Democrats have rejected requests from protesters who staged a sit-in protest to allow a Palestinian to speak at the Democratic National Convention this week.
Uncommitted delegates – who oppose US support of Israel’s war in Gaza – began their sit-in protest just outside of the arena doors on Wednesday night.
But by 18:00 local time on Thursday – the deadline protesters had set to hear from Kamala Harris’s campaign – activists said they had not received a response to their requests for a Palestinian speaker.
The sit-in protest came as thousands of demonstrators are in Chicago nearby the convention to protest against US support of Israel.
The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, except for a smaller, unsanctioned protest outside the Israeli consulate that led to 56 arrests.
“This has been a disastrous decision by the Democratic leadership to deny a bare-minimum ask that we requested weeks ago, prior to the convention,” said Layla Elabad, a co-leader of the uncommitted national movement.
The BBC has contacted Ms Harris’s campaign for comment.
Uncommitted delegates were selected in state Democratic primaries earlier this year. President Joe Biden won an overwhelming share of primary voters, but pro-Palestinian activists urged people to vote “uncommitted” and similar options in a number of states.
Enough Democratic voters did so to send 30 delegates to the convention in Chicago, out of a total of more than 2,400 delegates.
Israel’s war in Gaza has divided the Democratic Party, but has largely been avoided as a topic of discussion during the DNC this week.
The uncommitted protesters said they had given the Harris campaign a list of several potential Palestinians who could speak at the conference.
The activists said the Harris campaign sent aides and lawmakers to the sit-in protest outside the arena on Wednesday night to try to resolve the conflict, but they refused to offer a speaking slot.
Uncommitted activists said they were told by Harris aides that the focus was on the vice-president as she is set to give a speech that would be the “biggest of her life”.
The delegates said they had been asking to have a Palestinian speaker address the crowd at the convention for two months.
“We’re going to have to have a lot of difficult conversations with the vice-president and her team after this,” said Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan. “We’re going to have to take stock of what happened.”
Despite the large protests outside the arena doors, the war in Gaza has been mentioned by only a handful of speakers throughout the four-day programme.
Mr Alaweih said the goal of having a Palestinian speaker at the convention was about “forcing” the Democratic Party to “create space for talking about Palestinian human rights”.
Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, an outspoken critic of US support of Israel, told the BBC she was not surprised the topic has not been featured much during the convention.
“Interestingly, foreign policy never really is a huge topic that’s talked about,” she said. “But I’ve always thought of foreign policy as domestic policy.”
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