A ‘ceasefire delegate’ finds lots to do but little to celebrate at Democratic convention

CHICAGO - Abbas Alawieh knows he’s a bummer of a party guest.

While many of his Democratic friends and colleagues arrived in Chicago to pop bottles of champagne in the morning, dance late into the night with Lil Jon and ring in the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris, Alawieh, 33, can’t bring himself to celebrate.

“I want to feel the joy,” he says, standing on the floor of the United Center on Sunday evening, while a DJ in a bucket hat and sunglasses danced onstage as part of a rehearsal for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. “But I’m feeling too much grief.”

Alawieh is 6-foot-6 with the build of a linebacker. He has a shaved head, doleful eyes and a warm smile that helps explain why so many people who know him describe him as a “gentle giant.” He’s wearing a black-and-white kaffiyeh and a pin that reads: “Ceasefire delegate.”

Alawieh is one of the nearly 4,000 delegates who came to Chicago to cast an honorary vote at this week’s DNC convention. Only he didn’t come here to vote for Harris. During the presidential primary this year, Alawieh helped organize a movement to encourage voters concerned about the United States’ involvement in Israel’s war in Gaza to vote “uncommitted.” In his home state of Michigan, more than 100,000 voters did just that, and Alawieh was selected to serve as one of the state’s two uncommitted delegates — joining about 30 others selected from across the country.

Typically, it might be easy for Democrats to ignore a small fraction of their disillusioned delegates. But Michigan is a state that Donald Trump won by just over 10,000 votes in 2016, and which helped Joe Biden capture the White House in 2020. There’s a world in which the 2024 election could come down to winning over Democrats with commitment issues.

This presents something of a problem inside the confines of the convention, a walled-off Democratic utopian village where delegates and conventioneers chirp about “unity” and “immaculate vibes,” and at times seem to memory-hole the humanitarian crisis that continues in Gaza.

With his official credential in hand, Alawieh is free to pass through the gates and refresh everyone’s memories. He organized a news conference with Palestinian doctors who described the horrors they witnessed treating the victims in Gaza. He helped put together a forum — listed as an official convention program — where panelists shared stories about loved ones lost to war. As Alawieh made his way through the event grounds, he shared some of his own stories too, including the time in 2006 he visited Lebanon — his home until the age of 6 — when war broke out with Israel, and he sheltered in a basement for days, praying he would survive the nearby shelling.

He also came to Chicago bearing requests. Some big: not only for the United States to help negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians but also for Harris to commit to an arms embargo with Israel. Some smaller: to get a Palestinian American speaker on the main stage at the convention and for Harris to offer specific policy proposals related to Gaza in her prime-time speech Thursday.

Not everyone here has taken kindly to the idea of negotiating thorny foreign policy when they see an imminent domestic threat ready to exploit any disunity among Democrats.

“If they throw this election to Donald Trump, it will be them that have blood on their hands,” says Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn).

“They are voting for Trump basically,” says former Republican strategist and Never-Trumper Rick Wilson.

“I’m somebody who was one of the first members of Congress to call for a cease-fire, and I also voted to stop sending Netanyahu more weapons,” says Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), referring to the Israeli prime minister. “But the choice we have is between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. … And Donald Trump doesn’t give a s--- about Gaza, he only cares about himself.”

“I’m a tea party former Republican who is all on board with Kamala Harris,” says Joe Walsh, who served one term as a U.S. Representative from Illinois. “If I can do that, anybody focused on an issue they care about can get on board with that because Trump needs to be defeated.”

The frustration with Alawieh isn’t exactly new. In July, a fellow Michigan delegate told Alawieh to “shut up” on a conference call with the rest of the delegation, and called him “an a--hole.” (In the name of “unity,” of course.) But then again, a couple of weeks later Alawieh received a more-welcome message: He and the co-founder of the uncommitted movement, Layla Elabed, were invited to meet Harris backstage at a campaign rally. There, they asked for a meeting to discuss an arms embargo — a meeting that, according to Alawieh, Harris said she would like to have.

Here at the DNC convention, it can seem like Alawieh can’t take a step without someone chatting him up. At the Michigan delegation breakfast, a Harris delegate asked Alawieh if there might be room for a Zionist in the movement to protect Palestinian lives (the two left the conversation unable to agree on how, but they exchanged numbers, promised to talk in the future, and no one called anyone an a--hole). In the halls of the United Center elected officials such as Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) embraced Alawieh and thanked him for his efforts to save lives. Television bookers were drawn to him like a magnet.

He taped segments with MSNBC and PBS’s “NewsHour” from inside the arena. He was recognized by Jake Tapper before his CNN appearance.

Everywhere Alawieh goes people want to talk to him. But what happens if no one listens? Will he spoil the party?

Let’s just get this out of the way: Alawieh will be voting for Harris in the fall.

“I know that the choice in November is a binary choice, and if I’m in the ballot box and it’s a choice between Trump and Harris, of course I’ll vote for Harris,” he says.

Alawieh understands the perils of a second Trump presidency, but does not worry that he and his crew could find themselves in the role of spoiler.

“It’s the opposite,” he says. The way he sees it, he’s simply giving the Democrats the opportunity to not spoil things for themselves.

He’s talking now from the uncommitted headquarters, a brick building with large windows that they rented for the week — standing in a backroom and spooning Palestinian food (shawarma-spiced chicken thighs, hummus, farmers salad and garlic paste) onto a paper plate. The goal isn’t to organize against Harris if she doesn’t meet their demands, he says, it’s to help her give voters a reason to vote for her.

“What I’m asking for is for Vice President Kamala Harris to empower us to have a proactive message, so we can have tough conversations with our community,” he says.

Alawieh may be an uncommitted delegate, but he is a committed Democrat.

He began his career in politics volunteering on the first congressional campaign of former Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.). Alawieh describes Levin as more than just a boss but as a mentor, someone who invited Alawieh over for Shabbat dinners and would chat late into the night about the power of politics and the importance of public service.

“He called me up and said he was going to quit his job so he could work for me in Washington,” Levin says. “I told him not to do that because I couldn’t promise him a job.” Alawieh quit anyway. And when Levin was elected, he brought Alawieh along as his legislative assistant. By 2021, Alawieh was working as chief of staff for the activist turned congresswoman Rep. Cori Bush (D-Miss.), a job that gave him the opportunity to flourish as a kind of outsider’s insider, someone comfortable operating both a bullhorn and Washington’s power levers.

It’s this combination that makes him a unique being here at the DNC convention. He’s not a protester, even if people keep asking him.

“People were afraid that we were going to come here and do something scary,” he says. But Alawieh knows there are different ways to wield power. Here, he’s an organizer, and a connected one. He roams the concession area off the arena floor looking for Democratic insiders he knows from his time on the Hill, looking for people with connections to the Harris campaign, people who might be willing to ask for a Palestinian American speaker on the main stage, or to advocate for a change in American foreign policy.

“I had a lot of touch points with the Harris team,” he says near the end of the first night. “They haven’t said yes, but they haven’t said no. So I think the door is still open.”

He’s sitting in the stands of the arena now. Members of his delegation stand up to applaud as speakers talk about fighting for reproductive rights, getting better pay and benefits for workers, and the need to fight creeping authoritarianism. Alawieh stays seated, even if he wished he had it in him to stand alongside them.

“It’s not joy that I’m feeling,” he says. “It’s solidarity. I just want to feel the solidarity back.”