The second annual “People’s Conference for Palestine: Gaza is the Compass” seeks to strengthen the growing movement for Palestinian liberation within the United States – Israel’s largest political and financial backer. The conference taking place in Detroit, began on August 29 and will conclude on August 31.
On the second day of the conference, Lamees Mehanna, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), spoke in the keynote session “Gaza is the Center of the World” reflecting on the centrality of Gaza and Palestine in today’s world and how the liberation of Palestine is part of transforming the entire world predicated on exploitation and war.
Read her full speech below:
For our generation, Palestine and Gaza are truly the defining issue of our time. For the PYM, Gaza has always been a centering force. In fact the PYM was formed during the 2009 war on Gaza 16 years ago. It is the issue that has transformed the lives of everyday people, people like you and I, who have rearranged, redefined, and recommitted our lives to struggle for Palestine.
The movement for Palestinian liberation has been able to weaken the bases of support for Israel and revealed the true face of Zionism as synonymous with genocide. There are many millions now around the world, including within the US, who will never believe Israel’s propaganda again, generations will grow up knowing the truth about Palestine. There have been major developments through organizing that we might have never thought possible a few years ago.
And yet, to our devastation, against our will, and at the cost of so many lives in Gaza, all of our actions have not stopped the genocide. And so our question is why?
Why has the genocide continued when the masses of the world have shown day in and day out where they stand? Why has the genocide continued when over 80% of Americans support a ceasefire? Why has the genocide continued when international bodies, human rights organizations, genocide scholars and historians globally have laid out, in excruciating levels of detail, the reality of this genocide?
Why can’t the ICC actually prosecute Netanyahu? Why hasn’t the UN intervened in any real or tangible way? Why hasn’t every single country sanctioned Israel? Why are there still any corporations facilitating this genocide, from tech to logistics? Why does mainstream media continue to cover, euphemize, obscure, and hide Israel’s crimes?
One could look at these questions and feel stuck in their organizing or movement work across the world, and especially here in the United States.
But the continuation of this genocide is not due to a lack of will, or lack of hope, or lack of desire on the part of the people or the part of the movement to stop this. It is ultimately due to the character of our global system, and the role of states and corporations within it. The world order is designed to benefit the interests of a few states, and ultimately a few people, at the expense of the masses of the world, including the working people of this country. This genocide has revealed that, it has revealed the undemocratic nature at the core of the status quo.
The people of the world, the masses that stand with Gaza see this clearly now. This is what I think it means to say that Gaza is the compass. It means, then, that the only logical conclusion to ending this genocide is transforming the world that has allowed for it to happen. Gaza has made so clear the importance of confronting decades of policies that favor endless wars, lobbied for by weapons manufacturers, the pro-Israel lobbies, such as AIPAC, and other warhawk politicians. Policies that continue to line the pockets of billionaires, at the expense of the global majority, including the millions of hard working families in this country.
And the supporters of this genocide know this. They know if we are able to bring about the changes needed to not just end this genocide but to hold all those who have been complicit accountable, it means we have ushered in a new world. And so their response is to do anything they can to stop the march towards the truth, and to put forth such bold-faced lies.
That they’re telling you to deny what you see with your own two eyes. They’re telling us to deny our own intellect and morality, deny the burning tents and hospital beds, deny the double tap executions of medical workers and journalists, deny world-renowned research institutions that have published the death tolls, deny what every international human rights body has said and the international courts that have classified it as a genocide. They are telling you to deny the truth, and believe the Zionist propaganda instead.
But they make a huge miscalculation, which is that you and I, all of us in this room are proof of that. Which is that our commitment to truth and justice is unshakeable, our morality and our intellect will not be insulted, we will not be intimidated, and we will not be made to turn away from Gaza and we will not be complacent with a world system that does.
We will not be denied the future Gaza deserves, the one where the Palestinian people can self-determine their future, see their children grow up and grow up to fulfil their dreams and aspirations, the one where international institutions can actually move to uphold conventions on human rights, without obstacle or fear of US intervention and sanctions, the one where we elect people that can actually represent us and not the interests of the few who bought their campaign. A future that brings an end to war profiteers and to the very idea of genocide and occupation.
This is what they fear the most. They fear a reality where Gaza is world altering; because it is. Gaza shows us that the choices are between building a just world or sliding into full scale barbarism. And we have chosen a just world
The movement for Palestinian Liberation is the movement of our lifetimes, it’s the movement that we have all chosen, it’s the movement of the future, it’s the only option and it’s the movement for all people of conscience, it’s a charge for all those who are willing to take it.
As Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta often says and reminded us just now, tomorrow is a Palestinian day. Free, free Palestine!
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