Headlines
Kamala Harris Accepts Democratic Presidential Nomination, Backs Israel While Calling for End to War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Aug 23, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night here in Chicago. Harris is the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be nominated for president by a major party. Before a thunderous crowd, Harris, who was California’s top prosecutor before becoming a senator, then vice president, laid out her case against Donald Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris: “Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.”
During her speech, Kamala Harris reiterated her support for Israel while also calling for its U.S.-backed war on Gaza to end.
Vice President Kamala Harris: “President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
Uncommitted Delegates Walk DNC Halls Arm in Arm After Being Denied Opportunity to Take the Stage
Aug 23, 2024
Protests continued Thursday with thousands of people taking to Chicago’s streets for the March on the DNC. Protesters rallied into the night as Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on the DNC stage. Demonstrators had planned to march toward the convention site but were blocked by hundreds of police in riot gear who forced the march to disperse. Democracy Now! was there. We asked protesters what their message is to Vice President Harris.
Beneen Prendiville: “I am asking her to look into her humanity and to look at photos like this and recognize that this is what happens every day, hundreds of times a day, for decades, and in particular the last 10 months.”
The protester held up a photo on her cellphone of a Palestinian child with burn wounds on their face.
Meanwhile, delegates from the “uncommitted” movement locked arms and walked inside the DNC halls wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, one day after the DNC refused to allow a Palestinian American speaker to take the main stage. Uncommitted delegates circled the halls of the United Center arm in arm.
The powerful United Auto Workers union is the latest group to condemn the exclusion of Palestinian voices from the DNC, saying in a statement, “If we want the war in Gaza to end, we can’t put our heads in the sand or ignore the voices of the Palestinian Americans in the Democratic Party.”
New Round of Ceasefire Talks in Cairo as Israel Rebuffs Demand to Withdraw Troops from Gaza
Aug 23, 2024
In Gaza, the U.N. says it will begin vaccinating children against polio by the end of the month, amid fears of a massive outbreak. This comes as Israeli attacks continue to kill besieged Gazans as soldiers ramp up operations in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south.
Israeli negotiators have returned for more ceasefire talks in Cairo as Israel continues to rebuff Hamas’s demand for Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza. On Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.N. Security Council a ceasefire and hostage deal is “now in sight.” Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s U.N. envoy, also addressed the Security Council Thursday.
Riyad Mansour: “Stop the bleeding in Gaza. Impose an immediate ceasefire. Stop the suffering. Protect our children and all our civilians, as international law and our collective humanity demand. End this genocide. End it now.”
Israel has killed over 40,200 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7 and injured over 93,000, though those official tallies are certainly far lower than the true toll.
Israeli Forces Kill 3 Palestinians, Destroy Homes in West Bank Raid on Tulkarm
Aug 23, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians during an attack Thursday on the Tulkarm refugee camp, where the Israeli military has been conducting near-daily raids. The repeated Israeli assaults have been described as collective punishment, intended to terrorize and dispossess the local population. This is a homeowner in Tulkarm whose house was destroyed during the raid.
Maha Issa: “We are like other people. They say there is a raid and a military operation, so we flee the house, because they usually attack this neighborhood. We went to my brother’s house. While at my brother’s home, we saw on social media that our house was blown up.”
In other news from the occupied West Bank, the Norwegian Refugee Council is calling on the international community to take meaningful action after noting Israeli settler violence has triggered the largest forcible transfer since the weeks just after October 7. The NRC said the ongoing attacks are “occurring in broad daylight under the watching eyes and the protective force of the Israeli military, [and] highlight the unlawfulness of Israel’s presence in the West Bank, as recently ruled by the International Court of Justice.”
Israel’s War on Palestinian Territories Has Driven a Spike in Water-Related Violence
Aug 23, 2024
A new report from the Pacific Institute finds a 50% increase over the past year in global water-related violence as a direct result of Israel’s attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Attacks by Israeli settlers and the Israeli military on Palestinian water supplies accounted for a quarter of all water-related conflicts last year.
