The Palestine Advocacy Project team had a great time last weekend at the 14th Annual US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation conference. The conference, focused on building a mass movement for Palestine, brought almost four hundred Palestinian rights, Black Lives Matter, and Indigenous rights activists together. While many of the speakers and panelists mourned the common trials that each of the groups faced, many also expressed a sense of joy in joining forces and building relationships between advocates for black, brown, and indigenous peoples worldwide. As Ruby Sales, a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, summed it up in the opening panel ‘we are struggling to be together, to be whole.’
Palestine Advocacy Project contributed to the theme of the weekend with a session on how social justice movements could shape mainstream messaging. The workshop, titled “Advertising as a Tool for Advocacy”, taught participants how to build advertising campaigns. The goal for participants was to take advertising as a way to move their ideas beyond the protest culture, and start sending their message to a mainstream audience. Good advertising and public relations are a powerful method that Palestinian Rights, and Black Lives Matter advocates can use to expand their support bases.
The Palestine Advocacy Project is one of the few organizations in the country that focuses on using public advertising as a forum for education and political debate. Our ads challenge the relationship between the United States and Israel, highlight Israeli policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and advocate for the human rights of Palestinians. With the movement for Palestinian self-determination gaining more and more support, our advertising plays a critical role in public awareness around the issue.