12.08.26
Editorial Note
The Socialism 2026 Conference, to be hosted by Haymarket Books from September 4, 2026 to September 7, 2026, in Chicago, has many anti-Israel panels, including academic-related issues:
In the workshop “From Prairie to Poppy: How Struggles for Land, War, and Farming Are Connected from Chicago to Palestine,” participants will learn “how the struggles for food sovereignty are intertwined with struggles against imperialism and militarism. Join Chicago Dissenters and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) for an interactive session where participants will discuss, research, and leave with tools for how to divest from capitalist food systems.”
Another workshop, “Confronting Zionism: Decolonizing Palestine and Building the World Anew,” will discuss how “For over one hundred years, Palestinians have struggled for liberation in their homeland. This session will take direct analytical aim at the ideology and institutional structures animating Israel’s brutal rule over Palestinian lives, and argue that Zionism is colonial and racist in essence and practice and that decolonization in Palestine predicated on redistribution, reparations and refugee return remains the only just way forward.” Speakers include Noura Erakat, Professor of Africana Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
The panel “Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Palestine, Internationalism, Abolition,” will discuss how “The struggle against state terror extends from the occupied lands and bombed homes of Palestine to the prisons and detention camps of Trump’s America. Join Angela Y. Davis for a conversation on Palestine solidarity, Black feminism, and the abolitionist fight for the future.” The first speaker is Angela Y. Davis, Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz, an activist, writer, and lecturer. Her work “focuses on prisons, police, abolition, and the related intersections of race, gender, and class.” The second speaker is Naomi Murakawa, an associate professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the editor of the Abolitionist Papers book series at Haymarket Books.
Another panel is “Break the Board: Neoliberalism in Crisis and the Popular University as Abolition.” This panel “introduces the Board of Butchers framework, an abolitionist project in opposition to the neoliberal university, actualized through the pursuit of the Popular University. The panel further strategizes how academics and intellectuals can use their skills to effectively support the Palestinian liberation movement and the abolition of the university.” The speakers: Adam Alex, Fiona Laith. The sponsor: National Students for Justice in Palestine.
The next panel “Building the People’s Embargo for Palestine: Strategy, Assessment, and the Path to Freedom During the Time of Genocide,” discusses how “Last year, the Palestinian Youth Movement launched the People’s Embargo for Palestine (PEP), a grassroots campaign uniting the international movement for arms embargo under a single banner: by intervening in the weapons supply chain, we can stop the genocide on Gaza. Sharing powerful campaign lessons from the U.S. and Europe, this session will share key insights into the PEP’s strategy and framework while equipping participants on how to identify local targets and take on PEP in their locales.” The sponsors are Palestinian Youth Movement and People’s Embargo for Palestine.
A panel titled “Thought and the Prisoners’ Movement, What lessons does the Palestinian left offer today?” will explore “the history of prison writing in Palestine and key texts from the Palestinian left. Panelists will anchor the discussion in recently translated texts by Palestinian revolutionaries, including Ahmad Qatamesh and Walid Daqqa.” The speakers include Danya al-Saleh, who “developed her commitment to Palestinian community and youth education while organizing in the Palestine movement in North America.” Jenan Awaida, a “long-time community organizer in the Palestine movement based in Southern California. Her work has focused on grassroots mobilization, political education, Palestinian cultural programming, and coalition-building.” Ribhi Hussein, another featured speaker, is a “Palestinian-American born in San Francisco. He spent much of his life living in Ramallah. He was active as a student organizer at Birzeit University, where he graduated from the Department of Sociology.” He recently published an article titled “Another Dimension of Genocide: Interrogation in Zionist Prisons” about interrogation in Israeli prisons. The panel is sponsored by the People’s Center for Palestine.
The session “End the Genocide Behind Bars: Freedom for Palestinian Political Prisoners” will discuss how “Since October 2023, Israel has waged a genocide behind bars, systematizing and intensifying historic tactics of abuse and degradation against Palestinian prisoners, and turning prisons into death camp as part of Israels broader campaign to break the will of the Palestinian People. Palestinian Political Prisoners are the Compass of the National Struggle for Palestinian Liberation, the demand for their freedom must be amplified.” Featured speakers are Nawaf A, and Jenan A. This session is sponsored by the Freedom for Palestinian Political Prisoners and the Palestinian Youth Movement.
