On May 1-4, over 2,000 activists met in Baltimore for Jewish Voice for Peace’s four-day National Members Meeting. The gathering highlighted the massive growth in the Palestine movement and the work ahead to build a united front toward liberation.
Klein is not alone. Over the past 19 months of ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S. has grown to unprecedented levels, particularly among Jews.
But the U.S. government, acting as what Angela Davis calls “the most consistent surrogate to Israel,” has shown just how resilient their support is–the weapons continue to flow, the political alliance remains intact, if not stronger than ever. One strategy wielded by the state to maintain this seemingly obstinate alliance is the weaponization of false antisemitism accusations to repress the Palestine solidarity movement and quell dissent.
Across panels and workshops, one theme of the NMM was identifying a unique role for Jews in the present moment: shielding the movement from this “smokescreen” antisemitism. As Elena Stein, JVP Director of Organizing Strategy, said “antisemitism is being weaponized. It’s our duty to fight.”
This smokescreen is a cynical attempt to obscure the clear political dynamics in Palestine–genocide, occupation, apartheid, settler colonialism–by placing false accusations of antisemitism at the forefront of public discourse and federal policy. It also distracts from actual antisemitism, primarily perpetrated by the Christian nationalist right–the very same actors claiming to “combat antisemitism.”
During a NMM panel titled “Steadfastness in the Face of Repression,” Dima Khalidi, director of Palestine Legal, shared that conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is the “foundation of so much repression and is deeply anti-Palestinian.” As the exploitation of smokescreen antisemitism has become more virulent during Trump’s second term, it has also become more transparent. The scale and scope of the JVP NMM demonstrate that more and more Jews are seeing through it.
The NMM was a four-day convergence of JVP organizers and movement allies from across the U.S. Each day was jam-packed with panels featuring movement leaders such as Angela Davis, Omar Barghouti, Naomi Klein, Dima Khalidi, Noura Erakat, and Eman Abdelhadi, and 90 skill-based workshops ranging from “Organizing Municipal Divestment Campaigns,” “Storytelling Against Empire,” and “Digital Security Under Repression.” There were also art builds, film screenings, religious services, a concert, a circus show, and self-organized meetups. It was overwhelming, generative, and beautiful.
Attendees navigated many different pathways to the movement. I met a Jewish woman named Hope from Alaska whose outrage at false charges of antisemitism was a catalyst for her activism; a group of organizers from Philadelphia who found their political home in JVP after October 7; a Jewish artist named Molly whose ancestor was an anti-Zionist Russian Bundist; an Israeli socialist who moved to the U.S. and unlearned Zionism after reading Edward Said; a student named Brandon who told me his first time ever finding belonging in Jewish community was at the Gaza Solidarity encampment on his college campus.
Why are so many Jews finding their way to the Palestine solidarity movement in the current political moment? The answer might have something to do with Project Esther, the updated playbook for how the far-right intends to repress the movement. Their core strategy: weaponizing false charges of antisemitism.
Project Esther was produced by the Heritage Foundation, which is also the author of Project 2025. I attended a workshop about Project Esther and learned that it specifically names JVP, along with two other organizations, as the architects of a so-called “terrorist support network.” This workshop highlighted some core repression tactics, including lawfare, dismantling movement infrastructure and non-profit status, assaulting free speech on college campuses, leveraging counterterrorism and immigration laws, and sowing discord among movement partners–all under the guise of “combating antisemitism.”
Columbia University is a frontline of the escalating repression laid out in Project Esther. Columbia students and faculty at the NMM hosted a workshop reporting on lawsuits, authoritarian policy changes, funding cuts, and deportations of students. Many of these assaults are done under the false pretext of antisemitism, including Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest, after which the White House posted “Shalom Mahmoud” and Trump tweeted that Khalil was a “pro-terrorist anti-Semite.”
Noura Erakat, speaking on a panel about “This Political Moment,” believes that a result of Trumpism is that “progressive except for Palestine is in the dustbin.” Because of increasing domestic repression, supporters of Israel in the U.S. are being forced to reckon with Zionism as a far-right ideology.
It could be true that many who previously considered themselves “progressive Zionists” are able to see through the smokescreen and have rejected their previous politics. This is perhaps evidenced by the 20,000 new JVP members who joined this year. As Naomi Klein puts it, “The Israeli state stands for the safety of the few in a sea of suffering.” The NMM’s scale also shows that American Jews are increasingly rejecting this fragile offer.
This gathering was not 2,000 anti-Zionist activists passively supporting Palestine, but 2,000 organizers actively sharpening their organizing skills, expanding their political analysis, and committing to each bring ten more people with them next time. As Elena Stein shared, “The only thing we as a collective are more than enraged and horrified, is determined.”
Several organizers I spoke with at the NMM shared that in their local communities, they are seeing increasing disillusionment from Jews who belong to Zionist Jewish institutions supportive of Trump and Project Esther’s repression tactics. A consistent theme of the NMM was strategizing around the opportunity to bring these folks into the movement. Some workshops took this task head-on, including: “Inviting People in: The Art and Craft of 1:1 Organizing Conversations,” “If We Don’t Organize Them, The Right Will” and “How to Have Hard Conversations About Palestine.”
The overt, indiscreet mendacity of the Trump administration’s rhetoric and policies is coalescing in the formation of a united front against fascism. This front has the potential to adopt Barbara Ransby’s words as a mantra: “collective liberation is our only chance for survival.” In the struggle for collective liberation, Jews have a unique mandate–taking down the antisemitism smokescreen.
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