Kayanaat Chaudhry

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.

For years before the 2023-2025 war, pro-terror activists routinely accused Israel of "genocide." On October 8, 2023, they continued using this "blood libel" to try to normalize it. They redefined the term, inflated death tolls, dismissed Israeli aid efforts and used Hamas data counting dead combatants among civilian and natural deaths. They also ignored Hamas war crimes meant to increase deaths which fed more online propaganda.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 other countries have adopted the definition as well.

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.

SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.

The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.

SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Student Association (MSA) campus chapters.

SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.

SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.

Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.

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.