Could the War in Gaza Cost Kamala Harris the Election?
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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. No matter what your politics, it's been striking to see how the Democratic Party has coalesced around Kamala Harris. And this, of course, was right after Joe Biden stepped out of the race. But there's been one big split, and that's over the war in Gaza.

Advocates for the Palestinians want the U.S. to limit weapon shipments and support of Israel's military, or to end them entirely even. But Harris' support for Israel appears to be not much different than Joe Biden's. And at the Democratic convention in August, no Palestinian-American speakers were allowed to appear. That split in the party is now coming back to haunt the Harris campaign in Michigan.

The anti-war candidate Jill Stein of the Green Party is polling pretty well with Muslim voters. In at least one recent survey, she's well ahead of Harrison Trump with Muslims in Michigan. Staff writer Andrew Morantz has been reporting on the uncommitted movement.

Now, you may recall, uncommitted began early in the year, before the primaries. To protest U.S. policy on Israel, the movement encouraged Democrats not to cast their vote for Biden, but to check the box that said uncommitted. Now, though, the primaries are long in the past and the general election is just weeks away.

Michigan is considered a must-win for Kamala Harris. Andrew Moran spoke the other day with one of the founders of the uncommitted movement, Abbas Alawiya. The intention was never for this movement to continue to exist right now. Our hope was that the bombs would stop long before, you know, September of 2024 when we're talking now.

So when you were engaging with Harris's campaign, what were you looking for from them? We made it clear we, you know, we will endorse and mobilize if she supports a stop to the weapons. If she can't support a stop to the weapons, then let her tell us what it is that her policy would be so that we can consider endorsement. We put on the table that it would be important for her to come out with a statement specifically saying as it relates to weapons transfers that she as the law and order person that she is, as the prosecutor that she is,

supports US and international law as it relates to weapons transfers. That would have been a really big deal to us, to our movement, to Democratic voters who have this as a top policy issue. If it's too hard for you to differentiate your own policy from Biden's, then tell us how you would be different from Donald Trump's because we are part of a community that would be disproportionately harmed by a Trump presidency. And right now, a lot of folks that I'm in community with

When I'm having conversations with them about the presidential election, a lot of folks are saying, well, I think of Trump as the anti-war candidate. And I say, why would you say that? You know it would get worse under Donald Trump. And what they tell me is, Abbas, what could be worse than genocide?

We've made this suggestion over and over again. She should make clear that Donald Trump's idea as it relates to, you know, organizing for Palestinian human rights is to suppress, is to crack down on those people, is to deport student protesters who are standing up for Palestinian human rights. Vice President Harris could say, I wouldn't do that.

That's Abbas El-Awiyah, a Michigan Democrat and leader of the Uncommitted movement. And he recently spoke with Andrew Morantz, who's a staff writer at The New Yorker. Now, Andrew, you've been reporting on this movement for many months. Abbas sounds frustrated, to say the least, by the Harris campaign. But first of all, who is Abbas and how did he come to all this? Yeah.

Yeah. So he is you mentioned he's a Michigan Democrat. He actually is a Democrat. You know, he worked in Democratic politics. He was born in Lebanon, grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, and then spent a few years in D.C. as a legislative staffer. And he worked with Democrats.

Andy Levin, who is a progressive Democrat from Michigan. He also worked with Rashida Tlaib, who represents the next district over and is very progressive. And Cori Bush, who's very, very progressive. And so these are people who are engaged with this issue and have been for a long time. And Abbas has too, but he's also been, you know, very supportive of trying to get the party to engage on student debt and on housing. And, you know, this was not his only issue, but it was really after October 7th, he became very single-mindedly

dug in on this issue and sort of feeling powerless to do anything about it. And then he and a bunch of other organizers realized there's this primary coming up. Maybe we can use that as kind of leverage. The reason that this was so important to him, in addition to feeling empathy and for people in the region, is that he'd had a similar experience himself. When he was a teenager, he was visiting a family in Lebanon and bombs started to fall and he really was scared for his life.

