Harris had already shown in Phoenix that she hears the voices from the pro-Palestinian camp. “We are here to fight for our democracy, and that includes respecting the voices we hear here,” she told hecklers. But whether words alone are enough to reach voters, especially young ones, remains to be seen. “We consider them part of the government,” Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesman for the Coalition to March on the DNC and the national chairman of the US Palestinian Community Network, told The Hill. “We consider the policy of clear diplomatic and political, military and financial support for Israel to be the policy of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
On Saturday, protesters gathered in San Francisco outside an event to raise money for Harris. “Hands off the Middle East,” read the signs. And one of the hecklers from Detroit, Salma Hamamy, made it clear in an interview what was at stake for Harris: “If she plans to come to Michigan – because it is such a crucial swing state in the election – she must understand that there is a primary issue for voters in Michigan.” And that is the Biden administration’s stance on the Palestine issue. “And if she does not take decisive steps forward – or at least take a moral position – then there will be a movement that she will have to face,” warned the demonstrator, who is herself one of the leaders of the protest movement at the University of Michigan.
In recent polls, Harris was ahead of Trump in Michigan, a state with a large Arab-American population that forms a core of the movement that in March gave Biden a lesson over his Gaza policy.