The last panel deals with “Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism Resisting Attacks on Schools, from Gaza to Chicago,” and looks at K-12 schools as “sites of imperial violence and attacks on knowledge, including scholasticide in Palestine and repression in the U.S. Demystifying the Anti-Defamation League’s assaults on antiracist teaching, this session grounds us in the knowledge needed to organize our schools — for Palestine, against racism, and with our communities.” The first speaker is Hadeil M. Abdelfattah, Ed.D., a Palestinian-American and the co-founder of the Justice Coalition, a grassroots political organization dedicated to building power through community organizing, civic education, and legislative advocacy. She is also the founding director of Education Rising International, an organization that supports Palestinian students with accessing, navigating, and thriving in higher education and workforce pathways. Other speakers include David Stovall, Professor in the departments of Black Studies and Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois, is a “leader in Critical Race Theory.” Emmaia Gelman, the director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, and Nora Lester Murad, a writer and activist, co-founded Dalia Association, Palestine’s community foundation, and Aid Watch Palestine, a community-driven aid accountability initiative. Lester Murad serves on the board of Visualizing Palestine and shares K-12 teaching resources about Palestine and DropTheADL From Schools. The panel is sponsored by Chicago Educators for Palestine, DropTheADL from Schools, and the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism.
As can be seen, this Socialism Conference is a poster child for the highly troubling academic trend in which activism, especially pro-Palestinian activism, has supplanted scholarly inquiry. Ideological advocacy has taken precedence over intellectual rigor. Starting with the critical studies trend in the humanities, the phenomenon has spread across much of the liberal arts over the past two decades.
Interestingly, a recent study by Vanderbilt University illustrates the breadth of this development. According to Paul Boghossian, Professor of Philosophy at NYU, the chair of the committee conducting this study, the problem arises, “when the scholarly enterprise itself is subordinated to political or social values, when certain important questions are not asked, or certain plausible answers disallowed, because they would be politically inconvenient…. The subordination can assume a variety of forms. At its most extreme, there are calls within some disciplines – anthropology and sociology stand out – to abandon, or anyhow downgrade, the idea of trying to understand the world in favor of changing it.” He adds, “to think that this could justify proposing that the academic discipline of, say, anthropology abandon its traditional goal of understanding the human world in favor of ‘serving people’ is simply not a coherent option: academic disciplines are constitutively about understanding and knowledge. If your main aim is to serve a community’s interests, rather than advance our understanding of the world, there are lots of other occupations for you, from community activism to politics.”
As Israel Academia Monitor noted before, perhaps the most astonishing manifestation of the scholars’ political activism is the AAUP’s recent decision to engage in explicitly partisan activity by endorsing a political candidate—a striking departure for an organization founded in 1915 to defend academic freedom and faculty governance. Not incidentally, the current president of the AAUP, Todd Wolfson, a professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University, is a longtime leader of the Rutgers Academic Workers Union.
Although the brunt of political activism is currently directed against Israel, the credibility of the liberal arts is ultimately at stake. What is presented as scholarship increasingly risks becoming an instrument of political advocacy, eroding the distinction between academic inquiry and ideological activism on which the legitimacy of any university depends.
The academic participants of the conference Socialism exemplify the trend.
REFERENCES
September 4, 2026 – September 7, 2026 at 9.00am – 2.00pm
Hyatt Regency McCormick Place
Socialism 2026
Join Haymarket Books for the Socialism 2026 Conference in Chicago!
Hyatt Regency McCormick Place
2233 S Martin Luther King Dr
Chicago, IL 60616 United StatesRSVP
We are living through the reshaping of the world.
