Washington In the face of fresh accusations that they undermined the Democratic ticket following President Donald Trump’s declaration that he intends to seize control of the Gaza Strip, leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement that mobilized opposition to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2024 race are sticking to their plan.
Even though Trump’s record on the Middle East had been more antagonistic to the Palestinian cause, his comments, which shocked prominent Washington officials, prompted a fresh round of accusations among Democrats over the pressure campaign from advocacy groups against Biden and Harris in the presidential contest over the Israel-Hamas war.
Co-chair of the uncommitted movement, which refused to support Harris, Trump, or any other candidate in the 2024 election, Layla Elabed, expressed her sadness, anger, and fear for our communities following the president’s comments on Tuesday, in which he also claimed that Palestinians have no choice but to relocate.
However, she insisted that all sides were at fault.
Elabed said in a statement that while Trump visited Dearborn and flooded a dejected neighborhood with lies, Harris created a void by failing to visit Michigan families affected by US-supplied bombs to assist establish a permission structure for their trust. Trump’s unlawful calls for racial genocide are appalling, but Democrats squandered their opportunity to convince Americans they were the superior choice, just like they did on so many other issues.
Some Democrats were offended by her remark.
incredibly careless individuals that wish to avoid their responsibilities. In response, Clowns, a former Harris aide who was given anonymity to talk freely, stated.
Others Democrats claimed that even though they did not support Trump, the pro-Palestinian activists bear responsibility for driving voters away from the sole workable alternative.
Adam Jentleson, a former Democratic leadership aide and current chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa, stated that leaders of the Uncommitted movement want to blame everyone but themselves for their failed plan that helped elect Donald Trump. Trump is now threatening to annex Gaza after they warned people not to vote for Democrats. It was always clear that this is what would happen if Trump won, but Uncommitted decided to disregard this obvious fact and continue with a wildly reckless plan. They ought to answer to the people they deceived.
Although the specific impact of the movement on the 2024 election outcome cannot be determined, there are indications that it was successful in diverting Democratic-leaning votes from Harris. After supporting Biden by over 17,500 votes four years prior, the city with the largest Arab American population in the county, Detroit, Michigan, voted for Trump by about 2,600 votes in November.
When about 100,000 Michiganders cast undecided ballots in the Democratic primary in March 2024, some Biden supporters sounded the alarm and rebuked the then-president by calling for his administration to stop providing U.S. aid to Israel while it bombarded the Gaza Strip. However, Biden and Harris were unwilling to reverse decades of U.S. policy, even if they acknowledged the alarming death toll in Gaza.
When Hillary became the Democratic presidential nominee, the uncommitted movement refused to support either Biden or Harris. Although it did not support Trump or any other candidate, its persistent criticism suggested that people may make a statement by choosing to stay at home or vote for a third-party candidate.
In the 2024 election, Harris faced similar opposition from a variety of groups that viewed her stance on Gaza as a red line.
Following Trump’s remark, pro-Palestinian activist Hudhayfah Ahmad, who is located in Arizona and serves as spokeswoman for the Abandon Harris group, stated that Palestinians will defend themselves against him in the same way that they did against Biden and Harris.
Ahmad claimed that despite the Biden-Harris administration’s complete and unhindered support for Israel’s campaign of racial cleansing and genocide during the previous 16 months, the Palestinians of Gaza had not been forced off their land. The Palestinian people alone have the authority to determine what the Palestinians may and cannot do; neither Trump nor Biden nor Harris have that authority.
According to Maamoun Slayhi of Minnesota, a member of another organization called Uncommitted Grassroots, Trump’s plan for the United States to occupy Gaza is aggravating since the American government has no business being in that region.
Slayhi, however, stated that he didn’t regret not supporting Harris over Trump since he thought the two were interchangeable. He claimed that neither Democrats nor Republicans cared for Palestinians and that the American political system is dysfunctional.
“In actuality, we don’t know what would have happened, but the Harris administration wouldn’t have been better,” Slayhi stated. The Palestinians were not friends with Harris. She was a member of an administration that did little to stop the spread of the disease for 15 months. They cannot approach us and claim that we did. You did that when? After fifteen months? After fifteen months? after Israel killed almost 67,000 people. All of the people are civilians. The number of persons who have been murdered is absurd.
For Biden and Harris’s aides, that stance remains excruciating. Shortly after Israel’s forceful response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, they tried to convince uncommitted and similar groups that Trump would be far worse for their cause. For example, Trump has not pledged to support a two-state solution, unlike Biden.
According to a former Biden official who spoke to leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement, they had to punish Biden and Harris even if Trump was anti-Palestinian. I told them that by supporting an election candidate who wants to transform Gaza into a parking lot, they would only be hurting the people they say they are assisting.
The warnings were ineffective. According to the source, who was given anonymity to talk openly, it was startling that the actual life and death stakes were not acknowledged. Grief and suffering were acknowledged by everybody. However, how do you disregard the incessant reminders? This is an exact comment from Trump stating that he wants Gaza destroyed.
There was disagreement even inside the Harris campaign on whether she should adopt a more assertive posture for Gaza.
According to a Harris organizer who worked on young turnout, senior campaign officials ordered them to designate emails as unanswered when people asked about Gaza in response to mass volunteer or fundraising emails. The outcome? In the end, they rarely interacted with voters on that matter.
The organizer criticized top Harris campaign leaders for not addressing the issue, saying, “We also didn’t create a new category for Gaza responses out of fear that category would be leaked. Instead, we were told to mark them as no response.” Those in top leadership who chose to step aside on this matter, who hushed a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Committee, and who advised us to ignore it whenever a voter inquired about Gaza are the only idiots in the world.
Salima Suswell, the CEO of the Black Muslim Leadership Council, which supported Harris after initially opposing him when Biden was the nominee, stated that many of us who ran against Trump and believed he was an international threat found Trump’s comments to be regrettably unsurprising.
According to Suswell, Trump ought to have been truthful with Muslim and Arab leaders, specifically in Michigan, when he pledged to oppose war and put an end to the genocide. We can see right through his words. He never has and has no interest in saving Palestinian lives.