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KEITH ELLISON KNOWS PEACE IN GAZA IS POSSIBLE, AND HE WANTS DEMOCRATS
TO TALK ABOUT ACHIEVING IT  
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John Nichols
August 20, 2024
The Nation
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_ The Minnesota attorney general will use his speech at the DNC to
call for a deeper dialogue around Palestine. _

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison attends a news conference at
the US Capitol on July 12, 2023., Drew Angerer / Getty Images

 

The Democratic National Convention has surely, and often
frustratingly, wrestled with the question of how to open up an honest
debate about the most contentious issue facing the party in 2024:
American support for the Israeli assault on Gaza.

But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison
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and should entertain a more robust discourse about Gaza. So on
Wednesday night, as part of his scheduled address to the convention on
his work as one of the highest-profile attorneys general in America,
Ellison will encourage a deeper dialogue about ending the Israeli
onslaught that has led to the death of more than 40,000 Palestinians,
and about taking the steps that are needed to achieve peace and
justice in the Middle East.
“I just think that anybody who is an elected official today needs to
create space for a conversation—because this is an existing
catastrophic situation and we can’t ignore it,” Ellison, who in
2006 was the first Muslim elected to Congress and who has visited
Israel and Palestine more than a dozen times, told _The Nation._ “It
is important for the health of our democracy, and for our Democratic
Party to talk about what’s happening in Gaza.”

Supporters of a shift in US poliy have encouraged an expansion of the
convention speaking list so that witnesses to the nightmare in
Gaza—such as Tanya Haj-Hassan
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a pediatrician who has worked in the enclave, and who has recounted
horrific details of the death and destruction there—can bring their
message to the Democratic Party and the country.

Ellison, a former deputy chair of the DNC, knows that top Democrats
are divided over President Joe Biden’s embrace of Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as an _Economist_/YouGov poll
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from May shows that 81 percent of Democrats back a ceasefire. He knows
they also disagree about broader US policies regarding the region, and
about whether the party’s new presidential candidate, Vice President
Kamala Harris, should take a bolder stance in favor of Middle East
peace. And Ellison is experienced enough, as a former state legislator
and member of Congress, and as a two-term statewide official, to
recognize that parties do not always relish airing their differences.

But some issues are too important to be ignored. “A ‘party’
implies a multiple set of views,” the Minnesotan says. “Democrats
have disagreements, and they can discuss those disagreements. That’s
healthy. That’s necessary. The Republicans don’t remotely consider
a debate on these issues. I want Democrats to have that debate, that
discussion.”

As thousands have marched in the streets of Chicago in support of an
end to the Israeli assault on Gaza—which accelerated after the
October 7 attack by Hamas—Ellison and other Democratic advocates for
Middle East peace have sought to expand the debate inside the
convention.

On Monday, Ellison joined ceasefire supporters at an event where
several hundred delegates and allies who identify as “Democrats for
Palestinian Rights” heard a panel discussion
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that was described as the first such event to be officially scheduled
as part of a Democratic National Convention. “[The panel] is not the
prize. The prize is a change in policy,” said one of the panelists
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Arab American Institute president James Zogby
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“But,” added Zogby
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a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee’s executive
committee who has advised numerous Democratic presidents and
presidential candidates, “what is historic here is we are having an
officially sanctioned panel to talk about it.”

Many of those who participated in the discussion—which took place
inside McCormick Place, a huge hall where the party is holding many of
its convention-related events—were active with the Uncommitted
Movement [[link removed]], which won more than
700,000 votes in Democratic primaries this year and sent three dozen
delegates to Chicago.

The officially recognized Uncommitted delegates are outspoken
advocates for a ceasefire and an arms embargo against Israel. But
their numbers do not reflect the full measure of support within the
convention hall for a fundamental shift in US policy. Indeed, on
Monday night, when Biden addressed the convention, a small
pro-ceasefire demonstration was seen in the stands.

Roughly 200 delegates have indicated their support for a petition that
asks Harris—who will accept the party’s nomination on
Thursday—to endorse an arms embargo against Israel. Doing so would
go far beyond the language of the platform that delegates adopted
Monday night, which proposed no significant deviation from current
policy.

A coalition of “ceasefire delegates”—which includes both
uncommitted delegates and a significant number of Harris
backers—will continue to push for this convention’s nominee to
make a clear break with the stance of Biden and past Democratic
presidents.

They are making that case for moral reasons, but also for practical
political purposes. Since taking over from Biden as the party’s
candidate, Harris has repeatedly expressed support for ongoing
negotiations to achieve a ceasefire—saying
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“We’ve got to get a ceasefire and we’ve got to get these
[Israeli] hostages out…”

On Monday night, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York
told
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the convention crowd, as part of an enthusiastic pro-Harris speech,
“She is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring
hostages home.” In his speech, President Biden also referenced
ceasefire negotiations—“I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza”—and
even made a brief reference to Monday’s demonstrations: “Those
protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent
people are being killed on both sides.”

But the delegates who identify as “Democrats for Palestinian
Rights” want a more concrete statement from Harris.

“We need Vice President Harris to tell us how she would act
differently,” says
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Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Dearborn, Michigan, where
the city’s large Arab American population gave an initial boost to
the movement. In a statement released Monday, Alawieh and Layla
Elabed, the cofounders of the Uncommitted Movement, thanked the DNC
for working with them to organize the panel discussion on Gaza. But
they added [[link removed]],
“Our focus remains on policy change. Vice President Harris has an
opportunity to unite the party against Trump this week by turning the
page toward a human rights policy that saves lives and helps us
reengage with voters for whom Gaza is a top issue. We will keep
pushing for our party’s leadership to break away from its current
financing of Israel’s horrific assault on Gaza and military rule
over Palestinians.”

For his part, Ellison is an enthusiastic supporter of Harris and the
party’s vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with
whom he has worked closely.

But Ellison adds, “I am a strong believer in [a] ceasefire. I’ve
been to Gaza at least three times since 2009. I have been calling for
ending this blockade of Gaza for over a decade.”

Through it all, Ellison has maintained a faith that peace is possible.

“I reject the idea that Israelis and Palestinians cannot live in
that place together. They can,” he says. “I remember growing up
and hearing—it seemed like every single day—about bombs going off
in Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Then people finally said, ‘This has
to stop!’ And it has stopped. So, yes, peace is possible. And we
need to talk about how to achieve it.”

_Note: This piece initially said Ellison would be speaking on Tuesday.
He will be speaking on Wednesday._ _The piece has been updated to
reflect this._

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_Copyright c 2024 The Nation. Reprinted with permission. May not be
reprinted without__ permission_
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Distributed by__ _PARS International Corp
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* Democratic National Convention; Minnesota Attorney General Keith
Ellison; Ceasefire; Palestine;
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