University of California Bans Protest Encampments in Wake of Student Uprising for Gaza
Aug 23, 2024
In other education news, the president of the University of California has ordered all 10 UC campuses to ban protest encampments, as well as wearing face masks on campus as the new school year kicks off. The order comes months after students at U.S. college campuses set off a nationwide uprising in solidarity with Gaza. Many schools cracked down on the peaceful protests, violently clearing encampments and suspending students who took part in them.
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“Historic Moment”: Barbara Ransby on the Symbolism & Shortcomings of Kamala Harris’s Nomination
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Aug 22, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, making history as the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to be nominated for president by a major party. Her ascent to the top of the Democratic Party comes just over a month after President Biden dropped out of the race. We play excerpts from her speech and speak with historian Barbara Ransby, who says that while the nomination “breaks a barrier,” it’s important to note the “contradictions,” as well. ”Yes, it breaks barriers. Yes, it is a historic moment in a certain sense. But we have to also talk about the gravity of this moment and the politics that Kamala Harris brings with her,” says Ransby, who criticizes Harris for her pro-Israel policy and for refusing to let Palestinian Americans address the convention. “I was glad to hear her mention the suffering of the Palestinian people, but, of course, it didn’t ring true. It rang a little bit hollow, because the Biden administration could stop much of that suffering by not sending 2,000-pound bombs and $3 billion a year to the Israeli government.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night here in Chicago. Harris is the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be nominated for the president by a major party. Her nomination came just over a month after President Biden dropped out of the race. Before a thunderous crowd at the United Convention, Harris laid out her case against Donald Trump.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences — but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.
Consider — consider not only the chaos and calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity of what has happened since he lost the last election. Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite: He fanned the flames. And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans and, separately — and, separately, found liable for committing sexual abuse.
And consider — consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol; his explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents and anyone he sees as the enemy; his explicit intent to deploy our active-duty military against our own citizens.
Consider — consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.
And we know — and we know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in Project 2025, written by his closest advisers. And its sum total is to pull our country back to the past.
But, America, we are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with preexisting conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools.
AMY GOODMAN: Kamala Harris, speaking on Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention. We’ll get response to her acceptance speech when we come back with Barbara Ransby, historian, author and activist. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Think” by Aretha Franklin, featuring Blues Brothers. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” We are “Breaking with Convention.” We’re here in Chicago for the last day of our five-day expanded two-hour broadcasts from the Democratic National Convention. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we continue our coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris, who formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night here in Chicago. If Harris wins in November, she will become the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be nominated for president by a major party.
AMY GOODMAN: We are joined now by historian, author and activist Barbara Ransby. She’s a professor of Black studies, gender and women’s studies and history at the University of Illinois Chicago. Ransby’s latest book is Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Professor Ransby. Well, it was a historic night in many ways. You have Vice President Harris accepting the presidential nomination before 20,000 people. Many of the women — though she wasn’t, many of the women were dressed in white to honor the original suffragists. Can you talk about the significance of this moment and what Vice President Harris did and didn’t say?
BARBARA RANSBY: What she did and didn’t say. Thanks for having me, Amy, and welcome to Chicago. I don’t have to say welcome to Juan, because he is here with us.
But yeah, I mean, it’s a historic moment in a lot of ways. Certainly it breaks a barrier. You know, I never thought I would see a Black woman nominated. But, you know, I want to speak to the historic significance, but I also want to talk about the contradictions — right? — that Kamala Harris, unlike others who have, you know, fought for inclusion in Democratic Party at the convention, isn’t coming out of the same kind of movement. She has ties to the civil rights movement through her mother, and she also participated in the anti-apartheid movement. But, really, you know, I think a lot of what I appreciate about this generation of activists is the deemphasis on representation and the emphasis on politics and the emphasis on where do you stand on issues. And if we think about a tradition of Black women in politics, including in the Democratic Party — right? — it has been pushing the conscience of the Democratic Party toward a radical inclusivity, toward some of the most oppressed sectors of our community and all communities.