Neighborhood raids and imperial aggression aim to create compliance and pacification. But against the forces of fear and division, our communities are standing up with stunning acts of bravery and organization. Old networks and tactics are being revived, and new alliances are being forged in the heat of struggle. It has never been more urgent for us to come together and strengthen our movements by learning from one another.
This September, the Socialism 2026 Conference will bring together activists, organizers, and communities from across the country and around the world. A four-day conference featuring over a hundred participatory discussions, lectures, and workshops, Socialism is the place for both seasoned radicals and new activists to sharpen analysis, hone strategy, and build community.
For information on speakers, schedules, and logistics, visit the Socialism Conference website.
Some portion of the conference program will be live-streamed, sign up for our mailing list to stay tuned about details!
Please note: Haymarket Books is committed to making the Socialism Conference as affordable as possible, and for that reason we are keeping our prices as low as possible. However, the conference costs hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, and is funded almost entirely by registration revenue. If you can afford to purchase a higher tier ticket or make an additional donation, please do so! We depend on your solidarity to sustain the conference and provide scholarships to those who need them.
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The Socialism conference stands in the tradition of abolitionist, emancipatory, and working-class struggles, both large and small. At a time of increasing attacks on immigrants, queer and trans people, and workers, Socialism is a place for strengthening our connections and reaffirming our commitment to fighting for each other.
Socialism 2026 is brought to you by Haymarket Books, in partnership with the following organizations and media:
JewishCurrents Jewish Voice For Peace justseeds.com Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign Law for Black Lives Los Angeles Tenants Union Labor Power Publications Long-Haul Lux Magazine Muslim Counterpublics Lab Movement Media Alliance Mother Jones Heritage Project National Students for Justice in Palestine Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work New Politics N Plus 1 Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD) Palestinian Youth Movement People’s Center for Palestine Pilsen Community Books Play Fair ATL Pluto Press PM Press Red Black And White Political Research Associates The Progressive Protean Puno Rethinking Schools RevLeft Radio Rosa Luxemburg Siftung logo Railroad Workers United SASSI: Southerners Against Surveillance Systems and Infrastructure Scalawag Science for the People Solidarity Southern Workers Assembly Speak Out Now Spectre Spirit of Justice Storytelling and Organizing Project Tempest Truthout Upend Ukraine Solidarity Network – US Verso W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction Writers Against the war on Gaza Workers’ Voice La voz de los trabajadores Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing Howard Zinn Book Fair: December 6, 2026, San Francisco, CA
From Prairie to Poppy: How Struggles for Land, War, and Farming Are Connected from Chicago to Palestine
Friday September 4, 2026 2:30pm – 4:00pmCDT
TBA
You’re walking through the produce section and spot your favorite fruit! But how did it get to this grocery store? Whose labor, land, and future is tied up in the farming, packaging, and shipping of that fruit? In this workshop, participants will learn about how the struggles for food sovereignty are intertwined with struggles against imperialism and militarism. Join Chicago Dissenters and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) for an interactive session where participants will discuss, research, and leave with tools for how to divest from capitalist food systems.
Speakers
Heather Aubry
A. Funk
Rumsha S.
Sponsors
Dissenters
Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism
Confronting Zionism: Decolonizing Palestine and Building the World Anew
Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm – 6:00pmCDT
TBA
For over one hundred years, Palestinians have struggled for liberation in their homeland. This session will take direct analytical aim at the ideology and institutional structures animating Israel’s brutal rule over Palestinian lives, and argue that Zionism is colonial and racist in essence and practice and that decolonization in Palestine predicated on redistribution, reparations and refugee return remains the only just way forward.
Speakers
Noura Erakat
Noura Erakat is Professor of Africana Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), which received the Palestine Book Award and the Bronze Medal for the Independent Publishers Book Award in Current Events/Foreign Affairs, and co-author of Confronting Zionism: Decolonizing Palestine and Building the World Anew. She is a co-founding editor of Jadaliyya and an editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Erakat has served as legal counsel for a Congressional subcommittee in the US House of Representatives, and as legal advocate for the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights. Noura has also produced video documentaries, including “Gaza In Context” and “Black Palestinian Solidarity.” She is a frequent commentator in television, print, and radio media.
