National antiwar conference raises demand to end all U.S. aid to Israel

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The United National Antiwar Conference, attended by over 800 people from July 23 to 25 in Albany, N.Y., marked a sea change in the attitude of the antiwar movement toward Palestine. For the first time a broadly representative, democratic national conference of peace activists adopted the demand “End all U.S. aid to Israel—military, diplomatic, and economic.”

UNAC also endorsed the global movement for BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel), committed itself to joining Palestine solidarity efforts around future flotillas, emergency responses to Zionist attacks, etc., and expressed its opposition to the manyfaceted complicity of the United States with Zionism’s various crimes. All of these positions were adopted in nearunanimous votes after thorough discussion and debate.

This huge success follows on the heels of a similarly significant step forward at the U.S. Social Forum, held in Detroit in June. The resolutions passed at the USSF, which mirrored the positions adopted by UNAC, expressed the sentiment of the 15,000 activists in attendance from every social movement. But what is different about the UNAC votes is that they were taken on amendments to an omnibus Action Proposal calling for specific actions, foremost among them nationally-coordinated local antiwar actions in the fall, and national mobilizations in New York City and San Francisco on April 9, 2011. As such, UNAC has explicitly put Palestine at the center of those actions.

The victory for Palestine solidarity was made possible on the one hand by the organizing efforts of the conference’s Palestine Solidarity Caucus. The caucus held numerous conference calls and e-mail exchanges before Albany to work out texts of the amendments to the Action Proposal and of a standalone Palestine resolution going into more detail on the context and goals of the struggle. On the first night of the conference the caucus held a meeting of over 60 people who enthusiastically and unanimously approved the texts.

At the same time, the success in Albany was a reflection of the experience of folks coming from dozens and dozens of local antiwar groups which had previously dealt mostly with Iraq and Afghanistan but, since the Gaza and flotilla attacks, have all realized that Palestine can never again be relegated to second-class status as an issue, much less ignored, by the movement.

The depth and staying power of this sentiment could be felt every time a speaker got up on the floor of the conference to call for solidarity with Palestine and was met with prolonged and repeated applause.

But even this shift among antiwar activists would not necessarily have found expression in Conference decisions were it not for the democratic nature of the conference. This is a product of years of careful organizing by the National Assembly. The Assembly was founded to unite a fractured antiwar Maya Hitij / AP (Left) E. Jerusalem protest against erecting houses for Israeli settlers.

movement. Its conferences in 2008 and 2009 were open to all wings of the movement, and resolutions were approved on a one-person, one-vote basis.

This year the Conference was held under expanded auspices. A few months ago, the biggest U.S. antiwar coalition, United For Peace and Justice, voted to dissolve itself as a coalition and continue only as an informal network. As a result, the National Assembly called for a United National Antiwar Conference to involve as many former UFPJ affiliates as possible as well as all the forces that had operated outside UFPJ.

The over 800 people who came to Albany did so in the hope and belief that we need a revival and unification of the movement. Antiwar activists have face hard times in recent years, manifested on the one hand in widespread frustration that years of mobilizing have not yet ended Washington’s wars, and on the other hand in illusions—only just now beginning to break down—that Obama would do the job for us.

In this context, the victory for Palestine at UNAC must be translated into hard, detailed, methodical work: to deepen the education of fellow antiwar activists about the issues, and to find clear and concrete ways to explain the issues to those only just now becoming antiwar activists.

Coming very soon is a huge but challenging opportunity to do just that— the Oct. 2 Washington, D.C., rally called by the NAACP, AFL-CIO and other major civil rights and labor forces for jobs, peace and justice. UNAC pledged to help mobilize people for the Oct. 2 and to use the event to educate about the links between our issues. n