The Chicago DNC Protests: All Palestine, All The Time

As even the New York Times is acknowledging, Palestinian special interest groups have taken over all the other special interest groups to become the Most Special Special Interest Group protesting both inside and outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  I drove to Chicago a few days ago to watch the demonstrations.  Even though I witnessed a similar flagrant and pro-Hamas terrorist takeover of the “Stop Cop City” movement in Atlanta several months ago, I was surprised by the thoroughness of the Palestinian activist takeover here.

The first protest in Chicago was held yesterday, the day before the Democratic Convention.  As a pre-convention event, it was a sort of a sop from the city to two specific Democratic special interest groups: pro-choice feminists and LGBTQ+ activists.  Nevertheless, by the time the protest began, abortion and LGBTQ+ were taking a tiny back seat to the Palestinians, which led to some pretty perplexing images and slogans, since neither feminists nor gay activists are especially welcomed by Islamists.  And to be entirely clear, the USPCN, or U.S. Palestinian Community Network, (or, suddenly, the first organization listed on all the flyers for the entire Coalition to March on the DNC), is radical Islamist to its core.  Hattam Abudayyem, who is the National Chair for USPCN, recently bemoaned the fact that the current Mayor of Chicago wasn’t Jewish, because then they could really throw down on the streets of Chicago.  Or, as Hattam colorfully put it:

“I wish it was Rahm Emanuel [who was still Mayor of Chicago], because in a battle with a Zionist Pig like him, I know that we knock people like him over the head.”

It’s important to understand the significance of having someone who casually calls senior Democratic Party strategist Rahm Emanuel a “Zionist Pig” acting as the spokesperson, not just for his organization, but also as an official — and the most prominent — spokesperson for the entire Coalition to March on the DNC 2024.  Everything suddenly seems less … joyful now, doesn’t it?

Hatem Abudayyeh … speaks after a [DNC protest] status hearing on June 25, 2024. Credit: Melody Mercado/Block Club Chicago

Inside the Convention, consternation is brewing about the “uncommitted delegates” who want promises to pressure Israel into a ceasefire.  But the Democratic Party is nothing if not the Party of wag the dog, and virtually all the dogs are wagging as they should.  What Democratic voters across America will see on their tv screens is a sanitized image of unity, with the war in Gaza being stage-managed in the same way the transfer of the candidacy to Kamala Harris was carefully sanitized and stage-managed.  They will likely not see Hatem Abudayyeh calling Jewish people “Zionist Pigs,” and if they do, they will likely not know how much power the man and his brand of extremist Islamism holds over a substantial portion of activist Leftists and even mainstream Democratic interest groups who are willing to join him in the streets.

If five right-wing Republican activists stood outside the Republican National Convention chanting about wiping Israel off the map, which is what From the River to the Sea really means, and what has already been chanted at the DNC’s hijacked feminist and LGBTQ+ march yesterday, the entire Republican Party, and anyone who votes Republican, anywhere, would be labeled Nazis and anti-semites.  The mainstream media would rush in to help keep that image in the forefront of reporting for the entire election cycle.

Instead, the protest yesterday was described as a gathering of diverse activists just marching together, and because they didn’t break anything, the entire event was cheered as “peaceful.”

And this is why what is happening among the activists on the streets outside the Convention offers far more insight into the real stakes of the election.  Feminists who wouldn’t hesitate to call any Republican a woman-hater are submitting to a radical Islamist movement that doesn’t even recognize their basic humanity.  Feminists are literally carrying signs for an Islamic Caliphate that would stone them to death for being raped.  LGBTQ+ activists who would be thrown off the tops of buildings for being gay under Islam are carrying signs for them too.  News photos from the purloined (feminist/gay/lesbian/reproductive rights/trans) protest, some of which can be seen here, at first just seem utterly incongruous, with slogans like “Rights for the Gays, Gals, and Our Palestine [Pals]?” “Trans Rights are Palestinian Rights,” “Reproductive Justice Means Free Palestine,” and “Resistance is Justified, From Stonewall to Palestine.”  But there’s nothing new about the tactics the Palestinians are using to take over the entire activist Left in America.  It is 1968 all over again, as I’ll explain later this week.  Note that these signs are professionally produced, and they weren’t printed yesterday.  Radical Islamists whose goal isn’t an end to a war but to erase Israel from the map from the river to the sea, have taken over an entire week of protests that were intended to represent many causes that affect many Americans — in America.

This was not actually a peaceful protest.  Nothing was broken, but it was nonetheless a show of brute strength and a demand for complete submission.  This isn’t just happening to Israelis: it is happening in Canada, the UK, Europe, Africa, and America.  The Democratic Party strategists watching from inside the Democratic Convention are taking careful note of how the protests go, not because they’re actually worried about the residents of Chicago, and especially the police, being subjected to violence or riots: they are watching to see precisely how to calibrate their Party’s obscure messaging on the Middle East to gratify the only important protesters.

This wasn’t a demonstration for peace in the Middle East: it was a demonstration of how easy it was for the Palestinians to take over the entire activist Left in Chicago and make them submit.  They’ve done it on the streets.  Will they do it inside the Convention Hall?  Have they done it already?  Given the utter lack of transparency demonstrated so far by the Democratic Party in selecting and deselecting their candidate, we probably won’t find out until long after the election in November.