Were The Pro-Palestinian Rallies A Bust?

Dems May Have Lost the Palestinian Vote Anyway

Were the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention a bust? Promoters of the Palestinian rallies in Chicago claimed  more than 100,000 protesters could descend on the city and perhaps even disrupt the convention.

But the pro-Palestinian rallies reportedly drew only about 3,500 people, according to city officials.

The results were in stark contrast to what Hatem Abudayyeh, the march’s main spokesman, had predicted.  He told local Chicago media, “It’ll be the largest protest in the history of Chicago for Palestinian rights.”

After the dismal showing, Abudayyeh tried to be outwardly upbeat. “We were the show,” he claimed. “The excitement was happening out here in the streets,” he told. reporters.

A vast anti-Democratic Party coalition was organized under the banner, “March on the DNC.” The size of coalition consisted of more than 200 pro-Palestinian, Marxist, anti-imperialist and progressive groups. They called President Biden “Genocide Joe” and Kamala Harris “Killer Kamala.”

It’s likely that the Democrats didn’t lose much by ignoring the radical protesters who were outside the hall.

Some groups hinted at the possibility of violence too. And as we all know, the national media was quick to compare 2024 Chicago to 1968 Chicago. 

In 1968, approximately ten thousand people were in the streets outside the Democratic National Convention protesting the Vietnam War.  Many violently clashed with Chicago police.  Live on national television, Americans saw violence and brutal beatings. One hundred protesters and 119 officers were injured. Six hundred New Left radicals were arrested.

Enthused about the possibilities this year,  one radical group called “Behind Enemy Lines” exhorted followers to “Make it great like 68!” 

But no one seemed to notice that there were some hints that privately, organizers were anticipating - or fearing  - a very low turnout. The tell?  Rally organizers ordered only six porta potties for their two large rally sites.

So, what does this spectacular  failure mean for this new radical movement that mushroomed so quickly before our own very eyes?  

As we now know, pro-Palestinian protesters launched major disruptions throughout the country. They took over bridges, disrupted public events and defaced public buildings.  And, of course, they created sprawling encampments on college  campuses.

So, how big is this failure?

Ryan Mauro, a follower of extremist groups for the non-profit Capital Research Center, told me the failure was remarkable and that the organizers cannot spin it otherwise. The anti-Israel and anti-American activists have to be very depressed, Mauro said.

“The turnout failure has to be incredibly demoralizing for the extremist coalition that hyped the numbers of expected attendees to over 100,000. There’s simply no way they can spin this into a positive thing,” he said.

“Their members and supporters are gullible enough to fall for the coalition’s anti-American propaganda, but they aren’t gullible enough to fall for some line depicting the protests as a success. This was an ideological defeat for them—plain and simple.”   

The low turnout was especially interesting because Cook County, which includes Chicago, has more Palestinian residents than any other county in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  More than 23,000 live in the Chicago metropolitan area, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Only about a dozen miles away from downtown Chicago is one of the largest Palestinian communities called Bridgeview, Illinois. It is an enclave popularly known as “Little Palestine.” Its downtown includes hookahs, Muslim restaurants and many Palestinian-owned local shops as well as a major mosque.

It seems as if organizers could have bussed in local residents to supplement their rallies.  But clearly, few local Palestinians and Muslims were interested in traveling to nearby Chicago.

Mauro noted that many of the demonstrators were young. It seems that older Muslims didn’t participate in large numbers, even if it was a short hop. This prospect of a generation gap within the Muslim community is interesting.

However, inside the convention hall, Democratic leaders may have created another electoral problem for themselves with the larger Palestinian community.

At the convention, about thirty pro-Palestinian “uncommitted” Democratic delegates attempted to get a speaker before the convention. 

After receiving nothing but silence from Democratic leaders, they held a sit-in outside the hall. In the end, Harris’ advisers denied any speaker on the main dais to address Palestinian issues.

This deeply angered the pro-Palestinian delegates. It could have a measurable impact in some swing states if there is a very tight election, especially in swing states.

Last year Axios noted that Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania all have “notable pockets” of Arab-Americans and Muslims.

But the pro-Palestinian delegates felt they were decidedly dissed by the Democratic Party honchos. One of the potential pro-Palestinian speakers was Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American and a Democratic member of the Georgia House of Representatives. 

“The message I’m personally getting, frankly, is that nothing we do is ever going to be good enough,” she told Vox about the Democratic Party. “So how do I go back [to Georgia] and make the argument to people that I know that this is a party worth vouching for and trusting,” she said in an interview.

Moreover, a Muslim group backing Vice President Harris for the 2024 election called Muslim Women for Harris-Walz withdrew their support for the Democratic ticket when no Palestinian speaker was approved for the convention.

They said convention organizers were “making a tragic mistake”, adding, “We cannot in good conscience, continue Muslim Women for Harris-Walz.”

Ali Harb, writing for the Qatari-based news outlet Al Jazeera claimed that the Harris aides may have made a significant mistake. “Democrats were eager for the show to go on as they rallied around Harris. Palestine, for them, did not appear to be a priority. The war on Gaza and those bringing the issue to the convention seemed an afterthought, if not a nuisance,” Harb reported

“Virtually every pro-Palestinian advocate and protester Al Jazeera spoke to at the convention had the same message: ‘We are not going away,’” he wrote from Chicago.

Veteran pollster John Zogby, the president and founder of the polling company John Zogby Strategies points out that he saw as early as April “almost a destruction of the Democratic brand among Arab Americans and Muslim Americans because of Gaza.”

Abdallah Fayyad a correspondent at Vox also reporting from Chicago wrote,  “The problem for the Democratic Party is that while it pitches itself to be a big tent, it’s now falling short of actually walking the walk.”

In an Al Jazeera opinion post by Dalia Mogahed and Saher Selod after the convention, they noted that Biden in 2020 “won Georgia by just 12,000 votes, a state where more than 61,000 Muslims voted, and Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes, where 125,000 Muslims voted.”

It’s still unclear if the pro-Palestinian movement is in decline.  And many universities are bracing for a new round of encampments and other disruptions. 

A federal judge in California recently ruled that the blocking of campus facilities to Jews – including outdoor quads, libraries and classrooms – was illegal, violating the Free Exercise Clause in the First Amendment.  The clause prohibits public institutions, including public universities, from interfering with an individual’s religion.

And the extremists outside of college campuses are not going away.  They might continue to try to block roads, deface homes and buildings, attack pro-Israel advocates and organizations as well as attack Jewish students and faculty.

Just last week, Campus Road, one of the busiest sections of Cornell University’s campus, was spray painted with anti-Israel and antisemitic messages, the latest incident to has embroiled the Ivy League campus.  Is this the beginning of a dark Fall Semester across the land?

The escalation in the Middle East also may trigger a number of other ugly incidents. Anti-Jewish attacks have been reported throughout Europe since October 7. Over the past weekend, an arson attack was reported against a French synagogue by an Algerian.

We are entering uncharted territory.