The fourth crusade: How Gaza could cost Democrats the election

Blake Iverson is a member of Central Iowa Democratic Socialists of America.

A crusading fervor has caught hold of many liberal news outlets following the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They marvel at the raw star power on display: the Clintons, the Obamas, the Emhoffs, and even Lil’ John graced the stage to celebrate Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race. They offer something of a benediction to the thousands gathered–elite operatives and rank-and-file activists alike–and readying them to go out and retake the shining city on the hill.

But there is a striking absence from the convention itself and from the ebullient media coverage: the United States’s actual crusade in the holy land, the genocide in Gaza. While the Democratic National Committee allowed Palestine solidarity activists to hold a panel during the convention, and Vice President Kamala Harris uttered the word “Palestine” during her acceptance speech, the party made it clear, throughout the festivities and at every level, that the policy will not change. The genocide will continue until Israel and the United States finish the job.

Genocide apologists and the cynical within the party claim this is an unfortunate but necessary tradeoff between ending the genocide and electing Donald Trump. They are wrong. The choice is between not ending the genocide and electing Donald Trump.

THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM

The Iowa Democratic Party’s 2024 platform contains a number of pro-Palestinian amendments. That these amendments passed is significant, coming as they do after Iowa Democratic Party chair Rita Hart accused Palestine solidarity activists of antisemitism, going so far as to demand the resignations of student Democratic club leaders at the University of Iowa for issuing a statement against the genocide.

The platform amendments included calls for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza; Palestinian refugees’ right to return to the homes taken from them; undoing many aspects of the Abraham Accords, the Jared Kushner-brokered treaty that normalized relationships between US-backed dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Israel; Israeli and American compliance with international law; an end to all military aid to Israel; and an end to Israeli apartheid.

These amendments failed at the national convention. Instead, the Democratic Party’s 2024 national platform praises the Biden administration for continuing the Trump administration’s implementation of the Abraham Accords; reaffirms the party’s “commitment to Israel’s security, including its qualitative military edge”; defends the U.S. government’s shielding of Israeli officials from prosecution by multiple international courts; and praises the Biden administration for sending Israel an unprecedented level of military aid which has sustained the genocide for ten months.

A CHANGE IN TONE?

A platform isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if elected officials ignore it. Is there a chance that Harris will break meaningfully from Biden’s policy of maximum support for the genocide? The best sources for this are Harris herself and her closest aides.

Harris’s national security advisor Phil Gordon tweeted on August 8, “[Harris] has been clear: she will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups. She does not support an arms embargo on Israel.”

Two weeks later, during her acceptance speech, Harris said, “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.” Sensitive viewers recognized this comment as a commonly-used rhetorical tool in the Democratic repertoire: consecrating the act of “bearing witness” to suffering, even suffering they create, without taking steps to end that suffering through policy change.

The policy remains clear as the sky the Lockheed Martin F-35 splits and cold as the steel the Boeing GBU-39 lets loose through the school. America will keep arming Israel, and Israel will keep bombing Gaza, until every Palestinian is dead or displaced. During her acceptance speech, Harris said, “Let me be clear: I will always support Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.” Three days later, the U.S. sent its 50,000th ton of munitions to the Israel Defense Forces.

UNCOMMITTED DELEGATES IN CHICAGO

Throughout the primary election, the Uncommitted movement, a coalition of organizations including Democratic Socialists of America, won 37 delegates representing 750,000 Democratic primary voters. Among these Uncommitted voters were 100,000 voters in the key swing state of Michigan, home to the largest Arab-American population in the country, and 46,000 in Minnesota, Tim Walz’s home state.

The Uncommitted movement’s goal was simple: demonstrate to Biden, and Harris after him, that Democratic voters want an end to the slaughter in Gaza and will vote accordingly. Realizing, as Phil Gordon plainly stated, that it was not going to get an arms embargo from Harris, the Uncommitted movement coalesced around a single, symbolic demand during the convention. It wanted a Palestinian speaker at the convention.

After a three-day sit-in, the DNC denied the Uncommitted delegates their right to address the convention. They did this even though the young Palestinian-American state legislator from Georgia intended to endorse Vice President Harris, even though the Uncommitted delegates agreed to have their speech vetted and edited by the Harris campaign, and even though the DNC allowed the parents of two Israeli hostages to address the convention.

While many pundits made hay of comparisons with the 1968 Democratic convention, the party leadership’s rejection of the Uncommitted delegates was more reminiscent of the 1964 Democratic convention, when the DNC refused to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation, which represented newly-registered black primary voters from that state. The DNC seated the all-white segregationist delegation instead.