And so, yes, it is significant in terms of representation, but, again, at a time when representation is limited. We have a multiracial right-wing movement, by the way. So representation is not the goal, and, you know, I just want to deemphasize in some ways. I mean, of course, we can talk about, you know, a larger political lineage which she is connected to, but I know — you know, I hope — I think we’re going to talk about Fannie Lou Hamer and others — but I think of someone like Abbas Alawieh as much more in the tradition of Fannie Lou Hamer than a Kamala Harris. So, yes, it breaks barriers. Yes, you know, it is a historic moment in a certain sense. But we have to also talk about the gravity of this moment and the politics that Kamala Harris brings with her. So, that is my historian’s view and my activist’s view.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your response to the DNC’s decision to not allow a Palestinian American voice on the stage?
BARBARA RANSBY: Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. I mean, and it was such a small ask. You know, we’re witnessing genocide in Gaza right now. And many of our hearts are breaking, certainly our Palestinian friends and colleagues here who have lost dozens of family members — people you’ve had on your show — who tell harrowing stories, the physicians who have gone there and seen the devastation of children, hospitals bombed, etc. So, you know, a minimum of decency would have been to allow for a Palestinian voice on that stage.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering, the whole week, for those of us who remember the old Democratic conventions, the first convention that I covered as a reporter was —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, you were raising trouble in ’68, I hear.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Right, but the first one I actually covered inside was in 1984.
BARBARA RANSBY: OK.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what has struck me about this convention and the last several is the level of mass — of choreography of mass spectacle.
BARBARA RANSBY: Yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: There are no — back in the '60s, ’70s and even the ’80s, individual delegates could hold up their own signs. You know, the cameras would show dissent in the audience. Now we're talking about a Democratic Party where every single banner is controlled —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — and decided by the organizers of the convention. And everyone, like sheep —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — get up and hold the same signs at the appropriate times that they’ve been told to do it.
BARBARA RANSBY: A little creepy.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And so, you really have no dissent —
BARBARA RANSBY: Right, right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — visible at all —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — within a supposedly democratic party.
AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, on the floor, it was the Minnesota delegation — and that’s an interesting delegation. They had 10 uncommitteds —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — people who would not commit to —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — well, President Biden at the time, when voting in the primary. And they held up the names of Palestinians who had died in Gaza. And immediately, the other delegates in the Minnesota delegation, well prepared, held up “U.S.A.” signs that covered all of those signs.
BARBARA RANSBY: Oh boy, yeah. I missed that. That’s interesting.
AMY GOODMAN: And then you had the unfurling of the banner earlier in the week — this was in the Florida delegation —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — by a Florida delegate, a Connecticut delegate and a delegate from Michigan, that said “Stop Arming Israel.” And they immediately put up signs, placards that said “We Love Joe.” It was Monday night when Joe Biden was speaking.
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And immediately, some of the runners for that Florida delegation started handing out dozens of placards, and so they had more and more to cover the banner —
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — because that was particularly large.
BARBARA RANSBY: Concealing and containing protest in this sort of cosmetic appearance of unity, when there was dissent in that room, not just the uncommitted delegates, but others. But it has a carnivalesque feel to it. And the real conversations and the real passions and debates were happening outside.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s stay inside for a minute.
BARBARA RANSBY: OK.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to Kamala Harris addressing the issue of Israel-Palestine and Israel’s war on Gaza.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.
And let me be clear. And let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.
At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating — so many innocent lives lost; desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.
President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.
And know this: I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Vice President Kamala Harris in her acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for president, speaking here in Chicago at the United Center. Professor Ransby, your response?
BARBARA RANSBY: Well, I was glad to hear her mention the suffering of the Palestinian people, but, of course, it didn’t ring true. It rang a little bit hollow, because the Biden administration could stop much of that suffering, you know, by not sending 2,000-pound bombs and $3 billion a year to the Israeli government. So, you know, it would have been backed up by action, if it would have been backed up by allowing a Palestinian speaker to speak in their own terms, that part would have resonated.
But, of course, talking about Israel’s right to defense disguises the fact that this is an offensive war, offensive on every level that that word means something, right? And the United States is facilitating it. And the 40,000 Palestinian lives — I mean, you all absorb these numbers every day in your reports, but it is — it was not enough. It was the wrong message. And, you know, a throwaway line about Palestinian suffering does not get it.