Brekhna Aftab
Anti-colonial Politics
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Palestine, Internationalism, Abolition
Friday September 4, 2026 7:30pm – 9:00pmCDT
TBA
The struggle against state terror extends from the occupied lands and bombed homes of Palestine to the prisons and detention camps of Trump’s America. Join Angela Y. Davis for a conversation on Palestine solidarity, Black feminism, and the abolitionist fight for the future.
Speakers
Angela Y. Davis
Angela Y. Davis is Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. An activist, writer, and lecturer, her work focuses on prisons, police, abolition, and the related intersections of race, gender, and class. She is the author of many books, from Angela Davis: An Autobiography to Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.
Naomi Murakawa
Naomi Murakawa is an associate professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America and the editor of the Abolitionist Papers book series at Haymarket Books.
Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism
Break the Board: Neoliberalism in Crisis and the Popular University as Abolition
Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm – 1:30pmCDT
TBA
This panel introduces the Board of Butchers framework, an abolitionist project in opposition to the neoliberal university, actualized through the pursuit of the Popular University. The panel further strategizes how academics and intellectuals can use their skills to effectively support the Palestinian liberation movement and the abolition of the university.
Speakers
Adam
Alex
Fiona
Laith
Sponsors
National Students for Justice in Palestine
Building the People’s Embargo for Palestine: Strategy, Assessment, and the Path to Freedom During the Time of Genocide
Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm – 6:30pmCDT
TBA
Last year, the Palestinian Youth Movement launched the People’s Embargo for Palestine (PEP), a grassroots campaign uniting the international movement for arms embargo under a single banner: by intervening in the weapons supply chain, we can stop the genocide on Gaza. Sharing powerful campaign lessons from the U.S., and Europe, this session will share key insights into the PEP’s strategy and framework while equipping participants on how to identify local targets and take on PEP in their locales.
Speakers
TBD
Sponsors
Palestinian Youth Movement
People’s Embargo for Palestine
Anti-colonial Politics
Palestinian Revolutionary Thought and the Prisoners’ Movement
Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm – 1:30pmCDT
TBA
What lessons does the Palestinian left offer today? This session explores the history of prison writing in Palestine and key texts from the Palestinian left. Panelists will situate this discussion in relation to recently translated texts by Palestinian revolutionaries, including Ahmad Qatamesh and Walid Daqqa.
Speakers
Danya al-Saleh
Danya al-Saleh developed her commitment to Palestinian community and youth education while organizing in the Palestine movement in North America. She has contributed as an editor to translation projects of Palestinian literature into English. Danya’s writing has been published in The Nation, Mondoweiss, and journals such as Climate and Development. She has a PhD in Geography from the University of Wisconsin.
Jenan Awaida
Jenan Awaida is a long-time community organizer in the Palestine movement based in Southern California. Her work has focused on grassroots mobilization, political education, Palestinian cultural programming, and coalition-building. She has contributed to national initiatives for the Palestine movement in North America, including the 2025 People’s Conference for Palestine.
Ribhi Hussein
Ribhi Hussein is a Palestinian-American born in San Francisco. He spent much of his life living in Ramallah, until recently. He was active as a student organizer at Birzeit University, where he graduated from the Department of Sociology. He recently published a piece about interrogation in Israeli prisons, titled “Another Dimension of Genocide: Interrogation in Zionist Prisons.
Sponsors
People’s Center for Palestine
Anti-colonial Politics
End the Genocide Behind Bars: Freedom for Palestinian Political Prisoners
Monday September 7, 2026 10:00am – 11:30amCDT
TBA
Since October 2023, Israel has waged a genocide behind bars, systematizing and intensifying historic tactics of abuse and degradation against Palestinian prisoners, and turning prisons into death camp as part of Israels broader campaign to break the will of the Palestinian People. Palestinian Political Prisoners are the Compass of the National Struggle for Palestinian Liberation, the demand for their freedom must be amplified.
