opening of the March, the first day of the DNC. Nasserine Hassan said something to the effect of, yes, we’re afraid of Trump, yes, we’re afraid of project 2025. Yes. We know that Trump is saying he wants to help Israel annex the West bank.

[00:31:26] Yes, we’re terrified, but you have to understand that it’s The Biden administration right now that is actively participating in a genocide. And this is not some theoretical thing in the future. It’s happening right now. And that really has to be recognized. So I, I just wanted to name that.

[00:31:44] I doubt listeners to this show would engage in those bad faith critiques, but it has been something that we’ve seen a lot in the broader media. 

[00:31:52] Yeah, no, I think that’s, one of the things that I feel like I have been trying to do on this program is really highlight the fact that our movements do know how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

[00:32:04] We understand the complexity and the tension and the contradictions and are trying to build something productive, and actually advance human rights and good policy and make sure that our country’s not breaking law. It’s not yeah, I think that zero sum thinking is like, It feels like poison, yeah, 

[00:32:25] Sarah Lazare: and it’s the just the severity of this moment is so extreme.

[00:32:28] The daily death toll that Israel with us participation is inflicting is unprecedented in the 21st century. This is an unprecedented efficiency of killing and we’re seeing it on our social media constantly. There’s no hiding or pretending. That what’s happening is not happening. So I think that’s a very pernicious way of discrediting, discrediting protesters that I think is incredibly unfair and honestly really insulting because so many of those who have been showing up every week, twice a week, three times a week through their pain and through their loss are people who have direct family or loved ones Or direct community members who are being harmed right now.

[00:33:13] Yeah. 

[00:33:14] No, thank you so much for highlighting that, Sarah. Yeah, I think one of the things that I do, like related to that, that feels really relevant is that I think it behooves us to be really precise and specific about this point about, The uncommitted like people in uncommitted being career Democrats, right?

[00:33:35] That this is the sort of like real time unspooling of a relationship between an inside and outside strategy, actually trying to get something done. And I think that I’m excited about the ways in which it is Opening a door, I think, for a lot of people who only saw a route via outside strategy.

[00:33:55] And that feels very hopeful to me. Deeply hopeful. In a way that’s honestly a little confusing to me sometimes. Yeah, Iman, do you have a response to that? 

[00:34:06] Eman Abdelhadi: I think that what we’ve learned is that we’re very good at mobilizing but we don’t quite have power.

[00:34:12] And I think that one of the problems is that we often we’re often expecting everyone to play the same strategy. I wrote about this a little bit on Twitter. On social media yesterday. You can’t play a chess game with all pawns are all kings. We can’t all be goalies on a soccer team.

[00:34:28] And I think that what we’ve seen, and that’s been very beautiful ever since October is that everyone is giving it all they’ve got. I know people who are like, I’m a free tattoo. If you enough money to jail support. Like People who, made meals for protesters, people have been thinking, okay, what is it that I can offer and I’m doing it and for folks who are career Democrats, for folks who do have a relationship with the Democratic Party, who understand how that structure works, of course, they should be pushing it.

[00:34:59] To me, that’s actually a straightforward thing. And so I find it actually quite disheartening when I see those critiques on the left that say. There’s critics on the left who say you’re buying into it, especially because we know, this country only really effectively has, we, in most cases, most traces only have two Democrats.

[00:35:20] And so it is quite a big tent, especially on the local level. So I think it’s important to. I think it’s okay to say, for me personally I’m never gonna run for office. I don’t have that kind of relationship with the Democrats. I couldn’t stomach it. But but, but I know that’s not my role, right?

[00:35:37] My role. That’s not my role today. And it’s okay to say that’s not my role to play, but I think to undermine the people doing that, playing that role. Now it’s also our job to keep, I think it’s the job of other flanks of the movement, right? The more progressive flanks within the movement or the more radical flanks to help keep, folks that are working on the inside honest and to continue to pull them back to a certain messaging.

[00:36:00] So I, I don’t think all critique is off. base, but I think outright dismissal or, accusations of betrayal I think are really I really, I think really hurt us, really hurt the movement. 

[00:36:12] Yeah, no I agree with that assessment for sure. I think speaking of people who are doing, who are going all out and doing everything one of the things that we definitely also wanted to lift up is the The panel with the doctors who went to volunteer in Gaza.

[00:36:29] Sarah, I think you were there Iman, were you, did you also attend that? Do you know about, I don’t know, Sarah, you have to dip, but I don’t know if there’s something you want to share with the audio or our listeners really quickly about that before you take off. 

[00:36:43] Sarah Lazare: Yeah, absolutely. And Iman has written about those panels beautifully.

