My recommendations to the Democratic platform committee

This week, I submitted testimony on Israel/Palestine to the Democratic Party’s Platform Committee. This is my 11th convention and the ninth time I’ve been engaged in discussions regarding the platform, either as a member of the drafting committee, negotiating language with the campaigns or simply presenting testimony, as I am doing this year.

During these many interventions, I’ve seen some changes made, but all too few on how the platforms address the issue of Palestinian rights. Friends often ask why I keep coming back, like Sisyphus.

I do so for two reasons. First, Palestinian rights continue to be ignored. Despite our last platform’s language regarding the equal worth of Israeli and Palestinian lives, we continue to demonstrate that we don’t see them as equal at all, and their suffering continues.

Secondly, I want Democrats to win. And unless Democrats change how they deal with Palestinian rights, they risk losing enough voters that it could cost them victory in November.

It is important to consider today’s fraught political environment. The magnitude of the suffering Israel has inflicted on Gaza is horrifying: 38,000 dead, 70 per cent of buildings demolished, infrastructure and medical facilities gone, famine looming and an entire generation of children traumatised.

We are also seeing mass intersectional mobilisation of largely Democratic voters who are deeply opposed to the Biden administration’s policies on this issue, including a substantial number of Arab Americans and many young people, progressive Jews, Blacks, Asians and Latinos.

Most Americans, including most Democrats, never read the platform. However, this year the constituent groups noted above will be watching what language the party puts in its platform. It is vitally important to consider their concerns and the consequences of failing to do so.

With this backdrop and knowing the process well, I offered a few recommendations as guidance for the platform drafters.

“I’m sure the platform will speak about our ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and will be passionate in our condemnation of Hamas terror. But you will fail if you do not passionately acknowledge the immense suffering experienced by Palestinians and our role in fostering Israel’s sense of impunity as they continue to grind up Palestinian hopes and lives and property.”

Urging them to recognise the urgency of the moment and the rawness of people’s feelings, I asked that they avoid saying things they don’t mean, like these examples from the 2020 platform:

- “‘Democrats recognise the worth of every Israeli and Palestinian,’ or  

- “‘We support a negotiated two-state solution,’ or

- “‘We oppose any unilateral steps by either side’ (including annexation and settlement expansion).

That platform, I noted, also supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel (despite it being annexed, a unilateral action, home to over 200,000 settlers, the site of continuing confiscation and demolition, and a barrier to a viable Palestinian state).

I continued: “If you oppose something, it’s important that you mean it. And if you state that something mustn’t be done, there should be consequences when it happens. When red lines are crossed, settlements get built, hospitals get bombed, humanitarian aid is blocked, and our response is nil, we look weak and insincere.”

Then I suggested: “Be firm in calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire, but add real consequences if either party violates its terms; demand the unimpeded delivery of aid to Gaza; demand an end to settlement expansion, and an immediate end to settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with consequences if they continue; and if you are going to condemn Palestinian incitement and terror, you must also condemn Israeli incitement and terror, whether perpetrated by individuals or the state.”

I noted that 40 years ago I was warned that the “P” word (meaning Palestinians) could not be in the platform. A decade later, it made it in. Over three decades I tried to get opposition to settlements in, and the 2020 platform finally included it.

In 2024, the platform should: Call for an end to the occupation; adopt President Clinton’s language “the right of the Palestinian people to live free and independent on their own land”; and make clear that Israel’s continued violations of Palestinian human rights and international law and conventions will have consequences.

Those were my suggestions. The ball’s now in their court.

The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute