By Marc Wutschke
The second annual National People’s Conference for Palestine, held in Detroit, Michigan, from August 29 to 31, attracted more than 4,000 pro-Palestinian activists. The conference was endorsed by over 300 groups, ranging from national organizations such as the National Lawyers Guild, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Code Pink, ANSWER, and Jewish Voice for Peace, to grassroots groups such as Teachers Against Genocide, Doctors Against Genocide, and Artists Against Genocide.
Absent from the conference were labor groups and organizations aligned with the major political parties, with the exception of the DSA—a front for the Democratic Party posing as a vaguely defined socialist formation. Among the few labor entities present was United Auto Workers Local 4811, representing 40,000 University of California workers. The absence of organized labor was unsurprising, given its subservience to the Democratic Party and its pro-genocide agenda.
Notable speakers included Mahmoud Khalil, the Colombian-American student arrested, detained, and now threatened with deportation to a country with which he has no connection; Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian-American congresswoman who delivered a fiery speech declaring that the pro-Palestinian movement is winning while castigating her colleagues in Congress for supporting genocide in Gaza; and Chris Smalls, the Amazon labor organizer and flotilla participant physically assaulted by Israeli forces. Smalls declared that organized labor has “failed us,” with the exception of several longshore locals and the San Diego Labor Council, which recently declared Israel’s assault on Gaza to be genocide. Citing bipartisan support for genocide, Smalls called for an end to the two-party system.
The conference situated Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza within the broader history of global decolonization struggles. Speakers emphasized that the United States is determined to maintain Israel as its “battleship” in the Middle East—a phrase once used by Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush. U.S. complicity in Israel’s crimes, they argued, is part of a longer arc of imperial violence—Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. In each case, mass slaughter failed to deliver lasting victory, and Israel now faces the same fate as its legitimacy collapses globally while its onslaught fails to overcome Palestinian resilience.
Speakers underscored that Palestinians are the rightful and historical owners of the land now occupied by Zionist settlers. Palestine has been referenced for millennia—by Herodotus in the fifth century BCE, for example—while Zionism, whose roots extend back only 150 years, relies on nebulous “biblical” claims. Israel’s refusal to recognize this reality places it, and the U.S. that enables it, on the wrong side of history.
Instead of a viable claim, Zionism has relied on terror to seize Palestinian land. Zionist militias displaced 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, forcing many into Gaza, where generations have since lived in what is effectively an open-air prison. As emphasized in the plenary session “Documenting Genocide: Gaza, Before and After October 2023,” Israel’s terror against Palestinians has only intensified.
On October 8, 2023—under the guise of “responding” to the Palestinian incursion of the day before—Israel launched a campaign to make Gaza uninhabitable and to eliminate Palestinians by any means. Israel weaponized every aspect of daily life: food, health care, water, sewage, energy, education, shelter, and communications. Fuel, electricity, and internet access were cut off almost immediately. Bombings followed: Gaza’s sole power plant was destroyed within a week. Every hospital—36 in total—was struck, including one with white phosphorus. To date, more than 1,600 health workers have been killed. Israel has bombed schools, food aid sites, bakeries, and markets during peak hours, as well as residential neighborhoods at mealtimes.
Israel’s bloodlust has been relentless. When families displaced by bombing sought refuge in tents, Israel bombed the tents—as in Rafah, where hundreds were burned alive. Reports from Shifa Hospital allege that Israeli forces buried victims alive in mass graves, with bodies later found missing vital organs. Current Palestinian death estimates, including those missing and presumed dead, exceed 100,000. Gaza is 90 percent destroyed.
The horror deepened in May when Israel—backed by U.S. complicity—shut down over 400 food and aid distribution sites. Only four remain, each a sniper-ridden death trap operated by a paramilitary outfit that replaced international and U.N. agencies. Several hundred Palestinians have already starved, and international health organizations predict thousands more deaths if Israel’s food blockade continues.
What this dire situation demands is immediate, mass action against U.S. support for genocide in Gaza. A historic opportunity exists: a majority of Americans now oppose supporting Israel in this war, and a majority back the Palestinian cause. More education is unnecessary. What is needed is mass mobilization—on the scale of the antiwar marches of the 1970s that forced the U.S. ruling class to reconsider its savage war against Vietnamese independence aspirations or risk insurrection. Tragically, the conference failed to issue such a call for mobilization at this critical moment, and 4,000 participants left more informed and inspired, but returned to organizations mired in drift.
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