Rawaa pomegranate, who She is Palestinian-American and the first Muslim woman to serve in the Georgia House of Representatives, and had hoped to deliver a speech on Palestine at the Democratic National Convention.
“It was a great honor to be considered,” she said. Rolling Stone Thursday.
But on Wednesday night, the Uncommitted Movement learned that the Democratic National Convention would not give them a chance to speak on the main stage. The Uncommitted Movement represents more than 700,000 voters who voted “uncommitted” during the Democratic presidential primary campaign in support of Palestine, demanding a ceasefire and an end to U.S. arms shipments to Israel. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas, following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
The movement’s voters could be particularly crucial in Michigan, where more than 100,000 Democratic primary voters were identified as “uncommitted.” The Democratic National Committee has offered several untelevised forums for the Uncommitted Movement this week, but has refused to let the group put a speaker on stage — not even Roman, a Democratic senator from Georgia, a key battleground state.
“The reality of the situation is that we’re really asking for the bare minimum,” Roman said. “This was a symbolic gesture. This was supposed to be something we could step back from and say, ‘Look, the party is listening.’”
Before the non-committal movement realized it wouldn't get a chance to speak, Roman said its leaders “were relieved that we saw the families of the Israeli hostages invited to the podium. So we thought it was over.”
Thursday, mother jones The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a draft of the speech Roman had hoped to deliver. In it, she spoke of the devastation she felt as a result of “being a moral witness to the massacres in Gaza.”
“But in that pain,” she wrote, “I also witnessed something profound—a beautiful, multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-generational coalition emerging from the despair within our Democratic Party.”
“We have stood together for 320 days, demanding that our laws be applied to friends and foes alike, to reach a ceasefire, to end the killing of Palestinians, to free all Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and security. That is why we are here – members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we are doing here resonates around the world.”
Part of Roman’s frustration was that former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan spoke Wednesday. Duncan, a Republican, opposes abortion.
“He’s a Republican, an anti-choice Republican, and in this big tent that we’ve been building all week, there was no room for me,” she said.
Roman intended to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in her speech. “Let’s stick together, elect Vice President Harris, and defeat Donald Trump, who uses my Palestinian identity as an insult,” she said in the draft.
Referencing President Barack Obama’s most famous slogan, Clinton said: “To those who doubt us, to those who are skeptical and pessimistic: Yes we can — yes we can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not endless wars. And that fights for an America that belongs to all of us — black and brown and white, Jewish and Palestinian, all of us, as my grandfather taught me, together.”
