The pro-Palestinian ‘uncommitted’ movement is at a standstill with top Democrats as the DNC begins

The United Center undergoes preparation ahead of the Democratic National Convention on August 17, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 18 August 2024
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The pro-Palestinian ‘uncommitted’ movement is at a standstill with top Democrats as the DNC begins

  • Talks between pro-Palestinian activists and the Harris campaign have yielded progress in some areas, but their core policy demands remain unmet
  • While some Arab American fear another Trump administration would be a disaster, they also worry that Kamala Harris has no plan to stop Israel's genocidal war

DEARBORN, Michigan: Of the thousands of delegates expected to gather Monday at the Democratic National Convention, just 36 will belong to the “uncommitted” movement sparked by dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
But that small core has outsized influence.
Anger over US backing for Israel’s offensive in Gaza could generate unwelcome images for convention organizers, with raucous protests expected outside and potentially inside the Chicago arena where Harris will accept the nomination Thursday.
Top Democrats have spent weeks meeting with “uncommitted” voters and their allies — including a previously unreported sit-down between Vice President Kamala Harris and the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan — in an effort to respond to criticism in key swing states like Michigan, which has a significant Arab American population.

Weeks of meetings and calls between pro-Palestinian activists and the Harris campaign have yielded progress in some areas, but their core policy demands remain unmet. The activists want Harris to endorse an arms embargo to Israel and a permanent ceasefire. Harris has supported Biden’s negotiations for a ceasefire but rejected an arms embargo.
Rima Mohammad, one of Michigan’s two “uncommitted” delegates, said she sees the convention as a chance to share their movement’s concerns with the party leadership.
“It is a way for protesters outside to be able to share their frustration with the party,” she said.
The Democratic nominee meets a key Arab American mayor
Questions remain about the leverage “uncommitted” voters hold now that Biden has stepped aside and Harris has taken his place. Democrats have seen a significant surge in enthusiasm for Harris’ campaign and concerns about voter apathy in key areas, such as Detroit’s large Black population, appear to have diminished.
But Harris and her team have still made communication with Arab American leaders a priority.
During a campaign trip to Michigan last week, Harris met with Abdullah Hammoud, the 34-year-old mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb that has the largest number of Arab Americans of any city in the United States. The meeting was disclosed by a person who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.




This picture taken on March 3, 2024 shows Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud speaking during an interfaith prayer vigil for Aaron Bushnell, a former US airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington on February 26, 2024 in protest over the war in Gaza. (AFP)

The person familiar with the meeting did not provide specific details but said the focus was on Harris’ potential policy, if elected, on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Hammoud declined to comment.
“Vice President Harris supports the deals currently on the table for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for the release of hostages,” her campaign said in a statement. “She will continue to meet with leaders from Palestinian, Muslim, Israeli and Jewish communities, as she has throughout her vice presidency.”
According to a source familiar with convention planning, two panel discussions will take place during the convention in Chicago: one addressing Arab and Palestinian issues with leaders from the “Uncommitted” movement, and another focused on Jewish American issues, including the rise in antisemitism and hate speech.
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez on Thursday held separate one-on-one meetings with leaders in the Arab American community and “uncommitted” movement in metro Detroit.
“They are listening and we are talking,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News, who met with Chavez Rodriguez. “But none of us can garner votes in the community without public statements from Harris. She doesn’t need us; she can win over votes by saying and doing the right thing.”
According to Siblani, Chavez Rodriguez agreed that “the killing has to stop.” In response, Siblani said he pressed: “How? There is no plan.”
Lavora Barnes, the Democratic chair in Michigan, said the party would “continue working toward our goal of coming together to defeat Donald Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.”
“We are committed to continuing these conversations with community leaders, activists and organizations because we want to ensure that everyone in the Michigan Democratic Party has a seat at the table,” Barnes said in a statement.
No agreement on an arms embargo
Some on the Democratic Party’s left have called for including a moratorium on the use of US-made weapons by Israel in the platform of policy goals that will be approved during next week’s convention. But such language isn’t included in a draft platform party officials released earlier this summer, and it’s unlikely that those close to Harris’ campaign would endorse including it.
The Uncommitted National Movement has also requested a speaking slot at the convention for a doctor who has worked on the frontlines in Gaza, along with a leader of the movement. And they have asked for a meeting with Harris “to discuss updating the Gaza policy in hopes of stopping the flow of unconditional weapons and bombs” to Israel, said Abbas Alawieh, another “uncommitted” delegate from Michigan and one of the founders of the movement.




