Day one of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was a star-studded event of elected officials and policymakers from around the country, but a Michigan delegate was at center stage for protesting President Joe Biden’s support of Israel.
Liano Sharon, a self-described leftist activist and democracy geek, is one of Michigan’s 138 delegates and a member of the Michigan Democratic Party. During Biden’s speech at the DNC Monday night, Sharon raised a banner with a painted-on Palestinian flag that read “STOP ARMING ISRAEL.”
“We held up the banner. They tore it out of our hands. We held up the banner during Biden’s speech because he’s the decider. He’s the one that can do this right now. We understand that Harris is the vice president: she doesn’t make that decision. He does,” Sharon told Al Jazeera in an interview after being escorted out.
“He needs to call up (Israel Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu like Raegan did back in the ‘80s and say ‘Hey, this is going to stop now,’ and make it stick. And we understand that he can do that by having an arms embargo and not arming Israel further.”
Prior to be taken out, other people at the convention responded to his protest by loudly chanting “We love Joe,” and they held up banners that covered the sign.
Sharon has been a progressive, involved in human rights, environmental, and anti-war activism since the early 1980s. A lifelong advocate for grassroots democracy, he says he has a passion for understanding the dynamics of social, cultural, and economic systems, and developing practical tools for building individual and collective agency, dismantling systems of oppression at every scale.
“It matters to me so much because I’m a Jew,” Sharon told Al Jazeera after being escorted away from the arena. “And I was always brought up to believe that ‘never again’ means never again for anyone, anywhere, ever, period. And that’s not what’s happening right now.”
“What’s happening right now is that we are continuing to fund and support an ongoing genocide, the mass murder of children, and it needs to stop,” Sharon added.
Sharon indicated that his vote as a delegate would go to Democratic presidential nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris, but he wants to see Biden act now to end the Israel-Hamas War. Israel’s counterattack in Gaza after Hamas’ strike in October 2023 has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians (according to local health authorities), devastated much of the territory, and displaced more than 2.3 million people.
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