Harris Repositions for 2028 by Courting Anti-Israel Left — Mamdani, Uncommitted, Zogby

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has been in active contact with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Uncommitted Movement Rep. Abbas Alawieh, and Arab American activist James Zogby as she weighs a 2028 presidential run, Axios confirmed Wednesday. Mamdani publicly confirmed the outreach, stating Harris reached out to him and they have spoken multiple times. Harris also publicly praised Mamdani at a Manhattan event — a visible signal of alignment after he told reporters he cannot support Israel as a Jewish state and called AIPAC ‘monsters.’

• Harris reached out first — Mamdani confirmed the Vice President initiated contact and they have spoken multiple times, ‘over the last few months.’
• Alawieh told Harris that constituents he represents ‘have recently lost family members in Israeli air strikes supported by the U.S.’ — the frame of the meeting, in his own words.
• James Zogby — longtime Arab American Institute president and persistent critic of U.S.-Israel policy — is also part of Harris’s outreach circle.
• Harris publicly praised Mamdani at a New York event after their call, converting private outreach into a visible public endorsement signal.
• This outreach comes as DSA-aligned candidates have swept Democratic primaries in New York, Colorado, and Maryland, and as polls show the anti-Israel left consolidating as a constituency.

Harris's explicit positioning with the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party represents a structural break from 2024 — not a campaign error, but a calculated 2028 theory of the coalition. If she succeeds, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028 will have been built, in part, on relationships with figures who won't affirm Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and who frame U.S. military aid to Israel as a source of civilian deaths. The question ICAN needs to answer is whether the moderate-Jewish-Democratic lane that sustained the party's pro-Israel wing has a credible champion for 2028, or whether Harris is running unopposed for the progressive nomination.

The Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, voted Tuesday to formally recognize Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and to divest from companies it deems complicit — including Palantir Technologies and GE Aerospace. The American Academy of Religion simultaneously adopted similar language. CAIR immediately issued a statement welcoming the vote.

• PCUSA voted to recognize the Gaza war as a genocide in an official denominational resolution — institutional delegitimization at the highest level of a major U.S. church body.
• The church divested from Palantir and GE Aerospace, citing technologies used in Israeli military operations — extending the BDS-adjacent divestment pattern to defense-tech firms.
• CAIR welcomed the vote, further cementing the alignment between activist anti-Israel organizations and mainline Protestant institutions.
• The American Academy of Religion adopted parallel genocide language at its own conference the same week, suggesting coordinated institutional escalation.
• PCUSA’s action follows earlier divestment votes targeting Motorola, Caterpillar and Hewlett-Packard — this is a deepening institutional posture, not a one-time event.

A denomination with roughly 1.3 million members has institutionalized genocide framing and extended BDS-pattern divestment to defense-tech firms, with explicit CAIR approval. The PCUSA vote normalizes genocide language in a mainstream American religious institution — the same framing that ICAN tracks as a core delegitimization signal. The acceleration of this pattern across Protestant mainline denominations represents a growing threat to the institutional moral legitimacy of the U.S.-Israel alliance in faith communities.

A new report published Thursday concludes that UNRWA has failed to meaningfully implement many of the Colonna Report’s key recommendations — particularly those addressing educational neutrality, hate speech, and antisemitism — while repeatedly telling donors it has made substantial progress. The report was submitted to Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and to other oversight bodies. Separately, UN Secretary-General Guterres claimed Wednesday that UNRWA has already implemented 40 of the Colonna recommendations.

• Hate speech and antisemitism reforms remain unimplemented — the areas of greatest ICAN concern are precisely the ones UNRWA has not addressed, per the report.
• UNRWA is simultaneously seeking to restore funding slashed after the Oct. 7 revelations — framing reform compliance as a condition of restoration, then not delivering it.
• UN Secretary-General Guterres told donors Wednesday that UNRWA had already implemented 40 Colonna recommendations — a direct contradiction of the independent report’s findings.
• The report was submitted to Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism, extending its reach to allied nation regulatory bodies.
• U.S. halted UNRWA funding in January 2024; the agency is now in active donor restoration mode despite unreformed antisemitism in its curriculum and operations.

UNRWA is systematically misrepresenting its reform status to governments and donors who tied restoration of funding to Colonna compliance. The gap between what UNRWA is telling donors and what independent review finds is not a minor discrepancy — it is the core accountability question for every country weighing whether to resume funding. This report gives allied governments documented grounds to withhold or condition funding and should be in the hands of every ICAN government relations contact.

Israel marked 1,000 days since the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre with national memorials, moments of silence, mass rallies in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, and political protests outside the Knesset. On the same day, Hamas told mediators in Cairo it refuses to include tunnels or underground infrastructure in any disarmament framework — a direct rejection of the governance proposals required for a post-war Gaza.

• The October Council — representing more than 1,500 bereaved families, survivors, and former hostages — organized a nationwide day of remembrance beginning at 6:29 a.m., the moment Hamas launched its attack.
• Hamas rejected tunnel inclusion in any disarmament plan, submitted only minor changes to a Gaza governance proposal, and disputed salary payment arrangements for former officials.
• U.S. Ambassador Huckabee marked the 1,000-day milestone: ‘1000 days ago, Hamas monsters stormed out of Gaza & into Israel & massacred 1200 men, women & children. We should never forget.’
• Police clashed with anti-government protesters near the Knesset who blocked roads and demanded accountability for the failures of October 7.
• Israel’s Defense Ministry reported that 26,200 wounded have sought treatment since the war’s outbreak — warning the rehabilitation system could collapse without immediate action.

The 1,000-day mark is a moment of collective Israeli reckoning — with grief, accountability, and a war not yet resolved by any definition. Hamas's simultaneous refusal to include tunnels in disarmament plans is not a negotiating posture; it is a statement of intent to preserve the military infrastructure that enabled October 7. The American Jewish community's commemoration of this milestone, and the political pressure it generates on elected officials, is the live ICAN operational environment.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s open Senate Democratic primary on Thursday, one month before the August 4 contest. El-Sayed, previously endorsed by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, is running against Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. El-Sayed is a known critic of Israel and has allied with pro-Palestinian activist communities throughout the campaign.

• AOC’s endorsement gives El-Sayed national progressive credibility and fundraising access — a potential tipping factor in a three-way Democratic primary one month out.
• El-Sayed was previously endorsed by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who backed him explicitly after Van Hollen endorsed anti-Israel candidates in other races.
• El-Sayed faces Rep. Haley Stevens, who is generally pro-Israel, and state Sen. McMorrow — an August 4 primary where the anti-Israel left is consolidating behind one candidate.
• The race is for Michigan’s open Senate seat — a major prize in a state with a significant Arab-American and Muslim-American electorate that has been activated around the Gaza issue.
• Michigan is also home to Rep. Shri Thanedar, who faces a serious left-wing primary challenge from DSA-backed state Rep. Donavan McKinney — the state’s congressional delegation is under pressure from multiple directions.

The Michigan Senate race is the most consequential open-seat Democratic primary for pro-Israel interests this cycle. AOC's endorsement of El-Sayed, backed by Van Hollen and riding the post-NYC/Colorado DSA momentum, puts a credible anti-Israel candidate within striking distance of a competitive Senate seat in a swing state. The outcome of the August 4 primary will either validate or stall the progressive primary strategy — and Michigan's Jewish community is directly in the crossfire.