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For more than two years, the US–Israel war machine has rained bombs on Gaza, leaving annihilation in its wake. What the world has witnessed was nothing less than a Holocaust: Gaza reduced to rubble, millions displaced, tens of thousands murdered, an entire people targeted for complete extermination. This genocide has not been met with silence. Across the globe, people have risen up in resistance.

Here in the United States, the belly of the beast, people flooded the streets. They tried to block weapons shipments, disrupt arms manufacturers, and shut down the 2024 Democratic National Convention to expose the role of the Democrats and "Genocide Joe" in carrying out these crimes. These were not symbolic gestures; there was real courage and real sacrifice.

And yet, we must tell the truth: we have failed the people of Gaza. Despite valiant and genuine efforts, the bombs didn't stop falling; a new administration came into power, and the slaughter continued. This is partly because we are up against the most powerful criminals in the world—an empire built on war and destruction, sustained by seemingly limitless resources and total impunity. But it is also because, time and time again, resistance has been absorbed, redirected, and neutralized—channeled into “safe,” politician-approved marches, symbolic pressure campaigns, and the dead end of voting for the lesser of two evils.

Among the wreckage within the belly of the beast remain people who refuse submission and reject defeat. People who understand that routine protest, symbolic outrage, and appeals to power have failed to stop the US-backed bombing, siege, and mass killing in Gaza, and who are therefore willing to ask harder questions of ourselves as we seek to challenge US imperialism. People who want to do more than protest as usual, who are determined to stand with those terrorized by this system—from the people of Palestine to those brutalized by ICE here in the US—and who are committed to building a resistance capable of confronting this machinery of violence.

On March 27-29, 2026, Behind Enemy Lines is hosting a conference in Chicago to grapple with these urgent political questions together: Why did we fail the people of Gaza? What would it actually take to stop the next crime of the US empire? And how do we build a movement capable of winning? If the movement for Palestine over the last two years has moved you, if you want to get organized but don’t know where to start, if you’re disillusioned with “protest as usual”, if you’ve thought about starting a Behind Enemy Lines chapter, if you want to spend a weekend seriously confronting how to stop the next monstrous crime of US imperialism, then join us.

Behind Enemy Lines National Conference