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| Palestine is back at the heart of the antiwar movement. |
By Andrew Pollack – New York
The United National Antiwar Conference, attended by 850 people from July 23 to 25, 2010 in Albany, New York, 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 US Aid to Israel." UNAC also endorsed the global BDS movement, committed itself to joining Palestine solidarity efforts around future flotillas, emergency responses to Zionist attacks, etc., and expressed its opposition to the US's many-faceted complicity in Zionism's various crimes. All of these positions were adopted in near-unanimous votes and in the face of attempts by a handful of delegates to water down or obstruct them.
This huge success follows on the heels of a similarly significant step forward at the US Social Forum. 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 NY and SF in the spring. As such, UNAC has explicitly put Palestine at the center of those actions.
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