Unable to Confer

When a large group of people gather to confer together it becomes a conference.

I signed up to be at a conference this weekend. Like so many organizations, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) hasn’t had a conference in a few years, due to the pandemic. Even this year, pandemic awareness was high, with a Covid test before showing up, the day of showing up, and mask at all times.

When I first saw that this conference was happening again, in June, I started to think about about going and asking questions of people who had been before. I thought it would be educational, and good for working on social justice issues.

I was expecting to hear from Rashida Tlaib today as the keynote speaker, and to hear more about lawfare and other issues that both stymie and invigorate calls for Palestinians rights, and what we can do. I thought I might be having dinner tonight with some people I know, and a lot that I don’t. As you might have noticed, all of my words have been in the past tense.

About two weeks ago, ten days or so after Israel began bombing Gaza indiscriminately in response to Hamas’ attack on Gaza border communities, I received an email from USCPR, informing me that the conference was postponed indefinitely, and that I should cancel my flight, and all other preparations. The hotel, a Hilton Hotel in Houston, Texas, unilaterally cancelled the conference.

I don’t mind not going to Houston, and I wasn’t looking forward to a 6am flight – the only reasonable option – to get there.

The point here is that Israel’s ongoing war on Palestinians – it didn’t start on October 7 – has effects far beyond Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

It turns out that the USCPR conference is not the only conference to be cancelled because of the ongoing violence. Although no reason was given by USCPR about why Hilton backed out of hosting a conference for Palestinian rights, it’s reasonable to guess that they didn’t want protests around the hotel. The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference, scheduled to take place in Chicago in mid-November, was cancelled because of multiple threats against the hotel.

Both the USCPR and AMP emphasize that their voices will not be silenced, and that they’re channeling all the energy that would be found at the conferences into other other methods to support Palestinian rights.