A quiet diplomatic effort to ease tensions with uncommitted delegates and head off televised confrontations inside the Democratic convention hall next week has been underway for months.
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Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan and one of the founders of the Uncommitted protest group, has requested a private meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Thousands of demonstrators are expected in the streets and the parks of Chicago for next week’s Democratic National Convention, most of them to protest the U.S. role in the war in Gaza. But officials are concerned about the potential for a more embarrassing spectacle: prime-time disruptions inside the arena itself.
About 30 uncommitted delegates representing the Democratic primary voters who opposed President Biden — largely over what they see as his tilt toward Israel in the brutal war launched after the Hamas attacks last October — will have unfettered access to make their voices heard. State party leaders, led by Lavora Barnes, the chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party, and Ken Martin, the chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota, have for months worked to defuse tensions and head off a high-profile clash.
Those diplomatic efforts, along with the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris to replace Mr. Biden as the Democratic nominee, have yielded progress, people on both sides said. But as of now, the delegates are still planning to make their presence at the proceedings known, threatening the overwhelming display of unity that Democrats hope to project heading into the fall campaign.
“I have seen a change in their response to the new ticket, a hope and an openness to conversation,” Ms. Barnes said in an interview, both of the uncommitted delegates and of the sizable Arab American community in her pivotal swing state. “I know these folks are anxious to be part of the process, they’re anxious to defeat Donald Trump. They recognize Donald Trump is not part of the answer here.”
In interviews, uncommitted delegates agreed to a point, saying they recognized the threat posed to their communities and to Palestinians by former President Donald J. Trump, whose administration gave the government of Israel all it asked for, and who has used the word “Palestinian” as an epithet. Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his former ambassador to Israel have spoken of plans to press Israel to annex the occupied West Bank and to develop “Gaza’s waterfront property.”
But the delegates have demands that will almost certainly not be met before the convention begins, including a private meeting with Ms. Harris, an arms embargo on Israel; and a change to the Democratic platform moving U.S. foreign policy away from Israel. They have also pushed for privileges related to the convention itself, such as speaking time for delegates, credentials for staff connected to the uncommitted movement, training space inside the hall and a prominent speaking slot for Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor who has volunteered in Gaza.
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