A group of young pro-Palestine activists who heckled US presidential candidate Kamala Harris earlier this week, due to concerns she wouldn’t pursue meaningful policy changes towards Israel if she won the race for the White House, have started a campaign to disrupt her election rallies across the country.
“I would encourage everyone in wherever city they come from, to make sure that where Kamala shows up, she must recognise and address the genocide that she’s complicit in, and that she will not go without this being recognised and disrupted,” Eaman Ali, an activist who took part in the initial disruption, told MEE.
Hakim said it came as no surprise that the vice-president had leaned on the bogey of a second Trump term to deter them from protesting for a change of US policy against the war on Gaza.
"That’s all they said. “Trump is like this. Trump is like that; that’s their whole platform. I wasn’t surprised at all when her only answer [to us] was: “Oh, you want Trump to win”,” Hakim said, ridiculing the notion that any of them wanted Trump to become president.
"If they’re constantly putting forth this rhetoric that, “We are not Trump”, then they need to understand that we don’t expect them to be Trump. “You cannot just say you are not Trump. You have to actually be better, and you have to actually address the issue that we are putting forward. And it’s especially crucial if they’re doing that in Michigan.”
“Until a permanent ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel are achieved, it is a moral obligation for all people of conscience to disrupt the war machine that is fuelling this genocide,” Munir said.
Can they also put this much energy into protesting Trump’s rallies? Because right now they’re playing with a footgun
Dude or just have a fuckin Gaza rally
Protesting for peace in Gaza strikes me as a much better way of achieving peace in Gaza than does heckling the most pro-peace-in-Gaza candidate available
Or, hell, even organizing an “uncommitted” vote or etc. Or finding a coalition of voters that can make specific demands of the Democratic party in exchange for votes. Or doing public protests to raise public awareness, so that the Democratic candidate won’t be faced with this awful decision of either funding a genocide or facing defeat in the election because most of the American public doesn’t understand that it’s a genocide. There are a lot of things that will better influence American public policy than will heckling the Democratic candidate when it is still uncertain whether she will win against the pro-genocide party.
They’re pressuring the candidate most likely to listen to them.
No they’re disrupting the one campaign that is even remotely sympathetic to their cause which is likely to lead to the election of the man that has said that Israel should not be allowing video out of Gaza because it makes them look bad
…and that Israel should hurry up and hurry up and get it over with.
If these people want to help Palestine, they really should try and find a way that at least has a chance at a positive result.
They’re disrupting her campaign event because:
She’s the only one that can be pushed on this issue. Disrupting Trump’s events doesn’t hurt him at all and isn’t going to force him to change his position on Palestine, he’ll just use it as a chance to score points with his own base. I’m really confused about what you think the purpose of protest is?
She is going to lose if she doesn’t commit to ending the genocide. A lot of Democrats are willing to vote for the lesser-of-two-genocides, but Palestinian-Americans aren’t going to vote for her if she’s just going to continue Biden’s policies. They’ve told us this. Instead of talking down to them, try to listen to what they’re saying.
She is the Vice President! She is part of the administration that is carrying out genocide! She’s not just a candidate like Trump is.
It’s like it’s not enough for you if they vote for Harris. They have to like it!
Yes, they likely can change her mind, but not now. If she commits to a weapons embargo or anything else that they are demanding before she’s elected then AIPAC will drop hundreds of millions of dollars fighting her and helping Trump. They’ve already spent committed $100 million to fight the squad. If Kamala takes an anti-Israel position she could well lose and Trump will make sure Israel has everything they need to wipe every Palestinian off the face of the planet.
That’s very wishful thinking but Kamala already cleared up she will continue to provide israel weapons for Genocide.
“Israel is so powerful that they can do genocide with impunity and no one on Earth can stop them; if the US ever went soft on support for Israel it could install whoever they want as the president, ushering in an age of fascism in the US.”
🙄
The presidency isn’t a primary for a House seat! AIPAC isn’t an all powerful cabal that controls everything behind the scenes.
This is kinda antisemitic tbh
Spend less time pressuring possible candidates, and maybe more time pressuring actual office holders who have the actual ability to pursue actual policy on the topic?
In fairness, they did that too, with Biden. I also sent messages to all my congresspeople back when they were voting on aid for Israel (not that it did anything). Putting pressure on Harris at this point to pull her towards the side of humanity in her forming Israel policy does seem like some level of sensible thing to do.
I absolutely think that the level of pressure the activist left has been putting on the Democrats has been producing an impact, which is absolutely a good thing. Pretty much the only part I disagree with is the attempt to solidify some sort of linkage as if the Democrats like what is happening in the Middle East right now or have explicit policies in favor of it, that aren’t posited on pure political survival in our misled and largely war-criminal-friendly electorate.
Yes we’ve had a number of Palestine supporting congress people primaried and thrown out of office by much more Israel supporting candidates. In my state even. It’s absolutely had an impact. These are the actual people who could really do something about the situation in israel. And we’re actively making it worse.
Contrast with all the bitching and moaning about Biden for the last half year. Having absolutely zero traction. If anything causing biden to dig in even more. Only after that spectacular debate fail. And all the high level Democrats coming to him and really pleading with him to step aside. Did he finally do it. So yeah they were very effective 👍 Respectfully, can we maybe cut back on the winning just a little bit? My state level government does not need any more elected Republicans. And we definitely don’t need any more the national level.
If you want to pressure these candidates. Primary them. Hell I would give anything just to see more non-republicans running at my state and local level. Let alone Democrats primarying each other. All this attacking of the only candidate we’re going to be getting. Will likely only end up depressing enthusiasm and response for them. Making it likely for others to win.
I know that we are the left. And shooting ourselves in the foot is one of our greatest pastimes. But it’s getting really really hard. Because we’ve got so little foot left. And we only had a left foot to begin with.
have you seen or read about what is going on over there?
way more than a bullet in a foot we are talking about
talking mass casualty no business for its existence kind of weaponry like on Ratchet and Clank
imagine your kids getting killed or family getting charred as all fuck and all anyone could say to you was
“Well we not even able to voice opposition to our leaders because that would shoot ourselves in the foot BY GOD! MURICA!”
You mean like Kamala Harris who is currently Vice President?
And what powers of office does she have to do anything? You need to Lobby congress. But you’re not about helping anyone in Palestine hear about virtue signaling.
If the VP is irrelevant and has no power why am I seeing so many posts about Tim Walz?
Because people generally like a guy and it reflects well on Paris to pick him. Literally the vice president’s only abilities is to break ties in the senate generally
My exact thought.