UNION PARK, CHICAGO | On Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, protestors rolled out in droves to Union Park, kicking off day one of the Democratic National Convention with a large-scale Pro-Palestine protest run by a Coalition of around 270 different organizations that all “fight for the rights and liberation of oppressed people,” according to a press release from the Coalition.
Hatem Abudayyeh, Coalition Spokesperson and National Chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, said the coalition wasn’t expecting to achieve an arms embargo or Harris advocating for a ceasefire within the four days of the convention.
“But what you do get is the Democrats recognising that this is real, not just that the movement is real, but that it is [also] big,” Abudayyeh said, estimating that around 20,000 people of all ages, races, religions and affinities were present at the protest.
“When have we ever seen all of these different sectors in one place? [And they’re all] ultimately saying that the central issue today in the United States is Palestine and Gaza and the genocide, and that we have to stop it,” Abudayyeh said.
Since October 7th, more than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including nearly 17,000 children. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have accused Israel of war crimes and the UN’s Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine has called it genocide.
Joe Lombardo and Sarah Martin, who traveled from New York and Minnesota to participate in the protests, want to ensure that DNC politicians and delegates are forced to face the reality of what’s happening in Gaza – and take action against it.
“The weapons that are being used to kill Palestinians are from the United States,” said Martin.
The U.S. has provided weapons and military funding totaling an estimated $12 billion in the 2024 fiscal year alone, according to a Council on Foreign Relations report, which also states that Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
“You’re supposed to let civilians out of any conflict zone. You can’t deny them food. You can’t deny them water. These are war crimes,” Lombardo said.
In 2023, President Biden’s administration issued a memo declaring that the U.S. would not transfer weapons to “recipients deemed likely to commit serious human rights violations.” Nevertheless, the Biden administration has continued to vocally support Israel and send the bombs that are being used in Gaza.
“It’s really easy in America to kind of just be in your own bubble and not really think about international affairs,” said Rama, a member of both the National and Chicago chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, whose last name has been withheld out of concern for safety. “But at the end of the day, it still comes back home, if it’s our taxpayer money that’s killing our own people or people that aren’t any way related to us.”
Thousands of people filled the 13-plus acre space in Near West Side, in support of the Coalition’s goals of ending U.S. aid to Israel and promoting equity surrounding LGBTQ rights, workers’ rights and reproductive justice – stated more simply as “justice, peace, and equality.”
In respect to the DNC’s presence in Chicago and the Harris-Walz campaign, protesters felt that this was a unique opportunity to make themselves heard by politicians while the Democratic ticket’s policies are still being decided before November’s elections.
“I want to see them cease all aid to Israel in order to secure my vote,” said Michael Wood, of the Minnesota Climate Justice Action Committee.
During Biden’s time in office, Harris came out strong against Israel’s actions in Gaza, calling the conditions there “inhumane” and advocating for an immediate ceasefire of at least six weeks.
Harris later reiterated her own support for Israel, and has refused to denounce the action in Gaza, let alone take any concrete action or a strong stance towards stopping it–or even ceasing the flow of U.S. aid in the form of weaponry sent to Israel.
Wood said his grassroots activist group’s mission also overlaps with the pro-Palestine coalition’s intentions.
“As environmentalists, our work is inextricably linked to the anti-war movement,” Wood said, also pointing out that the U.S. military is the number one polluter on the planet. “In the first two months of ongoing genocide in Palestine, the amount of emissions that were generated by the Israeli military and the US military was greater than the bottom 20 countries annual emissions.”
“In order to be a feminist, you have to be anti-war,” said Nour Odeh, the Palestine Campaigner for CodePink, a feminist nonprofit member-organization of the Coalition. “If you want to advocate for things like reproductive justice, for example, in the U.S., there can’t be bombs dropping on Gaza – because those women won’t have access to reproductive care, or any type of healthcare.”
Members of CodePink were visible in hot pink shirts and keffiyehs, carrying two immense cardboard signs depicting hands dripping with blood.
Danaka Katovich, National Co-Director of CodePink, spoke to her own experience losing her mother to cancer at age 14, and then lacking healthcare for her family – including a chronically ill father and disabled brother.
“I was asking questions like, ‘How could that happen in the richest country in the world?’ And it’s [partly] because we funnel all this money into supporting the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine,” Katovich said, also mentioning the targeting of disabled Palestinians.
Bea, of Palestine Solidarity Grand Rapids, 29, also expressed desire for a ceasefire and a solution where Jews, Christians and Muslims can all coexist in Palestine and Israel, expressing hope that Tim Walz may support a ceasefire.
This historic convention’s theme for Monday, Aug. 19’s speakers was announced in a press release as “For The People.” With DNC caucuses listed for many of the issues that protestors discussed – from LBGTQ+ rights to reproductive healthcare access – but none listed for the issue of Israel-Gaza, members of the Coalition indicated just how clearly they intend to be heard.
And Abudayyeh believes that they were, indeed, heard.
“The world is watching,” said Abudayyeh, “And they were more interested in watching the people on the outside than what was happening inside the convention center.”