[00:36:47] They were all visible they were all streamed and stuff like that. But yeah, there was one thing I wanted to mention, which was there was this, so the doctors who had done medical humanitarian work in Gaza, the uncommitted delegates, the organizers, the ecosystem of organizers who surrounded them, they were all desperate to make the democratic leadership care about Gaza.

[00:37:12] And one of the ways they attempted to do that was share their trauma over and over again. And, I must have heard, so got doctors who had served in Gaza shared stories of holding the hands of children as they were dying. And all their family members were dead and there was no one to comfort them when they were dying.

[00:37:32] And I must have heard doctors talk about that, like. Five, six, seven times throughout the days. A boss, Alavia, the leader and uncommitted. He’s an uncommitted delegate from Michigan. He lives in Dearborn. He spoke about when he was 15 years old, he was visiting family in Lebanon, in southern Lebanon, and it was 2006.

[00:37:53] And that was when Israel carried out a devastating bombing campaign of southern Lebanon heavily targeting civilians using cluster bombs. Those many of those bombs provided by the United States, and he shared the experience of being 15 years old and being certain that he was going to die and then said, my humanity is no different from those kids in Gaza, and there’s no kid who should have to face that.

[00:38:19] bomb sent by my government. I must have heard him say that 15 or 20 times throughout the days, at various events at the sit in. And there’s something so cruel about this dynamic where people share their trauma over and over again, only to get dismissed or treated like they don’t matter.

[00:38:42] To be denied the most basic rights. basic minimum, bare minimum acts of decency that are actually a far cry from what they deserve, which is an art, the arms embargo that they’re demanding. It was really upsetting and really jarring. And honestly, people seemed very afraid and worn out and it’s not easy, it’s not easy to share those kinds of stories.

[00:39:04] There was a lot of crying, there was sobbing. There were people who cried so much they had to turn their backs to the crowd and just hold their heads in their hands while they cried. There were people hugging each other. There were tissues being passed out. The level of personal stakes and the level of sadness it’s truly hard to convey.

[00:39:23] And yeah, I just want to name that, people came not to just share their stories once or twice, but over and over and over hoping someone would listen and care. 

[00:39:34] Yeah, no, that’s, it’s absolutely devastating stuff and like even just like talking about it in this meta way I like feel myself getting emotional about it that just I don’t know, trying to imagine how to be how to be human after those experiences is really, it’s sobering.

[00:39:54] It’s devastating. It’s I don’t know. It’s it like touches on some very, I don’t know, almost like basic there’s like a place in my brain that it touches that’s like very almost instinctive and existential. That’s like profound. 

[00:40:09] Sarah Lazare: Yeah. And I’m so sorry, but I have to go cause I have family responsibilities, but I do, before I go off, I just want to say, Iman has been covering this For a very long time, like for months and has been covering what organizing has been happening on the ground from Michigan.

[00:40:24] So I hope later when I watch the rest of this, I’ll get to hear her talk about that because I have my own questions about that. And like this moment erupted into the national consciousness, but it’s actually been going on for quite a while. And Amman has been covering that.

[00:40:38] Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Sarah. Take care. I’ll talk to you soon. Yeah. 

[00:40:41] Sarah Lazare: Thanks, John. 

[00:40:42] Iman, as we conclude move towards concluding this episode, one of the things that I do want to talk about, speaking of the longer arc, Of the strategy here and the work that has been going on, I like speaking of Michigan, like I was, I learned about Palestine was politicized around Palestine when I was a college student in Michigan, this has been now a very long time that I’ve been paying attention to this issue.

[00:41:06] And I’m curious what as there, there’s a way that I’ve been very aware of. There are also other flashpoint moments like after Ferguson that like a lot of black activists going to Palestine and learning about the sort of relationship between the Israeli military and law enforcement in this country.

[00:41:25] And I think that there’s like a, there’s like a broader fabric of. Our movements that I do want to zoom out and get some handle on a little bit. That’s both looking back right and like how we got to this moment and like, why this response has been so strong, and we’ve been able to mobilize both inside and outside strategies on it, and also perhaps looking forward, like what’s next for us after the DNC.

[00:41:53] What do you think, what do you think we can, seems weird to say look forward to, but from a movement perspective, what we can look forward to? 

[00:42:01] Eman Abdelhadi: Yeah, that’s such a good question. I think first of all, I went to Michigan too, and 

[00:42:05] Oh, maybe that’s also, yeah. Wait, class of 2009? 

[00:42:09] Eman Abdelhadi: 2012. See? Okay. Yeah, we have a lot of them.

[00:42:15] Yeah. So I organized at Michigan as well. We’re on Palestine. We’re not best. Actually, who’s and committed one of the founders of uncommitted. So yeah, I think that It’s important for us to pause and to look at, okay, what’s working and where do we need to grow? And thinking about this, thinking about the different kind of parts of the movement.

