XPost: uk.legal, soc.culture.jewish, comp.misc   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   Two hundred days into the Zionist war of aggression on Gaza, the   
   Palestinian struggle is in the midst of a critical conjuncture. For   
   months, organizations in North America have been strengthening and   
   leading a mass movement to advance the cause of Palestinian national   
   liberation from within the imperial core. The popular and   
   revolutionary character of the movement has been borne out by the   
   millions marching in the streets, direct actions across all major   
   cities, new and newly-energized sector-based organizing and campaigns,   
   victories across ideological and media struggle, and most recently,   
   student encampments demanding divestment in the universities and   
   colleges. Through these developments, thousands of people have been   
   brought into the struggle, moved to act by the depravity of the   
   U.S.-led and -funded genocide and the moral clarity of Palestine’s   
   resistance.   
      
   Amidst this mass movement, we have witnessed the martyrdom of over   
   50,000 Palestinians, the destruction of the Gaza Strip, and a   
   concerted effort by Zionism and Western imperialism to break   
   Palestinian resistance and to sever our people from their lands. To   
   live through an ongoing genocide has meant battling feelings of   
   despair and confusion; while daunting, the task of committing   
   ourselves to political clarity amidst these difficult conditions   
   remains essential.   
      
   On October 18, 1975, the largest public gathering of Palestinians in   
   the Zionist state since the nakba of 1947–49 took place in al-Nasra   
   (Nazareth), aimed at confronting Zionist plans to confiscate Arab   
   lands across the Galilee. This conference was associated with   
   leadership of the uprisings now commemorated by Palestinians as “Land   
   Day,” having produced many resolutions, laid the groundwork for a   
   general strike, and established committees to implement its political   
   goals. It is one node of many in a long history of Palestinians using   
   conferences to concretize strategic objectives and consolidate on   
   ideological questions, dating to the pre-nakba period: from the First   
   Arab Women’s Congress in October 26, 1929, to the Youth Congresses in   
   Jaffa on 4 December 1932, and in Haifa on 10 May 1935—all of which   
   asserted opposition to British and Zionist colonization, and supported   
   the Great Peasant Revolution of 1936–39. In moments of crisis and of   
   revolution, Palestinians have turned to conferences in order to bring   
   our people and movements together and to breathe conviction and   
   political clarity into organizations and civil society.   
      
   In honor of this tradition, from May 24–26, 2024, 14 convening   
   organizations and over 300 endorsing organizations – including   
   Palestinian organizations that have been leading the mass movement for   
   Palestine in North America – will convene in Detroit, Michigan, for   
   The People’s Conference for Palestine. A city that is no stranger to   
   the depredations of American capitalism, Detroit has been a site of   
   revolutionary struggle for decades, playing host to the League of   
   Revolutionary Black Workers (and their participation in the historic   
   National Black Economic Development Conference, first held in the city   
   in April 1969), and to one of the largest settings of Arab diasporic   
   life.   
      
      
   The People’s Conference for Palestine appears at a juncture when the   
   liberation struggle in Gaza has generated pockets of revolutionary   
   energy all across the world. That call has been answered: in the labor   
   movement, on the campuses, and in the streets, people are being   
   politicized around Palestine and its attendant imperial contradictions   
   at a rate heretofore unseen in the 21st century. The popular action of   
   the last seven months has also posed important questions around   
   consolidation, unity, scale, and structural form, particularly related   
   to how the struggle builds on the existing mass mobilizations towards   
   deeper organization. An organized movement is an effective movement,   
   better able to politicize and maintain the gains in mass   
   consciousness, to sustain the long-term relationships required for   
   base building and advocacy, to protect against and resist state   
   repression, and to coordinate across the different settings of   
   struggle with scale and historical specificity.   
      
   The question of organization is particularly important in light of the   
   sustained attacks on the institutions of Palestinian social and   
   political life, accelerated by a post-Oslo neoliberal period that has   
   led to a collapse in the strength and militancy of the struggle in the   
   West. These conditions are being readily challenged by a movement   
   being rebuilt and led by politically-committed Palestinians, who have   
   convened this conference alongside  journalists and aid workers in   
   Gaza, activists from Palestine, anti-war movement elders, and student   
   leaders in order to support each site of struggle in developing its   
   own assessment of conditions and objectives.   
      
   The conference’s sessions, assemblies, and teach-ins will focus on   
   building strong political organizations; confronting Zionism and   
   imperialism in the heart of empire; advancing the ideological struggle   
   through art, culture, media, and education; and supporting the student   
   movement to continue to exert pressure inside and outside their   
   campuses. Through its direct fundraising role of contributing all   
   registration fees to Gaza, the conference has already raised over   
   $100,000.00 USD, asserting that the Palestinian diaspora has a   
   historic role to play in the national liberation struggle not only in   
   the realm of political organization, but also with regards to   
   supporting the steadfastness of our people – a concept known in Arabic   
   as ta3ziz al sumud.   
      
   These forms of struggle are critical not only for opposing the horrors   
   of the ongoing genocide, but for the historic challenge of ending U.S.   
   support for the Zionist project, lifting the siege on Gaza, and   
   liberating Palestinian land and people until our return is achieved.   
   We hope you will join us!   
      
   Palestinian Youth Movement   
   The Palestinian Youth Movement is a transnational, independent   
   grassroots movement of young Palestinians and Arabs dedicated to the   
   liberation of our homeland and people. We currently comprise of 15   
   chapters across North America and Europe.   
      
   https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/strengthening-our-movement-in-tim   
   s-of-crisis-a-historic-task-of-the-palestinian-liberation-movement/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)