Jemma Pasch

The May 2024 and August 2025 People's Conference for Palestine (PCP) brought together several convicted terrorists or their spouses, dozens of anti-American and anti-Israel organizations and agitators, and thousands of activists in Detroit, Michigan.

They gathered under the backdrop of Israel's war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza, which Israel launched after 1,200 Israelis were murdered during the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023.

They also gathered under the banner: "Gaza is the compass!...Zionism and imperialism [the U.S.] are waging a continuous genocide on Gaza, and we, the people of the world, will fight at every turn to reject it."

The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) was the driver behind both conferences. PYM declared regarding the 2024 conference that "Palestinian prisoners are the compass of our struggle," a show of support for terrorists in Israeli jail. PYM's 2025 conference theme: “Gaza is the Compass.”

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) sent a contingent to the 2024 conference, and they formally endorsed the 2025 conference.

The 2024 The People's Conference openly declared its goal to dismantle American and Israeli power structures, using the event as "an opportunity for us as a movement to develop...our people's right to resist the relationship between U.S. imperialism and Zionism...allow[ing] us to chart a path forward of resistance and struggle within the belly of the beast...to consolidate and concretize what our resistance will look like." Speeches and workshops also focused on tactics for mass mobilization to dismantle of the pro-Israel network.

The terms "empire" and "belly of the beast" are both euphemisms that anti-American activists use to describe the U.S. The term “resistance” is used as a euphemism for nationalistic terror.

The keynote speaker at the 2024 conference was the wife of Walid Daqqah, a terrorist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He was convicted of kidnapping and killing an Israeli soldier four decades earlier and the PFLP is a communist terror group designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terror organization.

Other speakers at the 2024 conference included U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) executive Taher Herzallah, and Mohammed Nabulsi, 2024 conference co-organizer and PYM activist.

The 2025 People’s Conference for Palestine also united participants with U.S.-based extremist organizations, designated terrorist affiliates and communist groups, all with the goal of coordinating strategies for confronting Zionism and U.S. “imperialism.” The event was co-organized by several anti-American and anti-Israel organizations in addition to PYM.

Speakers for the 2025 conference included two terrorists released from Israeli prisons, as well as anti-Israel political figures Linda Sarsour and pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil, and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.

Both conferences were held in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped 251 and wounded thousands. War crimes included various systematic sexual crimes like gang rape and genital mutilation. Men and women were violated, even after being murdered. Victims who survived that day, including hostages, endured forms of humiliation and torture.

Gazans working in the targeted Israeli villages provided intelligence to Hamas on which families to kill and torture, including long-time employers. Many Palestinian civilians joined in and celebrated the attacks. Hamas livestreamed their crimes on social media, including to victims’ accounts for families to see. To learn more, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.

JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).

Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.”

JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP."

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish values.”

The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by pro-terror activist Omar Barghouti in 2005 to turn “Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.” Barghouti has also called for Israel's destruction and the BDS movement demands would result in that same goal.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been infiltrating university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments propose resolutions to boycott or divestment from Israel or Israeli-affiliated entities. BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents and pro-terror activism on campus.