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Watch: Palestinian American Lawmaker Gives Speech the DNC Wouldn’t Allow on Stage
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
Aug 23, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday after a four-day convention in Chicago where her campaign refused to allow a Palestinian American to take the stage to address Israel’s war on Gaza. We hear Georgia state Representative Ruwa Romman, who was among the list of speakers offered by the Uncommitted National Movement that the Harris campaign rejected, reading the speech she would have given on the convention floor had the DNC and the Harris campaign allowed her onstage.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go to what wouldn’t have been a throwaway line.
BARBARA RANSBY: OK.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is what the “uncommitted” delegates attempted to get all week. You have Harris accepting the Democratic nomination Thursday night, after a four-day convention where the Harris campaign refused to allow a Palestinian American to take the stage. There were private negotiations that were going on throughout the week. But at a news conference on Thursday, delegates with the uncommitted movement said the Democratic National Committee told them it was the Harris campaign that denied their request to have a Palestinian American speak. After receiving the news on Wednesday, many of the delegates and their allies staged a sit-in and spent the night on the sidewalk just outside the United Center.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: [Uncommitted delegates were selected] in state Democratic primaries earlier this year to call for an end to the Biden administration’s backing of Israel in its assault on Gaza and for an arms embargo. The Uncommitted National Movement called on Harris to come to Michigan, where the uncommitted movement was launched, to meet with them and discuss U.S. policy on Israel-Palestine by September 15th.
AMY GOODMAN: Among those who spoke at the press conference yesterday was Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American who is a Georgia state representative in the Georgia Legislature. She was among a list of speakers offered by the uncommitted movement that the Harris campaign refused to allow onstage. In her remarks, she read out the speech that she would have given at the convention had the convention allowed a Palestinian American onstage. This is Ruwa Romman.
REP. RUWA ROMMAN: So, what I’m about to read to you is, frankly, very sanitized. It was meant to have an opportunity to represent a Palestinian voice. But I’m incredibly dismayed, because we came here to offer a gift. We came here to offer an opportunity to bridge the gap between our party and our voters, because when you looked around that convention, everybody — I mean, you literally looked around, so many people wearing their pins, their keffiyehs, their flags. It’s very unfortunate.
My name is Ruwa Romman, and I’m honored to be the first Palestinian elected to public office in the great state of Georgia and the first Palestinian to ever speak at the Democratic National Convention.
My story begins in a small village near Jerusalem called Suba, where my dad’s family is from. My mom’s roots trace back to al-Khalil, or Hebron. My parents, born in Jordan, brought us to Georgia when I was 8, where I now live with my wonderful husband and our sweet pets.
Growing up, my grandfather and I shared a special bond. He was my partner-in-chief, whether it was sneaking me sweets from a bodega or slipping me a 20 into my pocket with that familiar wink and a smile. He was my rock. But he passed away a few years ago, never seeing Suba or any part of Palestine again. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.
This past year has been especially hard. As we’ve been moral witnesses to the massacres in Gaza, I’ve thought of him, wondering if this was the pain he knew too well. When we watched Palestinians displaced from one end of the Gaza Strip to the other, I wanted to ask him: How did he find the strength to walk all of those miles decades ago and leave everything behind?
But in this pain, I’ve also witnessed something profound: a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. For 320 days, we’ve stood together demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike, to reach a ceasefire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That’s why we are here, members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world. They’ll say this is how it’s always been, that nothing can change. But remember Fannie Lou Hamer, shunned for her courage, yet she paved the way for an integrated Democratic Party. Her legacy lives on, and it’s her example we follow.
But we can’t do it alone. This historic moment is full of promise, but only if we stand together. Our party’s greatest strength has always been our ability to unite. Some see that as a weakness, but it’s time we flex that strength. Let’s commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump, who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur. Let’s fight for the policies long overdue, from restoring access to abortions to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza.
To those who doubt us, to the cynics and the naysayers, I say, “Yes, we can.” Yes, we can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars, that fights for an America that belongs to all of us — Black, Brown and white, Jews and Palestinians — all of us, like my grandfather taught me, together.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American who is a Georgia state representative, reading the speech she would have given had the Harris campaign allowed a Palestinian American to speak onstage.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: After holding a press conference outside, uncommitted delegates locked arms and walked inside the convention hall wearing Palestinian keffiyehs.