Abbas Alawieh, spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, speaks during a press conference in Dearborn, Michigan, on Feb. 28, 2024. Behind him are Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Layla Elabed, campaign manager for Listen to Michigan. (AFP)

Before a Harris rally just outside Detroit last week, Alawieh and Layla Elabed, co-founders of the movement, briefly met with the vice president. They requested a formal meeting with Harris and urged her to support an embargo on weapons shipments to Israel. According to them, Harris seemed open to the idea of meeting.
However, shortly after news of the meeting became public, Harris’ national security adviser Phil Gordon reaffirmed that she does not support an arms embargo. Alawieh mentioned Wednesday that the group has not received any further response from Harris’ team or the DNC regarding their requests ahead of the convention.
Since then, leaders of the “Uncommitted” movement have met with senior staff from the DNC and the Harris campaign to discuss their requests.
“I hope she doesn’t miss the opportunity to unite the party,” said Alawieh.
The Trump campaign continues its outreach
Elsewhere in metro Detroit this week, Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter and now a leader in his Arab American outreach, was holding meetings with various community groups. Boulos has come to Michigan often for the outreach, along with Arab Americans for Trump chair Bishara Bahbah.




Bishara Bahbah, national chairman for Arab Americans for Trump, answers questions during an interview on Aug. 14, 2024, in Dearborn, Michigan. (AP Photo)

According to Bahbah, their pitch highlights the situation in Gaza under Biden’s administration and a promise from Trump’s team to give the community a seat at the table if he wins.
“We have been told by the Trump circle, which is not part of the campaign, that in return for our votes, there would be a seat at the table and a voice to be heard,” said Bahbah.
But any apparent political opportunity for Trump in the Arab American community or the “uncommitted” movement may be limited by his past remarks and policies.
Many Arabs remain offended by Trump’s ban, while in office, on immigration from several majority Muslim countries as well as remarks they consider insulting. Trump also has criticized Biden for not being a strong enough supporter of Israel.
Speaking to an audience of Jewish supporters Thursday, Trump painted the protesters expected in Chicago as antisemitic and invoked an Arabic term that is sometimes used by Muslims to mean war or struggle.
“There will be no jihad coming to America under Trump,” he said.
But Bahbah acknowledges that his and Boulos’ strategy isn’t necessarily aimed at converting voters to support Trump — but to stop them from voting for Harris.
“If I can’t convince people to vote for Trump, having them sit at home is better,” said Bahbah.
 


Trump pardons 23 anti-abortion protesters

Updated 8 sec ago
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Trump pardons 23 anti-abortion protesters

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed pardons Thursday for 23 anti-abortion protesters whom the White House said were prosecuted under his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration.
“They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office the day before a major anti-abortion march in Washington. “This is a great honor to sign this.”


Man jailed for knife attack aimed at French magazine Charlie Hebdo

Updated 36 min 57 sec ago
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Man jailed for knife attack aimed at French magazine Charlie Hebdo

  • The killings in January 2015 shocked France and triggered a fierce debate about freedom of expression and religion

PARIS: A Paris court on Thursday sentenced a Pakistani man to 30 years in jail for attempting to murder two people outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2020 with a meat cleaver.
When he carried out the attack, 29-year-old Zaheer Mahmood wrongly believed the satirical newspaper was still based in the building, which was targeted by Islamists a decade ago for publishing cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.
In fact, Charlie Hebdo had moved in the wake of the storming of its offices by two Al-Qaeda-linked masked gunmen, who killed 12 people including eight of the paper’s editorial staff.
The killings in January 2015 shocked France and triggered a fierce debate about freedom of expression and religion, fueling an outpouring of sympathy in France expressed in a wave of “Je Suis Charlie” (“I Am Charlie“) solidarity.
Originally from rural Pakistan, Mahmood arrived in France illegally in the summer of 2019.
The court had earlier heard how Mahmood was influenced by radical Pakistani preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who had called for the beheading of blasphemers.
Mahmood was convicted of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy and he will be banned from France when his sentence is served.
The 2015 bloodshed, which included a separate but linked hostage-taking that claimed another four lives at a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris, marked the start of a dark period for France.
In the years that followed extremists inspired by Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group repeatedly mounted attacks, setting the country on edge and inflaming religious tensions.
To mark the opening of the trial into the 2015 massacre, Charlie Hebdo republished its cartoons of Mohammed on September 2, 2020.
Later that month, urged by the extremist preacher to “avenge the Prophet,” Mahmood arrived in front of Charlie Hebdo’s former address.
Armed with a butcher’s cleaver, he gravely wounded two employees of the Premieres Lignes news agency.
Throughout the trial, his defense argued that his actions were the result of a profound disconnect he felt from France, given his upbringing in the fervently Muslim Pakistan countryside.
“In his head he had never left Pakistan,” Mahmood’s defense lawyer Alberic de Gayardon said on Wednesday, conceding that “each of his blows aimed to kill.”
“He does not speak French, he lives with Pakistanis, he works for Pakistanis,” Gayardon added.
Charlie Hebdo’s decision in 2020 to republish the Mohammed lampoons triggered a wave of angry demonstrations in Pakistan, where blasphemy is punishable by death.
Five other Pakistani men, some of whom were minors at the time, were on trial alongside Mahmood on terrorist conspiracy charges for having supported and encouraged his actions.
The French capital’s special court for minors handed Mahmood’s co-defendants sentences of between three and 12 years.
None of the six in the dock reacted to the verdict.
Both victims were present at the sentencing, but did not wish to comment on the trial’s outcome.
Earlier in the trial one of the two, alias Paul, told the court of the long rehabilitation he undertook after his near-death experience.
“It broke something within me,” the 37-year-old said.
Neither he nor the other victim, named only as Helene, 32, have accepted Mahmood’s pleas for forgiveness.
Mahmood’s lawyers have yet to indicate whether their client will appeal the verdict.