Speakers
Nawaf A
Jenan A
Sponsors
Freedom for Palestinian Political Prisoners
Palestinian Youth Movement
Anti-colonial Politics
Building a Rank-and-File Working Class Antiwar Movement Today
Monday September 7, 2026 10:00am – 11:30amCDT
TBA
Drawing on lessons from the hidden history of US working class antiwar resistance in the Vietnam war and beyond to build a working class antiwar movement today.
Speakers
Michael Letwin
A third-generation political activist, and a revolutionary socialist since the 1960s, Michael Letwin has participated in movements against the Vietnam War, apartheid South Africa, and U.S. imperialism in Iran, Central America, the Middle East, and around the world. In 1971, he was a founding member of the Red Tide, a Marxist high school underground newspaper in Los Angeles that later became the youth organization of the International Socialists, with which he relocated to Detroit in 1975. He is a former New York City public defender (1985-2002) and former president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys-UAW 2325 (1990-2002), and is a cofounder of New York City Labor Against the War (2001), Labor for Palestine (2004), Labor for Standing Rock (2016), and UAW Labor for Palestine (2023).
TBD
Sponsors
Labor for Palestine National Network
Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism
Resisting Attacks on Schools, from Gaza to Chicago
Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm – 4:30pm
CDT
TBA
This panel looks at K-12 schools as sites of imperial violence and attacks on knowledge, including scholasticide in Palestine and repression in the U.S. Demystifying the Anti-Defamation League’s assaults on antiracist teaching, this session grounds us in the knowledge needed to organize our schools — for Palestine, against racism, and with our communities.
Speakers
Hadeil M. Abdelfattah, Ed.D
Hadeil M. Abdelfattah, Ed.D. is a Palestinian-American born and raised on the northside of the city of Chicago. She is an educator of nearly 28 years and is currently a Lead Instructional Coach at Chicago Public Schools. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and wrote an Autoethnographic study of her experiences as the child of immigrants in a large urban school district. Hadeil is a co-founder of The Justice Coalition, a grassroots political organization dedicated to building power through community organizing, civic education, and legislative advocacy. She is also the founding director of Education Rising International, an organization that supports Palestinian students with accessing, navigating, and thriving in higher education and workforce pathways.
David Stovall, Ph.D
David Stovall, Ph.D. is a professor in the departments of Black Studies and Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His scholarship investigates three areas 1) Critical Race Theory, 2) the relationship between housing and education, and 3) the intersection of race, place and school. In the attempt to bring theory to action, he works with community organizations and schools to address issues of equity, justice and abolishing the school/prison nexus. His work led him to become a member of the design team for the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School for Social Justice (SOJO), which opened in the Fall of 2005. Furthering his work with communities, students, and teachers, his work manifests itself in his involvement with the Peoples Education Movement, a collection of classroom teachers, community members, students and university professors in Chicago, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area who engage in collaborative community projects centered in creating relevant curriculum. In addition to his duties and responsibilities as a professor at UIC, he also served as a volunteer social studies teacher at the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School for Social Justice from 2005-2018. He is the author of Engineered Conflict: Structural Violence and the Future of Black Life in Chicago published by Haymarket Books.
Emmaia Gelman
Emmaia Gelman is the author of The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State (UC Press, 2026) and co-editor of The Anti-Defamation League: A Critical Reader (Pluto Press, 2026). She is the director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism.
Nora Lester Murad
Nora Lester Murad is a writer and activist. She is the author of the award-winning young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, editor of I Found Myself in Palestine (2020) and co-author of Rest in My Shade (2018). Nora writes commentary for outlets including Mondoweiss, The New Arab, Markaz Review, Aljazeera, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and more. She co-founded Dalia Association, Palestine’s community foundation, and Aid Watch Palestine, a community-driven aid accountability initiative. Nora serves on the board of Visualizing Palestine and shares K-12 teaching resources about Palestine at www.IdaInTheMiddle.com and DropTheADL From Schools.
Sponsors
Chicago Educators for Palestine
DropTheADL from Schools
Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism
Education Justice
israel-academia-monitor.com 