Extremist leader and organization at heart of anti-Israel DNC protest

The 2024 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago was met with heavy anti-Israel protests by a coalition of over 220 organizations of various left-wing and progressive creeds and missions, but a key figure and organization at the heart of the coalition is a radical pro-terrorist organization.

There are a few protest factions at the DNC, but the largest is the March on the DNC 2024 coalition, which boasts over 200 coalition members seeking to push the Democratic Party to end all aid to Israel. Yet the coalition was not always so large, and protesting the Israel-Hamas War was not always its purpose.

When the march was announced in November, the Palestinian cause was not on the initial list of demands. The coalition of Marxist-Leninist, black rights, Filipino revolutionaries, and pro-Palestinian NGOs sought to protest for police reform, women's reproductive rights, legalization for all illegal immigrant workers, the right to unionize, and to divert military budgets to healthcare, education, housing, and the environment.

The organization's initial members, according to Internet archives from February, included the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Black Lives Matter Chicago, the socialist anti-imperialist International League of Peoples' Struggle, the ILPS-affiliated Filipino Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Anakbayan, Students for a Democratic Society at University of Illinois Chicago, and Chicago Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippine.

In a December 6 Instagram post, the coalition announced that "In light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Coalition to March on the DNC is adding a demand to make clear our support for the struggle for Palestinian liberation From the River to the Sea!"

The Israel-Palestinian conflict has since become the "main demand" on the website, with the other demands listed as secondary.

With this new demand saw the increased prominence of one of USPCN, which, according to its website, is guided by the principles of the "The right of resistance against Zionist occupation and colonization of all Palestinian and Arab lands," the establishment of a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea" and the right of return for all Palestinians to " historical Palestine."

USPCN's projects don't just include advancing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement but advocacy on behalf of terrorists. These terrorists included stabber Ahmad Manasra, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member Khalida Jarrar, and now-deceased PFLP member Walid Daqqah.

The group was closely associated with the Rasmea Defense Committee, which attempted to legally defend PFLP terrorist Rasmea Odeh from deportation from the US. Odeh, according to USPCN, was the founding member of its Chicago chapter and a "a mentor to all of its organizers."

USPCN's co-founder, national chair, and national coordinating committee member is Hatem Abudayyeh. He has become the spokesperson and face of the March on the DNC, interviewed in dozens of news articles on the Chicago protests. He gave the opening presser at the march's April conference, where participants cheered on Iranian drone and missile attacks on Israel.

By February the coalition had a dozen members, the most prominently placed of three had connections to Abudayyeh and USPCN.

The organization third on the coalition list since February is the Arab American Action Network. Abudayyeh is the executive director of the organization, of which Odeh was the associate director. Abudayyeh also worked with the Rasmea Defense Committee.

The first organization on the coalition list, before USPCN, is CAARPR, a branch of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression that " defends the rights of Black people and all oppressed peoples to unite, organize and fight for freedom, justice, and equality." Abudayyeh is on the steering committee.

Abudayyeh is also a founding advisory board member of the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC). Several former and current employees of NNAAC and its parent organization Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) were found by The Jerusalem Post to be involved in the Uncommitted movement campaign to push the Democratic Party to adopt anti-Israel policies from within.

Controversial sources of funding  

USPCN has received funding from North Star Fund's Community Support Fund and the Sparkplug Foundation, but of greater note is the WESPAC Foundation, which has in the past provided the donation infrastructure for anti-Israel organizations, including Within Our Lifetime, National Students for Justice in Palestine, and Palestinian Youth Movement. 

Until recently, online donations were made through WESPAC and were "tax-deductible, thanks to the fiscal sponsorship of WESPAC Foundation." Mailed checks were also made out to WESPAC for USPCN. After controversy arose in 2023 over WESPAC's sponsorship of protesting organizations, USPCN appeared to set up a Venmo account as their chief means of online donation.

Though the coalition has gained momentum to have over 200 NGO members, USPCN and organizations affiliated with it and its leader, Abudayyeh, appear to have taken the coalition wheel and continue to steer the movement.