I was visiting my grandmother in the South. My aunt came and picked me up so that we can go to my mom's village, which is much closer to the border. And it was one or two days into that visit that the war broke out. And, you know, I had the experience of things getting progressively more desperate. And then I had the experience of...

of consoling my own family members, telling them it was going to be okay, in a moment where I was certain that I was going to be among the dead. That's what I knew would happen. And that's what did happen for a lot of people. There were over 1,400 civilians who were killed during that war by the Israeli military. And I came back that summer

and went back to school that fall with a whole bunch of other students who had just survived the same trauma that I had, a trauma that a lot of our parents know all too well, a trauma that a lot of our loved ones and relatives continue to live under, whether they are in Lebanon or Iraq or Palestine. Andrew, an experience like that at such a young age could have hardened him against the United States somehow, but it

It seems like he leaned in the opposite direction and joined the government. He's actually a pretty pragmatic political actor. He knows that the Biden administration has actually done a lot on climate and on student debt and on any number of other things.

But he also knows the Dearborn community well enough to know that that isn't necessarily going to be enough for a lot of people. So, you know, he told me, you know, if I went into some of these rooms and said, hey, we should vote for the Biden administration because of all they've done on climate, you know, he would have been laughed out of the room. The day you recorded your conversation with Abbas, the uncommitted movement put out what they called a non-endorsement. What does that mean? That's a good question, what it means. I mean, it's they so Abbas said that.

He was clear about this all along. I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is. But other people leading his movement did not necessarily feel that way.

Honestly, I called a lot of people and talked to a lot of people and asked them, you know, so as bad as Trump is, you know, you live in a swing state. Will you vote for Kamala Harris? And a lot of them said no. The idea of, you know, throwing a vote away didn't seem to deter people. And what Abbas says and what other political strategists say is, you know, voting is a strategic thing. It's not an expression of moral virtue. But

Many people I spoke to did not feel that way. They felt this administration has blood on its hands and I too will have blood on my hands if I endorse it. And this was a very, very common view. Our three-part guidance is one, we cannot endorse Vice President Harris. We want her to be able to endorse and mobilize for her campaign. And she is deciding that she does not need that help. There are those of us who personally will be voting for Vice President Harris. There are those of us who...

cannot get ourselves to vote for her. They're experiencing what's the equivalent of a funeral for thousands of babies. And, you know, to go up to them and say, well, this election is on you and you have to make the decision. I mean, I think, you know, I think that's inappropriate to, uh,

We oppose Donald Trump's presidency, obviously. We believe that his agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing. President Trump, former President Trump, is going around and having his daughter, Tiffany's father-in-law, who's a, I guess, some Lebanese businessman, going around crisscrossing the country, having meetings in Arab communities specifically saying that

Donald Trump is the anti-war candidate. And if I tell you, I have heard that consistently being out in community, people say, well, maybe Trump will stop the war and he'll be different than Harris. And three, we are not recommending a third party vote in the presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency, given our country's

broken electoral college system. And so there are third party candidates out here right now saying things publicly like, we believe that, you know, if any vote for Harris or for Trump is an endorsement of genocide. And folks are looking to Uncommitted saying, is that true? Should we vote for the third party candidate? This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Dell.

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Visit justinwine.com and enter Radio 20 for 20% off your order. Andrew, would you describe this as clear guidance? We're not endorsing Harris. We're very disappointed in her. But also don't vote for Trump or a third party candidate. Now, how does a voter know what to do with that? Yeah, I have heard clearer endorsements in the past than this one. Yeah.

I mean, there's another thing going on here, which is what is an official endorsement mean? They were asking the Harris campaign to give them something so they could say this is a concession we got or this is a victory we got that they could then take back to people and say, OK, now we will turn around and mobilize for her. This was kind of the strategy all along since the primary. And I think they felt they just never got that thing that in other words, we're going to vote uncommitted in the primary to push the administration. Once we've pushed them, they will concede something.

And then once they've done that, we can come out in full force. And that never happened. When I was sort of pressing Abbas on this, one thing he mentioned actually was that he had just been speaking to an uncle of his who's in Lebanon. I got a call from my uncle who is in South Lebanon where, you know, a couple weekends ago they experienced...

the worst bombardment since 2006. I was talking to him and he knows about my organizing. He says, "Your dad tells me you keep going on TV and that you're pushing to stop the war. Do you think they're going to listen to you and your friends

And I say, we're trying everything we can. And he says, you know, Abbas, I hope, just so you know, I trust you to do the right thing, but just so you know, our feeling here is that if it's Trump, he's going to give...

