As Israel’s ongoing assault on the densely populated Gaza Strip intensified over the previous 12 months, so too did a nascent however shortly mobilized motion of pro-Palestinian activists. For them, the 2024 election provided an ideal discussion board to leverage their opposition to the battle. Working largely underneath the broad banner of the Uncommitted motion, activists and allies focused predominantly Democratic lawmakers within the hopes that grassroots electoral strain may shift the social gathering’s assist for the Israeli offensive. The motion additionally sought to endear themselves to voters who would possibly in any other case sit out what they noticed as a zero-sum alternative between Donald Trump’s overt xenophobia and the Democrats’ permissive stance towards Israel.
It was a bet that appears to have failed spectacularly. Not solely has the Biden administration barely shifted from its staunch pro-Israel insurance policies, however the incoming Trump administration has wasted little time positioning itself as much more hostile to pro-Palestinian activists each at house and overseas. Because of this, lots of these activists who strategically withheld their votes and endorsements for Vice President Kamala Harris should now grapple with the oblique penalties of these selections. On the similar time, the disaster in Gaza which animated them within the first place has continued unabated.
Confronted with the unambiguous hostility of the incoming Republican administration, and the frustration of many centrist Democrats who blame the Uncommitted motion and its allies for contributing to their electoral loss, the place do pro-Palestinian activists go from right here?
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‘The canary within the coal mine’
“Our group is about to be subjected to much more surveillance and violence,” Uncommitted organizer Abbas Alawieh stated to NPR after Trump’s re-election. “Our group will not be alone in that.”
Within the Uncommitted motion’s epicenter of Dearborn, Michigan — the place Trump’s decisive win marked town’s first GOP presidential victory since 2000 — there’s a “complicated mixture of disbelief and cautious curiosity,” with residents “questioning what Trump will do for Palestinians,” stated Slate. “I feel he’ll goal us,” Alawieh stated to the outlet. “That is what he’ll do. He will goal our households, and it will harm.” And with simply weeks to go earlier than Trump is inaugurated, “all his rhetoric and appointments are indicating that his marketing campaign’s vow to crack down on pro-Palestinian sentiment in America shall be a defining issue of his administration’s early days,” stated Haaretz’s Ben Samuels.
Professional-Palestinian activism is “in some ways, the canary within the coal mine,” stated Adalah Justice Undertaking Government Director Sandra Tamari to Politico. “So our organizations are underneath extra threats, as a result of what all these authoritarian forces would like to do is to close down any dissent within the nation.”
‘Some self-criticism is due’
Trump’s re-election is “scary,” stated Palestinian American coverage analyst and author Abdelhalim Abdelrahman to NBC Information, however “I am not prepared to leap the gun simply but.” Whereas there’ll probably be “a whole lot of pro-Israel rhetoric,” there shall be a “little bit extra diplomacy” as properly. That is notably true given the function of Massad Boulos, father-in-law to first daughter Tiffany Trump, and the president-elect’s marketing campaign envoy to Michigan’s Arab and Muslim group, who will “have a bit of bit extra operational freedom than folks notice on this administration.” Requested whether or not there are methods rising from advocates for influencing the Trump administration” away from a few of its extra excessive surrogates, Slate’s Aymann Ismail stated the “Lebanese American in Dearborn who invited Trump to a restaurant” in the course of the marketing campaign, permitting him to fulfill with group members, “shall be notably essential, particularly after we take into consideration what little affect shall be accessible to Trump to attempt to steer him away from persevering with the continuing onslaught that is occurring in Palestine.”
On the similar time, “some self-criticism is due within the pro-Palestinian motion,” stated Arab American Institute founder and longtime Democratic Nationwide Committee operative James Zogby to Politico. By “not enabling themselves to assist Harris” within the wake of their unsuccessful effort to position a Palestinian-American speaker onstage on the Democratic Nationwide Conference, activists “boxed themselves right into a nook.” To that finish, with “much less leverage in Washington” than underneath the Biden administration, activists will “shift to extra native political ways, together with financial strain campaigns like boycotts, supporting protests and group organizing,” stated Politico.
