ARAB AND WORLD

Tue 20 Aug 2024 3:13 pm - Jerusalem Time

Activists Launch 'Dump Kamala Harris' Campaign Over Gaza Policy

The Ditch Biden campaign, which has been working for months in key swing states to turn voters away from US President Joe Biden over his unwavering and unwavering support for Israel’s war on Gaza, has officially relaunched its movement with a new goal: Ditch Kamala Harris, according to a media release from the group.


Campaign organizers were debating their next steps after Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month. They told Middle East Eye they would make the official announcement at a press conference on Monday in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention is being held, which they did.


“On Monday, we start abandoning Harris,” Hassan Abdel Salam, a human rights professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and founder of the Ditch Biden campaign, told Middle East Eye.


The campaign held an all-day conference in Chicago on Sunday, where they worked with Biden abandonment leaders to recalibrate their mission and strategy to tell voters why they shouldn’t vote for Harris.


“In terms of electoral strategy, at the very least, we are asking the American people to make sure they never vote for genocide or Kamala Harris,” Abdul Salam said.


At this point, we want people to “receive the information and the message that what is happening in Gaza is genocide and that we morally can never support it, and that we strategically need to punish it so that we can buy power, because we have been completely ignored.”


On the first day of the Democratic convention in Chicago, leaders of the pro-Palestinian “Uncommitted” movement warned that Vice President Kamala Harris could lose votes — and perhaps key swing states — without an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a U.S. arms embargo on Israel, which they acknowledge she does not support.


“She is at risk of 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 impact of American-funded bombing,” Leila Alabed, a Michigan leader of the Unconformists, said in response to a question at a news conference Monday.


So far, their efforts have had mixed results: The uncommitted leaders secured a panel discussion later Monday on Palestinian rights, but their calls for a Palestinian-American speaker to address the conference from the main stage at the United Center have so far gone unheeded.


The Democratic Party platform says the administration is “determined to broker an immediate and lasting ceasefire,” but also says that “Biden and Harris’ commitment to Israel’s security, its qualitative military edge” and “its right to defend itself… is unwavering.” Harris has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but does not support an arms embargo.


“If we’re going to go back to uncommitted voters and urge them to vote for Vice President Harris — and send a proactive message to vote for Vice President Harris — we want to be empowered to do that, but we need Vice President Harris to clearly articulate what her plan is to stop the flow of weapons to the Israeli military that are being used to kill civilians,” said Abbas Alawiya, another “uncommitted” leader and delegate from Michigan.


Several American Muslim leaders and community organizers launched a campaign to abandon Biden last December after a deadline they had set for Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza passed without any response.


The decision to rename the Ditch Biden campaign to Ditch Harris came after weeks of deliberations over the best electoral strategy that would show all politicians in the country that Muslim American voters would not stand behind any candidate who supported the devastating war on Gaza and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

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Activists Launch 'Dump Kamala Harris' Campaign Over Gaza Policy