Iowa had no Uncommitted delegates—the campaign launched near the end of Iowa’s “caucus” cycle. Still, one member of the Iowa delegation—Newman Abuissa, who has been a leader in the loose campaign to get the Iowa Democratic Party to cease its support for the genocide—cast his delegate vote “present,” rather than joining the rest of the delegation in voting for Harris. IDP chair Rita Hart stood before the convention and falsely announced Abuissa’s vote as “absent,” leaving television viewers with the impression that the Iowa delegation’s vote was unanimous.

270 TO WIN

Cynical consultants and Democratic party officials may ask: why should we care? They should care because Harris’s insistence on continuing Biden’s genocidal Gaza policy could cost her the election. If they believe what they say about the existential threat Trump poses to American democracy, this should trouble them.

A national poll by Data for Progress in June found that 64 percent of all likely voters, 62 percent of swing voters, and 84 percent of Democratic voters support an immediate ceasefire. The same poll found that 53 percent of all likely voters, 53 percent of swing voters, and 70 percent of Democratic voters favored withdrawing military aid to Israel unless it agrees to an immediate ceasefire.

Trump won Michigan in 2016 by about 10,000 votes. Biden performed better in 2020, winning the state by 154,188 votes. The Uncommitted campaign won 100,000 votes in that state in the March primary. That represents a serious threat to Harris’s campaign in a state she can’t afford to lose–should she decide to continue the genocide through the general election. A recent poll found that 65 percent of Muslims across three swing states–Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan–voted for Joe Biden in 2020. In 2024, before he dropped out of the race, only 12 percent planned to vote for Biden. Throughout the spring and summer, Trump beat Biden in nearly every poll of Michigan voters reported by The Hill.

The change at the top of the ticket may be enough to sway important blue collar demographics, though the United Auto Workers issued a statement protesting the exclusion of the Uncommitted delegates from the convention. Arab-American voters, on the other hand, will prove more challenging if the Biden-Harris administration continues slaughtering their loved ones in Gaza.

What does Democratic intransigence on the genocide in Gaza mean for Iowa? It’s true that the electoral stakes are lower for Democrats here, where Trump is all but guaranteed to win in November. But the Iowa Democratic Party leadership’s pro-genocide position, shared by the majority of Iowa Democratic elected officials, could imperil two Congressional races state and national Democrats are targeting.

In the first Congressional district, a handful of tweets are the only public positions Democratic candidate Christina Bohannan has taken on the genocide. One announced her support for Israel’s “right to defend itself” and her intention to do “everything in her power” to ensure the military campaign in Gaza succeeds. Another suggested the University of Iowa college Democrats had caused “hurt or offense” to the Jewish community in a statement calling for an end to the genocide. Ironically, another criticized her opponent and other House Republicans for “heading home once again with no Speaker” in October 2023, while “Israel is in need.”

Johnson County, a population center in Bohannan’s district due to the presence of the University of Iowa, may still turn out for her in large numbers. A large Jewish Voice for Peace rally outside a March Johnson County Democrats fundraiser featuring Bohannan and other statewide candidates and party leaders could be evidence of trouble ahead, though, should Bohannan continue her unequivocal support for Israel.

In the third Congressional district, Democratic candidate Lanon Baccam has been even more tight-lipped, saying nothing about the genocide until his appearance at the Iowa State Fair. After the speech, Justin Comer and Evan Jones of the Rock Hard Caucus podcast asked him directly if he believed the U.S. should continue sending Israel the bombs it is using to carry out the genocide. Baccam replied: “I think the U.S. should make sure we support our friends in the Middle East. The only democracy that exists there is Israel…” If Baccam wants to win, he needs to win Polk County, which has been the site of some of the largest anti-genocide demonstrations in the state.

In June, an Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for then Des Moines Register and Mediacom found that 40 percent of Iowans, including 65 percent of Democrats, believe Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks is “unacceptable.” The poll found that 64 percent of all Iowans disapproved of Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza. The Harris campaign has indicated that it does not plan to change any of Biden’s pro-genocide policies, and the two best-positioned Democratic Congressional candidates seem determined to go down with her.

DEMOCRACY IS ON THE BALLOT

The genocide in Gaza, in which the Biden-Harris administration is participating by providing 70 percent of the weapons used to destroy schools, hospitals, and mosques; kill more than 40,000 innocent men, women, and children; and displace 90 percent of the population could prove to be a lodestone around the Democratic Party’s neck in this election. Democrats in Iowa and around the country continue to ignore or support it at their—and all of our—peril.