DNC 2024: New Democratic Party platform shuns US arms embargo on Israel
The Democratic Party has adopted its party platform ahead of the US presidential election in November, and despite pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanding Kamala Harris impose an arms embargo on Israel, the 92-page document makes no mention of halting weapons to the country.
Rather, the party platform touts the "2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad". The 2016 memorandum refers to the Israeli-US agreement signed under former President Barack Obama, which gives Israel $3.8bn in US military aid each year. The memorandum runs until 2028.
The platform was approved on Monday, the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and its section on the Middle East appeared similar to a leaked draft of the platform seen by Middle East Eye last month.
The platform also lists examples of Biden's unwavering support for Israel's war on Gaza, including the sending of arms shipments and providing a diplomatic shield for Israel at the United Nations during votes for a ceasefire and regarding concerns about human rights violations.
The platform says Biden's ceasefire proposal would create conditions for a "better future for the Palestinian people". At the same time, it leaves out a major demand from progressives, which is to condition US military aid to Israel.
In terms of the broader Middle East, the Democratic Party platform praises Biden for ensuring the Gaza war does not lead to a wider conflict in the region. Since 7 October, several regional countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, and Iraq have all seen violence spillover into their territories.
The platform's core focus regarding the Middle East is to further advance the normalisation deals Israel signed with several Arab nations under the Trump administration, but the platform makes no mention of Trump's brokering of those agreements.
Israel's war on Gaza has continued for 10 months, and so far, Israeli forces have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, half of whom are women and children, according to the official toll from the Palestinian health ministry. However, one estimate published in an esteemed medical journal said the death toll could exceed more than 180,000 Palestinians.
Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted Palestinian civilians and attacked hospitals, schools, mosques, and UN shelters in Gaza.
At the beginning of the war, the US moved quickly to expedite the transfer of weapons to Israel, and the party platform touts how Biden worked with US Congress to pass $14bn worth of arms sales to Israel.
Biden's approach to Israel has led to mass pro-Palestinian protests all across the US, which have continued more than ten months into the war on Gaza.
Recent polling shows widespread disapproval of the president's approach, with 57 percent of respondents to a New York Times/Siena College poll saying they are at odds with his handling of the war.
Since Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris has become the new Democratic nominee for president, pro-Palestinian protesters have demanded that Harris commit to an arms embargo on Israel.
Prior to the vice president speaking at a rally in Detroit, a group of activists with the Uncommitted Campaign announced that they spoke with Harris and said she expressed an openness to meeting with them to discuss an arms embargo on Israel.
However, shortly after, Harris's aides shut down any notion that she would support halting weapons to Israel.
Outside the DNC this week, pro-Palestinian protesters have been marching throughout Chicago with many holding banners saying: "Not Another Bomb", in reference to the demand for an arms embargo on Israel.