“We will not stop”: Palestinian Youth Movement organizer opens People’s Conference with fearless challenge to Zionism

This Friday, August 29, the second annual People’s Conference for Palestine began in Detroit, Michigan, bringing together thousands of activists, journalists, labor leaders, and people of conscience. 

Featuring speakers from diverse sectors of the global movement for Palestine, including labor activist Chris Smalls, Palestinian journalist and “accidental war correspondent” Abubaker Abed, and ​​Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, the conference opens amid the mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and the repression of activism within the United States.

“This conference is also important because it defies all the forces that conspire to stop and silence our movement, from far right figures, politicians, media outlets and the Zionist lobby,” said Taher Dahleh, an activist with convening organization the Palestinian Youth Movement, in opening the People’s Conference. 

“They have tried to intimidate us with smears, with false accusations, and with every single available threat at their disposal to stop this conference from happening,” Dahleh stated. “We will not stop.”

The People’s Conference for Palestine opens in Detroit (Photo: Jaylen Strong)

Read Dahleh’s full speech below:

We are in Detroit this weekend to take a critical step forward in building this movement. When we last convened, the occupation crossed what the international community had long pretended was a red line. As we sat in this very room, the IDF stormed into the crowded refugee camps of Rafah, lighting them ablaze and eventually leveling the entire city.

Where states and international institutions remain silent and expanded their complicity in many cases, shamelessly working to support these horrific actions, we, the ordinary people, refused. 

Thousands traveled from all over the world to Rafah, millions marched to break the siege, flotillas set sail one after the other, doctors risked lives, went through repression, every single possible means to participate in medical missions to provide lifesaving aid, and millions of workers, regular people, organized for an arms embargo to demand that companies like Maersk halt all complicity and stop shipping weapons components to the occupation. 

Brothers and sisters, since last year, our responsibility to Gaza has only grown. We are facing another critical moment. Last night, Israel began its occupation of Gaza City and its plan to level the last inch of life in the Strip.

We cannot allow the normalization of another line of genocide to be crossed. The demands of the people are clear, and we must do everything in our ability, every single thing in our power to advance them. 

We demand a two-way arms embargo. We demand complete economic and political sanctions on Israel, on its military, and on its leadership. We demand the free flow of lifesaving humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. And we demand, most importantly, that this genocide ends now.

Genocide is not and can never be normalized. The United States and Israel’s continued commitment to it, despite the will and intuition of the masses of the world, is not a sign of strength. It is the sign of the weakness of a monster that knows that it has run out of options.

 Zionism, imperialism and those who support and sustain it will forever be known as on the side of murder and land theft. They will forever be known as opposed to liberation, justice, dignity and self-determination. 

This conference, brothers and sisters, is not only important because it brings together movements, organizations and leaders who have fought tirelessly to end the genocide and for the liberation of Palestine. This conference is also important because it defies all the forces that conspire to stop and silence our movement, from far right figures, politicians, media outlets and the Zionist lobby.

They have tried to intimidate us. They have tried to intimidate us with smears, with false accusations, and with every single available threat at their disposal to stop this conference from happening. We will not stop. 

All of these forces are the same forces that conspire to erase the Palestinian people and to erase Palestine, through the genocide in Gaza and through the annexation of the West Bank, the destruction of the camps, and the forced removal of people from their villages, pushing them into the cities as a pretext for the theft of more land, and for further colonization of Palestine. 

These are the same people who vote to send bombs unrestrictedly to Israel at the expense of the American worker. These are the same people who will cut universities and public institutions, make a mockery and destroy every single democratic right if that’s decide that is what is needed to silence those who stand against genocide and with Gaza. 

These are the same people whose criminal newsrooms spread propaganda and run cover for the starvation of children. These are the same forces that serve to assassinate journalists with chilling precision, like our martyr Anas Al-Sharif, whose name bears this very room that we are now gathered in today.

When Israel and the United States assassinated Anas, their goal was not simply to murder him. They intended to cut Gaza off from the world, to break us from our center of gravity. To divide us from our compass. 

Our presence here today shows that this plan has been a total failure. Just as the plan to invade Gaza City, to occupy the entire strip and to put out the Palestinian people will inevitably be met with failure.

Even in his death, Anas has brought truth and clarity that we must hold on to. He left us with these words: “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.” 

Anas, like many martyrs, entrusted us to carry on his fight and the fight of millions of Palestinians for justice, dignity, liberation and return.

This conference is about taking on this trust and building the kind of movement capable of carrying through this honorable cause, through deepening our understanding of the current political moment and of Israel’s isolation within it, we leave with what is required of us to sustain our people in Gaza, the ability to exist on their lands and their right to life.

The genocidal core of Zionism has been exposed and revealed to the world. There is no going back. Our path is clearer than ever: Only a constant and consistent march of freedom and liberation for Palestine and its people.