UNCOMMITTED DELEGATE: We are going to walk in single file. Abbas and I will lead the way. [inaudible]
JUNE ROSE: What we’re demonstrating is that in a party that stands for freedom, there should be space for freedom for Palestine. So we’re taking up space as we walk a full lap of the halls of the United Center to stand for a free Palestine, to make sure that every person in this arena right now has to think about Palestine, as the war has killed over 16,000 Palestinian children, as the Israeli government uses bombs provided by the United States. We take up this space. We take this to the delegates head on, to our elected officials head on, with our message of peace, of freedom, of no more war, of no more violence, a future safe for Israelis and Palestinians alike, Jews and Muslims alike.
UNCOMMITTED DELEGATES: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
HASSAN SAFFOURI: My name is Hassan Saffouri.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Do you feel that the other delegates in this convention see you?
HASSAN SAFFOURI: I hope they do. I don’t know that they have so far. I know that in the last couple of days, there have been a couple of moments where they have tried to block us. And when we did the roll call, there were delegates who stood up and took their signs, “U.S.A., U.S.A.,” and blocked us so that the media couldn’t see us. Now, that’s not just having blinders on. That’s putting blinders on. So, we want to make sure that that doesn’t happen anymore. I’m sure that the whole delegation, that everybody here is seeing us now.
UNCOMMITTED DELEGATES: I believe that we will win! I believe that we will win! I believe that we will win! I believe that we will win! I believe that we will win!
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was the protest — that was the uncommitted delegates walking arm in arm inside the convention center through the halls before they took their seats in their various delegations.
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Thousands March Against U.S. Arming of Israel as Harris Accepts Presidential Nomination
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
August 23, 2024
Thousands of protesters marched on the DNC on Thursday night calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Protesters rallied into the night as Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on the DNC stage. Demonstrators had planned to march toward the convention site but were blocked by hundreds of police in riot gear who forced the march to disperse. We hear from some of the protesters who took to the streets.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Meanwhile, outside, thousands of protesters marched on the DNC calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. The protesters rallied into the night as Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on the DNC stage. They had planned to march toward the convention site but were blocked by hundreds of police in riot gear, who forced the march to disperse.
AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now!’s María Taracena was in the streets speaking to protesters.
MARÍA TARACENA: If you had the opportunity to deliver a message to Vice President Kamala Harris, what would you tell her?
BENEEN PRENDIVILLE: I am asking her to look into her humanity and to look at photos like this and recognize that this is what happens every day, hundreds of times a day, for decades, and in particular the last 10 months. And our humanity, the Palestinian people’s humanity, does not rely upon the humanity of others, meaning it does not need to be within that context, meaning I am sick of seeing the media only relay the inhumane conditions in Gaza within the context — or, October 7th within the context of what is happening to Israelis. It just has to stop.
MARÍA TARACENA: Could you describe the photo that you were showing us?
BENEEN PRENDIVILLE: This is a child that has been burned. There’s no anesthesia. There’s no antibiotics. This child is suffering in filth and pain. And this is just one out of tens of thousands.
EDUARDO: This didn’t start on October 7th. And I don’t think — and it’s ahistorical to pretend that it did. You know, this has been an almost centurylong liberation struggle. My partner is Palestinian. And everybody that knows a Palestinian knows their family’s Nakba story. I know my partner’s grandparents’ Nakba story. They came from a town called al-Lidd in '48. And, you know, you can't erase a people off the face of a planet.
I’m a Chicano. My family’s from Guadalajara, so I’m wearing a Mexican flag around my back and a keffiyeh on my neck and a Sox hat on my head, because I’m a Chicagoan. Ni de aquí, ni de allá. But, you know, I don’t know. I think that people in struggles recognize each other in this moment.
JOSEPHINE GUILBEAU: The message we want to give is that veterans, we understand what’s self-defense. We understand what war is. What we are witnessing, the footage coming out, is not self-defense. This is not war. This is a genocide. We have a duty as a country to follow international laws, to respect the Geneva Conventions. And we’re not doing that right now by unconditionally supporting a country, a foreign country, who’s committing a genocide.
