At DNC, Harris contends with Democratic divide on Gaza

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WASHINGTON — As a potential cease-fire deal in the Gaza Strip teeters on collapse, Vice President Kamala Harris faces growing pressure from her party’s protest-vote movement to take a tougher line on Israel.

The Democrats' national convention in Chicago this week includes about 30 “uncommitted" delegates. They account for less than 1% of the nearly 5,000 delegates but represent the hundreds of thousands of voters who used their primary ballots to protest President Joe Biden’s continued military and political support for Israel. Last week his administration approved another $20 billion in arms sales over the next few years to its top Middle East partner. 

Leaders of the uncommitted movement are calling on Harris to break with Biden and the Democratic mainstream on Israel, warning she otherwise risks alienating progressive, Muslim and Arab American voters in battleground states like Michigan, which Biden carried by just 150,000 votes in 2020.