Netanyahu the green light to kill all of us. And he understands the nuance. He says, I know they're already killing our siblings in Gaza, but more will be killed. And we feel like the acceleration would happen in Gaza and in the region. And so he's like, do people there know that, that Trump would be a lot worse? And I told him we're trying to let people know as much as possible. But

You know, it's a complex situation. It's a complex situation. And I think for people experiencing the impossibilities that come with trying to be politically savvy as the current Democratic president has funded the mass killing of children, of elders, of workers.

regular everyday people in Gaza. You know, the political questions are heavy, but I understand why some people might look at the situation and say, well, whatever's on the other side of the universe, Trump, I think, you know, we've got to try something different because the current approach is not working. Andrew, what's the political reality on the ground? Does the group have enough numbers to really affect the outcome of the Michigan vote?

If Harris is up three points in Michigan, as some polls suggest, then no, they don't. And if she is within a point, then they do. And, you know, in 2016, that could be the election. That could be the election. I mean, 2016, Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by 10,000 votes.

They this movement got 100000 votes in the primary. So it could easily be the margin. I mean, what if uncommitted loses Michigan for Harris? Eloise is very clear with you that Trump is the absolute wrong choice, whether it's for Gaza or anything else. You know what they what they will say is what activists have often said, which is, you know, don't blame us if you can't win over our votes. It's not our fault. It's your fault for not, you know, conceding to our demands.

When people say correctly, you know, conventions are about party unity and you're kind of raining on the parade here. They say, well, yes, that's that. But raining on a party convention is one thing. Protest is one thing. Possibly electing an authoritarian in the name of Donald Trump is much more consequential.

So, yeah, I pressed a number of voters on this and some people, not the organizers of the uncommitted vote, but other people would sort of soft pedal Trump or sort of both sides the issue and say, I'm not sure Trump was really all that bad. And I'd be like, really? You're going to vote for the guy who wanted wants a Muslim registry and who, you know, did the Muslim bans and all this stuff. And they would say, well, I just want to vote for change or whatever.

I think like a lot of in a lot of arenas, people have forgotten what the Trump administration was really like and how the second one could be even more pronounced. But then for some people like Abbas, they're very clear about the difference. And.

They basically are taking a longer view. I mean, honestly, David, I think they thought they would get more of a concession from the Harris campaign. I think meaning a different kind of language, a gesture in their direction. Yes. Slightly differentiates her from Biden. Correct. I don't think I don't think they thought that she would come out on the DNC stage and say, I'm now announcing Biden.

you know, a unilateral arms embargo to Israel that I, the vice president, will instantiate, you know. But I do think they, you know, some people suggested, you know, she should say, I will try to uphold the Leahy law, you know, that all weapons shipments need to be investigated for whether they're in accordance with human rights. Some people wanted her to talk about sending, you know, more defensive than offensive weapons. You know, there were a range of kind of, some people just wanted a Palestinian speaker or a meeting behind closed doors, right?

And I think when all of those requests were rebuffed or the can was kicked down the road, I think they just felt kind of insulted. I didn't understand why the Democratic Party, in raw political terms, didn't make some kind of concession and have a Palestinian, an American-Palestinian speaker at the convention, maybe not at 9 o'clock and right before Kamala Harris, but somewhere in the slot. I mean, they had an incredibly eloquent speaker

couple, the parents of a hostage who just days later was found murdered in the tunnels of Gaza and who, of course, also paid tribute to

the losses in Gaza of Palestinians. Actually, you heard people saying, okay, those parents of that Israeli-American hostage spoke very forcefully about the need for a ceasefire. You know, what if somebody from our movement had come up after them and said, we agree and we think the hostages should come home. And, you know, it could have been this nice moment of unity around this very fractured issue.

As for why they didn't do that, why they seem to be running scared, no? Yes, they seem scared that they seem scared of the issue. They don't want to rock the boat. You know, it's been, you know, 40 years of U.S. policy that they don't want to change overnight. And they, it seems, are maybe a little out of their depth or they don't want to, you know, have a whole new cycle about it. It's not like anyone in the Harris campaign said this to me. But my worry, as dark as this is, is that

It's possible that they think that putting a Palestinian American on stage would be bad politics for them, that it would just the mere presence of a Palestinian person on the DNC stage would alienate some voters. I don't know if that's Jewish moderate voters or, you know, Christian Zionist voters or just I don't know who, you know, this is speculation, but it's possible that they just see it as bad politics to make any overtures to the Palestinian or pro-Palestinian community at all.

You can read Andrew Morantz on the Gaza protest movement and Michigan politics at newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program. See you soon.

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