Trump declassifies JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr assassination files

Updated 58 min 51 sec ago
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Trump declassifies JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr assassination files

  • The National Archives has released tens of thousands of records in recent years related to the November 22, 1963 assassination of president Kennedy

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday declassifying files on the 1960s assassinations of president John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
“A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades,” Trump told reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House. “Everything will be revealed.”
After signing the order, Trump passed the pen he used to an aide, saying “Give that to RFK Jr,” the president’s nominee to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The National Archives has released tens of thousands of records in recent years related to the November 22, 1963 assassination of president Kennedy but held thousands back, citing national security concerns.
It said at the time of the latest release, in December 2022, that 97 percent of the Kennedy records — which total approximately five million pages — had now been made public.
The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year-old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.
That formal conclusion has done little, however, to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind Kennedy’s murder in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of the government files has added fuel to various conspiracy theories.
President Joe Biden said at the time of the December 2022 release that a “limited” number of documents would continue to be held back at the request of unspecified “agencies.”
Previous requests to withhold documents have come from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Thousands of Kennedy assassination-related documents from the National Archives were released during Trump’s first term in office, but he also held some back on national security grounds.
Kennedy scholars have said the documents still held by the archives are unlikely to contain any bombshell revelations or put to rest the rampant conspiracy theories about the assassination of the 35th US president.
Oswald was shot to death two days after killing Kennedy by a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, as he was being transferred from the city jail.
Hundreds of books and movies such as the 1991 Oliver Stone film “JFK” have fueled the conspiracy industry, pointing the finger at Cold War rivals the Soviet Union or Cuba, the Mafia and even Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon Johnson.
President Kennedy’s younger brother, Robert, a former attorney general, was assassinated in June 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-born Jordanian, was convicted of his murder and is serving a life sentence in a prison in California.
Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder and died in prison in 1998 but King’s children have expressed doubts in the past that Ray was the assassin.
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Croatia issues Serbia travel warning after saying nationals expelled

Updated 23 January 2025
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Croatia issues Serbia travel warning after saying nationals expelled

  • The Croatian foreign ministry alleged “inappropriate and unfounded actions of Serbian authorities toward Croatian nationals“
  • Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman on Wednesday said he would send a protest note to Serbia

