Pro-Palestinian protesters increasingly angry as DNC ignores their demands

CHICAGO — Anti-Israel protesters’ fury at Democrats grew after the convention featured on stage the parents of a Jewish hostage in Gaza but refused to put a pro-Palestinian voice in the spotlight.

“The Palestinian perspective should be heard in that building, especially because, there are [not only] Palestinians and Arabs in this country who are protesting the genocide, but who also consider themselves part of the Democratic Party,” Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesman for the March on the DNC that organized protests outside the Democratic National Convention, said on Thursday.

Bennett Weiss, 76, a retired jeweler from upstate New York who was protesting outside the DNC, said: “It’s disgusting. For a party that claims to be the more left party, you would think that they would at least throw us a bone.”

On Wednesday, DNC officials rejected a request to give a pro-Palestinian activist a speaking slot, provoking a sit-in in front of the United Center by uncommitted party delegates allied with the Palestinian cause.

At an impromptu press conference announcing the protest, Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan, called the Kamala Harris campaign by phone.

“Tell the vice president that I’m sitting outside, I’m not going anywhere, I hope she changes her mind — the Palestinian children need to be heard,” Ms. Alawieh said as she sat on the pavement with her fellow protesting delegates.

Adding to the protesters’ rage, the DNC on Wednesday welcomed on stage Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg whose son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was taken hostage during the Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and remains captive in Gaza.

They called for a cease-fire deal and the return of the 109 remaining Hamas hostages.

Demonstrators who descended on the Windy City calling for a permanent cease-fire and arms embargo in Gaza have been marching nightly since DNC delegates arrived on Sunday.

Albert, 67, a retired therapeutic outdoor educator from Philadelphia who joined the protest, said the Democratic Party was full of “moral cowards.”

“If you cannot see the absolute justice of the Palestinian cause and their victimization by genocide, then you’re a moral coward, and the Democratic Party is guilty of that cowardice,” he said.