Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) echoed sentiments that the Democratic National Convention “missed an opportunity” by not having a Palestinian speaker discuss the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
During the four nights of the DNC, the parents of an Israeli American being held hostage by Hamas spoke, but “uncommitted” delegates were not given a speaking slot to allow anti-Israel activists to speak. Lee, who has been a fierce critic of Israel, agreed with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who had posted that not including a Palestinian speaker was a “tragic mistake,” when she spoke on CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
“I think that, whether it’s the Black lives movement or the movement for Palestinian rights, there’s always this rush to say that their movement, the ways that they protest, the tactics, the strategies are inconvenient,” Lee said. “And I think that that’s just the way that we’ve done it, especially when we’re nervous about a presidential election that we all know is incredibly important.”
She also emphasized that while Democrats’ top concern is beating former President Donald Trump in November, there was still an opportunity to have someone speak from the other side of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“We missed an opportunity to do that here. And in doing so, what we are essentially saying is that every Palestinian thinks the exact same way, that all folks who are protesting who are voicing their concerns are one group, and not individuals, not all folks who are coming with different perspectives,” she added.
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Protests against Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party’s stance on the war in Gaza were held during the DNC, but they were fairly minor in their impact on the convention and the proceedings in Chicago.
During Harris’s nomination acceptance speech, she reiterated a call for the release of the hostages along with a ceasefire and a two-state solution between Israel and Gaza.