[00:42:38] It’s we have very strong, radical mobilizing around the movement, right? We have, College campuses are very strong. We’re able to do direct actions, protests, right? And we have people that are insiders that are pushing. But I think what we’re missing is a lot of kind of grassroots power building. I think we have it, but I think it needs to grow and grow, right?

[00:43:04] And I think, you’re seeing the effect of these coalitions in something like seven unions, calling for an arms embargo. But what do we what would it mean for us to have seven unions? Withdrawing labor in some way, right? It’s actually threatening the kind of material conditions that allow for this for this to continue.

[00:43:25] I think that is going to require a lot more organizing on the ground. And, Sarah mentioned that I wrote this piece about Michigan for In These Times. And, I was speaking to Black and Brown organizers from across the city. And Michigan has been a place that’s gained a lot of progressive wins in the last few years.

[00:43:43] They have a They have a democratic trifecta, which is, I think the result of this is not just the end all be it, but they were, they’ve been able to win and make major wins on housing, repeal right to work build union power and these wins organizers over and over told me these wins were about spending time in communities.

[00:44:03] Finding leaders within these communities, developing these leaders having a sort of incorporation of people, this like long kind of deep organizing that depends on relationship building and mapping power structures. And that’s just like a methodical Yeah, a sort of methodical.

[00:44:26] type of organizing that I think we just haven’t really gotten to it in part because until 11 months ago, a lot of folks, our movement was relatively isolated. I think we, we weren’t, I think we had a lot of support within the black community and we had our own strong organizations.

[00:44:44] Outside of progressives or just the left people just isn’t didn’t know about it. And it w it would have been unimaginable to me 10 years ago to think that the majority of Democrats would support conditioning aid to Israel. Like things have changed so much.

[00:45:01] So much. And so I think what we need to do next is to build on this momentum, and it’s really hard to do that kind of work because that work takes so long and it feels like there’s such an urgency to this moment. But I think ultimately what we’re seeing is there’s an enormous discrepancy.

[00:45:18] Between what the American public thinks and what the American government does and what even the base of the Democratic Party does and what the leadership does. And so the question becomes about power, right? That our voice, our voices, especially in a two party system, our opinions, are not enough. To shift the actual material structure is to act.

[00:45:41] We have to have power to leverage. We’re not going to be able to just talk people into. We’re not going to be able to talk the people with power into changing things differently unless we have something to leverage. So I think, we have, I think a lot of people are probably emerging from the DNC feeling pretty disheartened.

[00:45:58] I know I am. But I think that we need to see the Democrats doubling down on this genocide as an invitation to do more work, to do more organizing, to get smarter to and to expand. And one thing is very clear, we’re not going anywhere. The cat is out of the bag on Zionism and on Israel and on apartheid and on the fact that, Palestinians have effectively lived under military rule in their own land if they haven’t already been expelled for 75 years.

[00:46:30] That cat’s not Going back into the bag. There’s no going back from here. There’s a fantasy that they’re going to be able to return to this old consensus about Israel. They’re not. But the question is how and when can we affect material change in the policies? 

[00:46:47] Yeah, no, I think that’s that assessment feels right on to me and I don’t know, we’ve all seen things in the last 10 months that we will never be able to unsee, as human beings, as part of a global community and as Americans who are in some way complicit in what’s happening and has happened.

[00:47:03] There anything else you want to share with our listeners about your experience with the DNC things that are on the horizon and stuff that you’ve been thinking about since since the end of the convention? 

[00:47:13] Eman Abdelhadi: No, I’m really looking forward to that cabin in the woods. 

[00:47:18] You have certainly earned it.

[00:47:22] so much for all of your fantastic reporting, for joining us on the show today. It’s been a pleasure. It was great to talk to you about what you saw, what you learned and get a little flavor of your analysis as well. So yeah, great to be here. 

[00:47:35] Eman Abdelhadi: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:47:37] I’m sure we’ll talk again soon. Yeah. Awesome. This show and also thanks to everybody for joining us today. It’s my sign off always says, I hope this helps. This show is produced by Convergence, a magazine for radical insights. I’m Caden Mock and our producer is Josh Elstro. If you have something to say, please drop me a line.

[00:47:54] You can send me an email that we’ll consider running on an upcoming Mailbag episode at mailbag at convergencemag. com. If you would like to support the work we do at Convergence, bringing our movements together to strategize, struggle, and win in this crucial historical moment, you can become a member at convergencemag.com slash donate. Even a few bucks a month goes a long way to making sure our small, independent team can continue to build a map for our movements. I hope this helps.