The second annual People’s Conference for Palestine, held August 29-3 in Detroit, featured explicit calls for violence against world leaders and a parade of speakers promoting extremist ideology. Analysis of the conference reveals direct incitement to violence, Holocaust inversion, and terror glorification from participants including elected U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib.
Activist Nidal Jboor delivered the most inflammatory remarks, making direct threats against leaders across multiple countries. Jboor stated, “It is time for us to pay back and stop the criminals, the perpetrators, the child murderers…We all know who they are, whether they are in Israel, in Tel Aviv, in Washington, in Germany, in Europe. We all know them…They need to be locked up, they need to be taken out, they need to be neutralized, to save children…We have been speaking up for two years. Now it’s time to escalate and to act and to get the murderers out.”
This was not metaphorical political rhetoric but an explicit call for the assassination of government officials across the Western world. Jboor specifically targeted what he called “criminals and child murderers” in positions of power, using language that civil rights organizations classify as direct incitement to violence.
The event featured two former prisoners released in recent hostage swaps who served as panelists: Hussam Shaheen and Omar Assaf.
Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, known for previously stating “America deserved 9/11,” used his platform to blame Israel for Hamas’s October 7 massacre that killed 1,200 people, including babies, children, and elderly civilians. Piker said the massacre was “very much a consequence of Israel’s unrestrained cruelty and its sovereignty and its occupation over the Palestinian population.” Piker told attendees to “find that anger within your heart to continue” the resistance movement “out of spite.”
Piker’s victim-blaming of Israel for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while encouraging “spite” and “anger” as motivation for continued “resistance,” represents a clear example of terror apologism given a mainstream platform.
Rashida Tlaib’s Genocide Accusations and Anti-American Tirade
U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) served as the conference’s closing speaker, where she made multiple inflammatory statements:
On alleged Israeli “genocide”: Tlaib repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide, stating that Israel intentionally imprisons and starves innocent Palestinians. These accusations constitute Holocaust inversion – falsely characterizing Israel’s defensive actions as equivalent to Nazi genocide.
Profanity-laced attacks: Tlaib declared: “I say to every ‘genocide enabler’: You motherf*ers, we ain’t going anywhere; we are now in Congress, every corner of the U.S.; we are just getting started.”
Militant self-presentation: Tlaib portrayed her presence in Congress in militant terms: “They thought they could kill us… Now we’re in Congress.” She boasted that “a granddaughter of Falasteen” had been sent to Congress, presenting herself as a foreign agent rather than an American representative.
“We have been lied to, gaslit by a Democratic president and now a Republican president. Both parties vote time and time again to fund one of the worst crimes in history, but…outside of the decaying halls of the empire in Washington, D.C., we are winning…Real change doesn’t come from the cowards and warmongers in Congress. It comes from the streets. It comes from all of us mobilizing and seizing the power to resist and fight back.”
Multiple speakers explicitly supported designated terrorist organizations:
Imam Omar Suleiman defended the “Holy Land Five” – men convicted in the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history for funneling money to Hamas. Suleiman falsely portrayed these convicted terrorists as “men stripped away from their families for the crime of feeding Palestinian children.”
Mayor Eduardo Martinez of Richmond, California, when asked directly if he supports Hamas, refused to condemn the terror group. Instead, he compared Hamas to “his childhood self standing up to bullies.” The audience cheered this Hamas endorsement.
Omar Assaf, founder of the designated terrorist organization Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), appeared virtually to call for “protection” and “support” for “popular action” – a euphemism for terrorism.
Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a known Hamas propagandist, explicitly called for attendees to “destabilize the West” while promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories about supposed Israeli control of Western institutions.
Lameess Mehanna, Associate Director of Undergraduate Career Development at Columbia University, called for the “downfall of the world order” and explicitly promoted communism as the solution.
The conference featured a disturbing “children’s program” that included “curriculum on Palestinian ‘resistance’ for ages six through twelve.” Young children were brought on stage wearing keffiyehs to chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a slogan calling for Israel’s elimination.
Taher Dahleh of the Palestinian Youth Movement declared that these children would be on the “front lines” of future protests and “won’t be deterred.” This exploitation of children for political indoctrination represents a clear violation of child welfare principles.
Abu Baker Abed, winner of Iranian state media PressTV’s “journalist of the year” award, was given a platform despite his documented terror sympathies. Abed declared that “every single one in Gaza is a resistance fighter,” effectively classifying all Gazans as combatants and justifying violence against civilians.
The conference featured speakers with direct connections to designated terrorist organizations, including individuals who have explicitly praised the October 7 massacre and other terror attacks.
The conference openly sold merchandise glorifying terrorism, including embroidery celebrating “armed resistance” – a euphemism for terror attacks including rape, murder, kidnapping, and other atrocities like those committed on October 7.
The Anti-Defamation League documented the event as representing an unprecedented escalation in extremist rhetoric. In their analysis “They Need to Be Taken Out: Calls for Violence Punctuate Second Annual People’s Conference for Palestine,” the ADL noted that speakers “repeatedly commented on needing to root out Zionism and Zionists from various parts of society” while employing “antisemitic tropes about the supposed nefarious Jewish influence and control of governments, media” and other institutions.
The ADL characterized the language as crossing the line from legitimate political criticism into explicit incitement to violence and terror support.
Despite the extremist content, The Detroit News provided sympathetic coverage that failed to report on the violent rhetoric, terror support, and extremist speakers. Instead of journalism, the paper provided propaganda that presented terror sympathizers as sympathetic figures and ignored the explicit calls for violence against American and allied leaders.
The conference featured what legal experts describe as potentially criminal incitement to violence. Explicit calls to “neutralize” and “take out” government officials, combined with terror glorification and the presence of designated terrorist organization members, raises questions about whether the event crossed from protected speech into criminal conspiracy.
The participation of a sitting U.S. Representative who made false genocide accusations, used profanity to attack American officials, and legitimized an event featuring explicit death threats against world leaders represents an unprecedented breach of congressional ethics and potentially treasonous behavior.
The People’s Conference for Palestine succeeded in mainstreaming extremist ideology by providing terrorists, terror sympathizers, and violent extremists with a platform legitimized by elected officials. The event was not about Palestinian rights or peace, but about promoting violence, destroying Western civilization, and advancing the agenda of designated terrorist organizations.