PROTESTERS: The whole world is watching!
AMY GOODMAN: Just a few of the thousands of people who marched through the streets of Chicago on Thursday night. Special thanks to Democracy Now!’s María Taracena and Hana Elias.
Coming up, we look at how Shirley Chisholm and Fannie Lou Hamer helped pave the way for Kamala Harris. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Hold On I’m Coming” by Sam & Dave, written by Isaac Hayes. The Hayes family has sued Donald Trump for copyright infringement for using the song in his campaign. They say, since 2022, since telling him to stop, he has used it more than 120 times at various rallies and events.
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“A Testament to Our Power”: Chicago’s Little Palestine Resists Racism, Disenfranchisement & War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
August 23, 2024
The city of Chicago, which hosted the 2024 Democratic convention, is home to the highest concentration of Palestinian Americans in the United States. In the suburbs of the city, residents of Bridgeview — known as “Little Palestine” — have been hard hit by Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed over 40,200 Palestinians. We take a tour of Little Palestine, where Palestinian flags and signs reading “Free Palestine” adorn many of the streets and businesses, and traditional pastry and coffee shops have colorful murals of Palestinian landscapes on their walls. And we speak with residents about how they are organizing against anti-Palestinian racism and pushing for an end to uncritical U.S. support for Israel.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re broadcasting from Chicago, which is home to the highest concentration of Palestinian Americans in the United States. In the suburbs of the city, residents of the Bridgeview, known as “Little Palestine,” have been hard hit by Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed over 40,200 Palestinians, including thousands of children, since October, though the true toll is likely much higher.
AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now!’s María Taracena and Hana Elias visited Little Palestine this week to get a tour of the neighborhood.
JENIN ALHARITHI: So, right now we’re driving, and it’s like the southwest suburbs of Chicago. So, this consists of, like, Bridgeview, Little Palestine, which is — it’s called Little Palestine. And just like the other southwest suburbs that are surrounding it, there’s a huge Arab population, there are huge Muslim populations. I think this community really, like, started being established in the late '80s, ’90s. And there's a huge diasporic people here of Palestinians, and we’ve been so ingrained in the community here.
There’s a lot of people here directly affected by what’s happening in Gaza and what’s happening in Palestine, in regards to the occupation and in regards to state violence from the U.S. There was a lot of FBI surveillance in the late '90s, and especially after 9/11, on community leaders here and on the mosques here in the community, that actually traumatized a lot of families in the neighborhoods. And after October 7th, definitely, we've seen hate crimes, and we’ve seen a lot of violence. But I think our numbers are so strong, and we’re so powerful. And the fact that we are so big and so present in this city is just a huge, like, testament to our, like, power, our cause, and how strong we are as Palestinians, and also just as just a community that’s very, like, unified here in Chicago.
MARÍA TARACENA: Which business are we standing in front of?
JENIN ALHARITHI: Right now we’re in front of Al Basha Sweets. They are Palestinian-owned.
[translated] Hello. How are you?
RAZAN: [translated] My name is Razan, and I’m the cashier and manager at Al Basha Sweets. Here, we have donations for Gaza. Anyone who wants to donate to Gaza can take a free sweet, then donate. And then the donation goes to a company that sends the money to Gaza. We try to help in whatever way we can, in a simple way. We will try what we can. And these stickers, too, the payment goes to Gaza.
MARÍA TARACENA: So, we’re in Little Palestine. Where are you taking us right now?
JENIN ALHARITHI: So, right now we’re going to one of the biggest coffeehouses here in the neighborhood, in the area. It’s Palestinian-owned. They opened up a few months ago, but they’ve actually been really, really successful.
WASIF IBRAHIM: My name is Wasif Ibrahim. You know, it’s a place for people in the community to come together. We basically started on this project after October 7.
MARÍA TARACENA: Why is it so important to support a Palestinian-owned business during a time where pro-Palestinian voices, Palestinian rights voices have faced so much backlash?
