Why Palestinian-American Voices Must Be Part of the Election Conversation

The Kamala Harris campaign has basically done everything it can to avoid the topic of Gaza over the last three months. I suspect the campaign believes it’s the most politically expedient thing to do in this election. I want to think that speaking from the heart would benefit the campaign, but I also know how easy it is to weaponize even the most earnest of beliefs.

I’ve similarly been avoiding the issue because it stirs up so much toxicity even here, but I’m going to ignore my better instincts and speak earnestly about it anyway the day before the election. The main thing I want to say to Palestinians and others from the Uncommitted Movement is this: I am not going to tell you how you should vote. I am a white dude from Arkansas who now lives in Maine, the whitest state in the country. That’d be really f**ked up. If I were Palestinian-American, I sure as hell wouldn’t listen to me. And with all due respect, I think that all the folks who keep saying, “But she’s so much better than he is, and imagine what he will do in Gaza if he’s elected,” are missing the point. It feels dismissive, like we’re talking over the Uncommitted Movement instead of talking to them.

I mentioned this before, but I am in the process of converting to Judaism (almost done!). Right now, I am reading and listening to a lot of material about Israel and Gaza. I have no interest in getting into whether Israel has the right to exist (it exists!). However, even putting the war aside, there is no question — and no reasonable person, Israeli or otherwise — will disagree: Palestinians in Israel, in the West Bank, and Gaza are treated like second-class citizens. It is a separate and very unequal situation. It is a Jewish Democracy, which is to say: It’s a Democracy, but only for Jews.

People in Israel may disagree about the justifications for treating Palestinians unequally, but I’m not going to get into that debate today. What I will say is that regardless of how one feels about Israel, there is no justification for treating Palestinian-Americans differently in the United States. Zero. And if I were a Palestinian, and my family were treated like second-class citizens in Gaza, and if I came to the United States and the party that was supposed to be on my side turned their heads and said, “I don’t know her,” when I asked to be heard, I’d have a hard time pulling the lever for that party, too.

And that’s exactly what happened at the DNC: Representatives from the Uncommitted Movement were invited to come and listen to the Democrats — and even a wonderful liberal Israeli family — speak, but they were not allowed to be heard. How messed up is that? We were like, “Come! Sit in the back! Have a great time! We want you to see the process, but we don’t want you to be a part of it.” It was a political calculation, pure and simple, but I don’t know how “treating people who feel like second-class citizens as second-class citizens” out of political necessity is supposed to make Palestinian-Americans feel better.

John Oliver made a case for why Palestinians and others aligned with the Uncommitted Movement should vote for Harris on Last Week Tonight in the video below, but I want to make another. To wit: I’m excited about becoming a Jew, and I know that being an American Jew does not give me a vote in Israel or even much of a voice there. But I’m very motivated to being a Jewish voice in America committed not just to finding a just solution in Israel but in ensuring that Palestinian-Americans are heard. I hear a lot of Jewish voices. I hear a lot of Israeli voices. But I do not hear a lot of Palestinian voices, but every time I do, I am blown away by what I learn.

The same is also true of the Democratic party, of which I am a member. I want to fix it from the inside because what it is doing is unfair. And hundreds of thousands of us — Jewish or otherwise — feel the same way. Many of us are listening, and we are committed on January 21st, 2025, to pressuring Kamala Harris to do the right thing, namely giving Palestinian-Americans a voice in the party. This is not about Trump. This is not about Jill Stein. This is about spending the next four years ensuring that there is a friendly political environment within our party for Palestinian Americans to speak and be heard at our next convention because there is no debate if only one side can speak.

Here’s John Oliver: