Growing number of Democrats call for Palestinian speaker on final night of DNC

A growing number of elected Democrats and activists are calling on the Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee to allow a Palestinian to speak on the final night of the DNC. 

“We cannot ignore the Chicagoland Palestinian community as one of the largest in the country,” Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) wrote in a statement. “They too deserve to be reflected on the national stage. It’s crucial to recognize the humanity of the Palestinian community tonight with a Palestinian speaker.” 

A dozen congressional Democrats, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D), the United Auto Workers, J Street, and a growing number of Democratic Party members have called on the DNC to allow a person of Palestinian heritage to speak during the convention. 

The Uncommitted National Movement has been calling for a convention speaker for weeks, saying it would be a clear demonstration by Harris that she was shifting away from Biden’s stances on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. 

There have been negotiations for much of the week, and on Wednesday night, Harris officials told Abbas Alawieh, one of the leaders of the 30 uncommitted delegates at the DNC, that there would be no speaker. 

“The Palestinian right to self-determination was erased by the British with the Balfour declaration which mentioned civil & religious but not political rights,” California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna wrote on X. “The Dem party is making a tragic mistake in 2024 perpetuating this erasure of the Palestinian story & voice.” 

Alawieh staged a sit-in Wednesday night alongside other organizers, and he was joined by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) FaceTimed in to show support.

“I carry with me daily the personal stories of Palestinians raw with grief, fearing for their lives, mourning their loved ones. Babies. Elders. Students. Journalists. Doctors,” Pressley wrote.  “Your stories belong everywhere. On that stage and in the remarks of anyone who asks for your vote.”

“Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a statement. “To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians. The DNC must change course and affirm our shared humanity.”

Members of the movement had grown hopeful since Harris took over as the nominee that the party would show more support for Palestinians. They have also been calling on Democrats to adopt an end to arms sales to Israel officially. However, over this week, many of those hopes have been dashed.

“There was a glimmer of hope,” Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman told The Hill.  “Community members just wanted to see they were seen.”

“[This] was the beginning of something amazing, but it was snuffed,” she added.

Romman has been floated by Tlaib and other Democrats as a potential speaker on Thursday night, and she gave her proposed speech to the DNC to Mother Jones on Thursday. 

Reps. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) have also called for the DNC to include a Palestinian speaker. 

On Thursday, Muslim Women for Harris-Walz also announced that they “cannot in good conscience continue” their organization if there was no Palestinian speaker at the DNC.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes weighed in after a speech by Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

“Was supremely moved by this speech, which was searing and compassionate,” he wrote. “Also seems essential to include a Palestinian speaker to the convention.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, an award-winning writer, published a column Thursday calling on Democrats to include a Palestinian voice.

“This DNC has urged its various constituencies to highlight their identities and the collective pain that animates them. Racism, forced birth, land theft. It has been an exhibition of what the Palestinian scholar Edward Said called ‘the permission to narrate,’ and it is that permission that Palestinian Americans have been denied,” he wrote.

“They have heard their names mentioned fleetingly by a handful of speakers but have not been granted the right to speak their names themselves,” he added.

The Hill has reached out to the Harris campaign and the DNC.

Updated at 4:58 p.m.