WASIF IBRAHIM: So, when all this happened, we kind of seen where these corporations took their stance, and we believed that we needed alternatives where we could support ourselves, not only in the sense that — from a business perspective, but also being there for each other, for one another, at such a crucial time. Being in Little Palestine, you know, we need that support system to support one another, because you see our politics and our government doesn’t really do a good job of supporting us. So we have to be there for one another.
MARÍA TARACENA: Where is your family from, and how many generations does it go back?
WASIF IBRAHIM: I’m first generation. So, my family is from Burqa, Nablus. So, my parents’ generation were born in Kuwait. And then, for me and my siblings, we were all born here in Chicago.
Enjoy.
NESREEN HASAN: Originally, Little Palestine was on the South Side of Chicago in the inner city. And they actually used to call it al-mukhayyam, which means refugee camp. And so, many Palestinians started to come here after the '67 War. Some were displaced in ’48, and then they got displaced again in ’67, very similar to my family's experience.
MARÍA TARACENA: You’ve been a community organizer for at least 15 years. Could you talk about what inspired you to get involved?
NESREEN HASAN: The issues that been having — the Palestinian community has been having has been over 76 years. You know, I actually come from an activist family. When my grandfather came to this country, he wanted a community center, and he actually was one of the founders of the first-ever Arab American community center. So I kind of have it in my family. And so, you know, I would also say Obama’s failed promises motivated me to go into community organizing.
MARÍA TARACENA: How does the rhetoric coming out of the Biden administration in regards to its support of Israel, in regards to Gaza, also the way that Biden officials have described pro-Palestinian protest, a lot of them led by students on college campuses, as antisemitic and other demonizing language — how has this rhetoric translated into violent attacks and targeting of Palestinian community members, including here in Illinois, outside of Chicago?
NESREEN HASAN: After October 7th, he enacted anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. It manifested. People took him seriously, like you just pointed out. Wadea al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old boy, whose landlord knew him, went to his apartment and stabbed him 28 times, because he thought this kid was going to grow up to be a terrorist. We have the three students in Vermont who were shot for wearing their keffiyehs. And Biden gave his sympathies, but it’s empty. It’s really, really empty. How can you give your sympathies when you’re the one who started the fire of this racist rhetoric?
DEANNA OTHMAN: My name is Deanna Othman. I’m from Little Palestine in Oak Lawn and Bridgeview, Illinois. I am a teacher at a local Islamic school, and I’m also a board member of American Muslims for Palestine Chicago.
Many of our students were heavily impacted by October 7th and onward. Many of them regularly visit the West Bank, so they’re familiar with the ravages of the occupation. They’ve seen armed soldiers as they’ve crossed checkpoints with their families. They’ve had family members killed. We have students who are from Gaza who have had family missing, family killed. Some of them have lived there in the past, so they’ve had friends killed, people they’ve gone to school with.
Myself, my husband’s family is in Gaza, and I visited there last summer, in June and July of 2023. So, with my own children, it’s been difficult sort of processing it with them, because their immediate — like, their grandmother is there, their uncle, their aunts, their cousins and people that they — some of them, they just met for the first time last summer, and now they’re worried about losing them. And many of the places where they made memories that summer, lifelong memories, no longer exist anymore.
So, it’s been tough, especially with the younger children, because they can’t quite grasp why this would happen, why any government would allow this to happen. And it’s difficult to explain why our government, the place that we live, is funding this genocide.
So, you know, we’ve had to process this in many different ways as a community, whether it’s through counseling with students in our schools, whether it’s through more educational outreach in the greater community, or even just, you know, psychological trauma processing for people who have, you know, experienced major loss.
AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices from Little Palestine. Afterwards, many of them boarded a bus to take part in a March on the Democratic National Convention. Again, Chicago has the largest proportion — the largest concentration of Palestinian Americans in the United States.
When we come back, we’ll talk about Kamala Harris, immigration and Gaza with Texas Congressmember Greg Casar. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “No More” by Eddie Vedder. The song was featured on the soundtrack for Body of War, a documentary that tells the story of Tomas Young, an Iraq War veteran paralyzed from a bullet to the spine. It was co-directed by the pioneering TV host Phil Donahue, who tackled major social and political issues. Tomas Young became a major antiwar activist. Phil Donahue died this past weekend at the age of 88.