This, despite the US being the bastion of world Zionism and the foremost aider and abettor of the war of genocide Israel has been waging in Gaza since October 2023. Yet the Democratic National Convention (DNC) that convened last month in Chicago to nominate Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ presidential candidate was an occasion for demonstrating unprecedented popular sympathy with the Palestinian people. The mounting pressure compelled Harris to recognise a principle no presidential candidate has acknowledged before. In her acceptance speech she stated that the Palestinian people had a right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination. While some of these words may be open to interpretation, the right to self-determination has been clearly established under international law.

After the convention, Harris engaged Brenda Abdelall, an Egyptian-American lawyer, to lead her campaign’s outreach to the Arab-American community, underscoring the importance of the Arab- American vote in this year’s election. This too is a precedent since this community and its concerns have been invariably ignored in previous elections. In large measure, this is because the community is not politically united. This changed with the huge outpouring of support for Palestine, and the horror and outrage at the Biden administration’s backing of Israel’s war on Gaza shared by large swathes of the US public, including younger Jews, lent impetus to the Palestinian/Arab American-led protest movement.

As vice president, Harris is part of the Biden administration. But since throwing her hat in the presidential ring, she has tried to distance herself from that administration’s policy by emphasising the need for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the war, acknowledging the Palestinian right to self-determination. Then, soon after kicking off her election campaign, Harris scheduled a visit to Michigan, home to one of the largest Arab and Muslim communities in the US. Her Arab-American point person Abdelall had lived in Michigan for many years as a student at the University of Michigan and then the University of Michigan Law School to which she returned some years later as an instructor. Closely connected with communities of colour and religious minorities, Abdelall also worked for Muslim Advocates as director of a programme to strengthen charities, which served more than 1,500 charities across the US.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 12 September, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly