US Uncommitted Movement: Harris’s inaction on Gaza makes endorsement impossible

Washington (Quds News Network)- The Uncommitted National Movement, which seeks to pressure the Democratic Party to shift its policy towards Israel amid the ongoing Gaza war, said they will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the US presidency over her inaction on Gaza.

In a virtual press conference on Thursday morning, senior leaders from the Uncommitted National Movement made it clear that they will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the US presidency, but more importantly, that they discourage any moves that could lead to a second Trump administration – namely voting for a third party candidate.

The group said Harris’s team had failed to respond to its request for a meeting with representatives and families of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip by a September 15 deadline.

The group has been pushing for Harris to agree to suspend American weapons transfers to Israel during the war, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since October 7.

“Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing US and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her,” the Uncommitted National Movement said.

“Our movement cannot endorse the vice president,” Abbas Alawieh, one of the Uncommitted National Movement’s leaders, said during the conference.

“At this time, our movement opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of antiwar organising,” Alawieh said.

“And our movement is not recommending a third-party vote in the presidential election, especially as third-party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency, given our country’s broken Electoral College system.”

Layla Elabed, an uncommitted leader and the sister of Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, said the group will not leverage its wide network to mobilize voters for Harris even as they continue to advocate for Palestinians and for other down-ballot issues.

“An endorsement is a very specific thing,” Elabed said during the virtual news conference. “It would mean that we would come out and mobilise thousands of voters.”

The Uncommitted National Movement leaders recounted their personal struggles in determining how to cast their votes as they watched their own families struggle to survive in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Elabed, a Democrat, said with family in the occupied West Bank, “I can’t make the decision to vote for Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket.”

“But I also would never vote for someone like Donald Trump,” she said.

Lexis Zeidan, another leader of the movement, said she felt the Harris campaign was “courting people like Dick Cheney” while pushing aside key segments of the Democratic base.

Cheney, the former Republican vice president under President George W Bush and one of the main architects of the US’s “global war on terror” of the 2000s, recently endorsed Harris for president.

Meanwhile, Zeidan said the Harris campaign is “sidelining these disillusioned antiwar voices, even pushing them to consider third-party votes or to sit this incredibly important election out”.

Alawieh echoed that, saying the Harris campaign had put many voters in an impossible position. But he stressed that the group’s advocacy would not stop.

“Our organising around the presidential election was never about endorsing a specific candidate,” he said. “It’s always been about building a movement that saves lives.”