Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 22.08.2024
Progressives and hard supporters of the Zionist state came together to support Kamala Harris and ignored the genocide of the Palestinians by American weapons.
To chants of “We love Joe,” President Joe Biden blessed his would-be successor, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Hillary Clinton spoke of shattering the “glass ceiling.” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., a pastor, delivered a speech saying that “a vote is a kind of prayer.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasia Cortez, D-N.Y., criticized Donald Trump as a “two-bit union-buster” to cheers of “AOC, AOC” (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez).
This was the big show in the circus of the hypocrites. Those hypocrites ignored the fact that tens of thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in solidarity with Palestinians. The silence persisted despite a possibility that Harris’s campaign could pay a price of over half a million votes in crucial swing states, most importantly Michigan, for refusing to stop the arms delivery to Israel.
When genocide Joe spoke, one small group silently raised a white banner reading “Stop Arming Israel.” But this banner was drowned by chants of “We Love Joe” from the surroundings, and the banner was ripped away,
Ocasio-Cortez said, “Kamala is working tirelessly for a ceasefire,” in contrast to the Biden–Harris administration’s record—to thunderous applause. Since Harris accepted the presidential nomination, the US administration has approved a $20 billion weapons sale to Israel without any conditions.
In his speech, Biden said: “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” Really, Mr. Biden? In case you have forgotten, Israel is the one that commits genocide by weapons you deliver.
Outside the hall the Uncommitted campaign took place. According to reports, hundreds attended and listened to accounts from doctors who had worked in Gaza’s decimated hospitals, where a vast number of the patients who arrive are maimed children.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a Palestinian American surgeon who treated patients in Gaza, told the story of a little boy who had lost all of his family members and said he wished to die too because everybody he loved “is now in heaven.”
Doctor Haj-Hassan said that even the children who she had been able to treat and discharge successfully would leave the hospital to face potential death because of bombings, starvation, and dehydration. There were, she said, “alarming reports” of the first confirmed cases of childhood polio in Gaza.
The protesters, who have come to Chicago, are unsatisfied by a sidelined convention panel. Some demand conditioning weapons provisions to Israel. Others called for the arms embargo, which was called for by uncommitted delegates and more than 200- groups in the Coalition to march on the Convention.
It is the time to understand that there is nothing to expect of Haris and the imperialist twin parties. It is the time to form an independent workers’ party that can be developed into a revolutionary party. Let us remember the words of Eugine Debs: “The Democrats and the Republicans are the enemy of the workers.”
The Democratic and the Republican parties are the parties of the enemy/
No vote for Trump or Haris!
For an independent workers’ party!
For Palestine, red and free from the river to the sea!