ZAGREB: Croatia on Thursday recommended its nationals postpone non-essential travel to Serbia, alleging Belgrade had expelled five Croatian women citing security reasons.
The Croatian foreign ministry alleged “inappropriate and unfounded actions of Serbian authorities toward Croatian nationals,” in a statement.
Other Croatians had previously been accused of taking part in a recent wave of protests against Serbia’s nationalist government in an separate case.
Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman on Wednesday said he would send a protest note to Serbia over the “detention of five Croatian women” there who all returned home safely.
He said the five attended a workshop involving NGOs organized by Austria’s Erste Bank foundation and were “detained without any explanation.”
He said Zagreb will inform the European Union delegation in Belgrade about Serbian authorities’ actions, “which put Croatian citizens in a humiliating position.”
Serbia’s foreign ministry said it was “inappropriate” for a Croatian official to “accuse Serbia of endangering the freedom of movement and speech of several Croatian nationals.”
The latter were “treated in Belgrade by the competent state bodies in line with legal procedures and usual international practice,” it said in a statement without elaborating.
Serbia’s interior ministry did not reply to AFP’s request for comment.
Ana Kovacic, an art historian from Zagreb who took part in the two-day workshop, told the newspaper Jutarnji list that it was attended by around 15 people from Bosnia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia.
After it ended, the participants were taken from their hotel to a police station where they were interrogated, she said.
They were given a document to sign saying that they were “threatening the security of the Republic of Serbia,” should leave the country within 24 hours and were banned from entering it for a year.
Croatian and Serbian human rights groups condemned the actions of the Serbian police, who they said “arrested and deported several persons” from those countries, describing those arrested as “activists.”
Two workshop participants from Albania also told local media in their country that they suffered the same treatment.
The Albanian foreign ministry said on Thursday it had summoned the Serbian ambassador over the case.
It “expressed regret and serious concerns regarding the detention” of the two, describing them as “representatives of civil society who participated in a seminar in Belgrade.”
Serbia has been rocked by regular protests since a deadly disaster at a train station in November ignited longstanding anger over corruption.
High-ranking Serbian government officials, without providing evidence, have claimed in their statements that the student blockades and protests are “influenced by Western intelligence agencies” with the aim of “overthrowing President Aleksandar Vucic.”
At the end of December, tabloid media close to the Serbian authorities accused a group of Croatian students of participating in the protests.
Ties between two former Yugoslav republics remain frosty since Croatia’s 1990s war of independence against Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs.


A federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship

Updated 23 January 2025
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A federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship

  • US District Judge John Coughenour repeatedly interrupted a Justice Department lawyer during arguments to ask how he could consider the order constitutional
  • The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and a number of immigrants rights groups across the country

SEATTLE: A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional” during the first hearing in a multi-state effort challenging the order.
US District Judge John Coughenour repeatedly interrupted a Justice Department lawyer during arguments to ask how he could consider the order constitutional. When the attorney, Brett Shumate, said he’d like a chance to explain it in a full briefing, Coughenour told him the hearing was his chance.
The temporary restraining order sought by Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington was the first to get a hearing before a judge and applies nationally.
The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and a number of immigrants rights groups across the country. The suits include personal testimonies from attorneys general who are US citizens by birthright, and names pregnant women who are afraid their children won’t become US citizens.
Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, began the hearing by grilling the administration’s attorneys, saying the order “boggles the mind.”
“This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour told Shumate. Coughenour said he’s been on the bench for more than four decades, and he couldn’t remember seeing another case where the action challenged was so clearly unconstitutional.
Shumate said he respectfully disagreed and asked the judge for an opportunity to have a full briefing on the merits of the case, rather than have a 14-day restraining order issued blocking its implementation.
Trump’s executive order, which he signed on Inauguration Day, is slated to take effect on Feb. 19. It could impact hundreds of thousands of people born in the country, according to one of the lawsuits. In 2022, there were about 255,000 births of citizen children to mothers living in the country illegally and about 153,000 births to two such parents, according to the four-state suit filed in Seattle.
The Trump administration argued in papers filed Wednesday that the states don’t have grounds to bring a suit against the order and that no damage has yet been done, so temporary relief isn’t called for. The administration’s attorneys also clarified that the executive order only applies to people born after Feb. 19, when it’s set to take effect.
The US is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.
The lawsuits argue that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees citizenship for people born and naturalized in the US, and states have been interpreting the amendment that way for a century.
Ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, the amendment says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump’s order asserts that the children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and orders federal agencies to not recognize citizenship for children who don’t have at least one parent who is a citizen .
A key case involving birthright citizenship unfolded in 1898. The Supreme Court held that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a US citizen because he was born in the country. After a trip abroad, he faced being denied reentry by the federal government on the grounds that he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
But some advocates of immigration restrictions have argued that case clearly applied to children born to parents who were both legal immigrants. They say it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents living in the country illegally.
Trump’s order prompted attorneys general to share their personal connections to birthright citizenship. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, for instance, a US citizen by birthright and the nation’s first Chinese American elected attorney general, said the lawsuit was personal for him.
“There is no legitimate legal debate on this question. But the fact that Trump is dead wrong will not prevent him from inflicting serious harm right now on American families like my own,” Tong said this week.
One of the lawsuits aimed at blocking the executive order includes the case of a pregnant woman, identified as “Carmen,” who is not a citizen but has lived in the United States for more than 15 years and has a pending visa application that could lead to permanent residency status.
“Stripping children of the ‘priceless treasure’ of citizenship is a grave injury,” the suit says. “It denies them the full membership in US society to which they are entitled.”