“Welcome to the belly of the beast.” This is how Waleed Shahid greets, in reference to Washington DC, the seat of the American federal government, which has the power to continue to facilitate or not the use of the weapons with which Israel has been committing genocide for more than a year. Gaza. year. Waleed Shahid is a Democratic strategist who recently participated in the National Uncommitted Movement – to not support the Democratic nomination of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris due to their support for Israel – and served as a spokesperson for Justice Democrats for six years, when he played a key role in launching the Green New Deal campaign and electing progressive representatives from the left wing of the Democratic Party like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Summer Lee. Shahid was a senior advisor to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s election campaign and worked for Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Barely a week before the American presidential elections, Shahid returns to a key element that the Democratic community is going through: the Israeli genocide in Gaza. “For over a year, there has been an alliance of progressive Democrats, Muslim Democrats and young Arabs pushing for a change in White House policy regarding sending weapons to Israel,” says Shahid : “And nothing has changed substantially in the context. last year, neither by Joe Biden nor by Kamala Harris. “There is a lot of despair among core Democratic Party voters, and that deeply affects Vice President Harris because it diminishes enthusiasm for her campaign among communities that formed Biden’s coalition in 2020 and do not support plus the Harris candidacy.”
Vice President Harris plans to hold a major election on Tuesday on the National Mall in Washington, DC, just between the White House and the Washington Monument – the obelisk. And there, the pro-Palestinian movement called for demonstrations.
“On October 29, Kamala Harris will deliver her campaign speech final argument on the White House Ellipse, right belly of the beast “We are mobilizing to demand an immediate arms embargo and an end to U.S.-backed genocide,” the appeal states: “The Democratic Party and the Biden-Harris Administration have the authority to impose an embargo on arms and immediately stop the genocide in Gaza. , but they refuse to do it. The United States is directly responsible for this suffering, and we refuse to allow Democrats and the Biden-Harris administration to exploit this suffering for political gain as Election Day approaches. Instead of responding to its base, 60% of whom support an arms embargo, the Democratic Party is increasing its support for a Zionism that is drifting toward fascism. Join us at the Washington Monument to send a message to establishment Democrat.”
Shahid acknowledges that she is “deeply concerned about how the vice president’s position of continuing to unconditionally supply weapons to Benjamin Netanyahu is alienating his voters.”
And meanwhile, Donald Trump, at his rallies, appeals to Muslims and Arab Americans saying, “Look at Kamala Harris, she’s aligning herself with Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney, some of the most hawkish and anti-war political figures.” -Muslims of recent history. ‘ .
“Although Donald Trump is a fraud and a liar, he does things to please the community that I don’t think Kamala Harris does,” Shahid reflects: “I’m going to vote for Kamala, but there are a lot of people, not just Muslims and Arabs, but also young people and progressives from all walks of life, many people I know who will not vote for Harris and who voted for Biden in 2020. I fear that many people who care about this question will be disappointed and I will probably vote for other people. [Jill Stein -del Partido Verde- o Cornel West -independiente-, que denuncian el apoyo activo de EEUU a Israel y piden un embargo de armas]”.
He Democratic Mayor of Dearbornfirst American city with an Arab majority, announced last week that it would not seek support for Harris: “I will not support anyone, not even the candidate of my party (…) Let everyone vote according to their moral conscience. When we see the genocide, many of the faces that appear there in Gaza are not unfamiliar to us in Dearborn, they are our family and friends. This is why I took this position.
Can Harris lose on the Palestinian issue?
“I’m very afraid of it,” admits Shahid: “This possibility scares me very much, I know people in my community, among my friends, that this is the first time that they will not vote Democratic. I don’t know if that’s a big enough number, but I think it will have an impact. This election will be close, it’s 50-50, and the Democrats need every vote, but they’re not fighting for the votes of certain communities, of certain groups, of people who care about what happens to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese. » .
Shahid has no hope that any move will be made in the final stretch of the campaign: “His campaign team has established a mathematical and political equation that there could be more reactions from voters and donors if he openly criticized arms transfers to Israel. , and that she has more to lose than to gain by doing so. “He made a decision and I don’t think it will change in the next few days.”
Why is the United States still so committed to Israel? “There are two main reasons,” Shahid reflects: “The first is the well-organized presence of pressure groups, such as AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Council, which mobilizes large numbers of voters, donors and of politicians to ensure that if you question “Sending unconditional arms and diplomatic support to Israel would endanger his political career, which has happened to some people in American politics. »
“And then,” he continues, “the second reason is geopolitical, and it has to do with the fact that in the United States and in the American foreign policy establishment, Israel is considered a key strategic ally in the Middle East in the region. military, financial, commercial sphere… But it is above all a political question: there is a very well organized community and interest groups which want to guarantee that no democratic leader can access political functions if he does not adhere to his position. of AIPAC, one of the largest donors to the Democratic Party’s political campaigns.
Parallels with Vietnam
The movement that has been taking place in the United States since October 7, 2023 against the unconditional sending of weapons to Israel, as well as the demand for a ceasefire, “is probably the largest movement against the war since 2003 , when the invasion of Iraq, or since in the 60s, with Vietnam”, explains Shahid: “Obviously, these are slightly different questions, because at the time there were Americans who were sent to front abroad. But yeah, one of the reasons the Democrats lost the 1968 election was because a lot of young people didn’t want to vote for the Democratic Party because they were in favor of the Vietnam War.”
The parallel is also visible in the fact that while Joe Biden will leave a legacy linked to “some of the greatest economic reforms in recent American history”, it will also be marked by “the supply of weapons to Israel for ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”
“There is a parallel with what happened with President Lyndon Johnson in 1968,” explains the Democratic strategist: “When the Democrats were the party of great social, economic and racial change in the United States. But he also had the black cloud of Vietnam hanging over his head. I see parallels there. The other parallel is that, just as most Americans today view the Vietnam War as a failure and the Iraq War as a failure, perhaps in 10 or 20 years everyone will will report the current error.
Election campaign without idea of country: “Two famous people fighting”
“One of the most unfortunate things is that if you asked most Americans what Kamala Harris’ vision for the country is, they wouldn’t be able to answer it,” Shahid admits: “Beyond the fact that she wants to protect the right to abortion. I’m not saying Kamala Harris doesn’t have a vision, and if you go to her website you’ll find a ton of policies on child care, climate change, and criminal justice reform. But that’s not how the media and everyone else is covering this campaign. It’s covered as if it’s two celebrities fighting, instead of two people with different views of the country and different political recipes. And when democracy doesn’t work, corporations, billionaires, people like Elon Musk, can do whatever they want because there’s no one to hold them accountable.”
The promoter of the Unengaged National Movement says about the role of the media: “I don’t think they cover the elections very well. They cover them up by saying Trump said this and Kamala said that. Not like: “The number one problem for most Americans is health care.” What are your positions on health?
Election forecasts indicate it will take time to know the outcome, and it won’t be the same if Harris or Trump wins: “I don’t think we’ll know on election night who won. It may take a few days, but I hope Kamala wins. I think it will be a close victory, but at the moment, given how many people I know aren’t voting for her, mainly because of Gaza, I’m pretty nervous about whether there will be enough votes. ‘voters, but I think she will win narrowly. In this case, Donald Trump will not recognize his defeat and a constitutional crisis will begin.”
