#Palestine conference canceled by #USM over speaker’s sanctions has new location

The academic discussion called the ‘#ConsequenceOfPalestine’ will take place at #FirstParishCongregationalChurch in #GorhamME

by Riley Board, February 26, 2026

"A conference on Palestine scheduled for Saturday has found a new venue after the University of Southern Maine said it would no longer sponsor the event because one of the planned speakers is subject to sanctions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

"The 'Consequence of Palestine' event will now be hosted at the First Parish Congregational Church in Gorham, and is scheduled to proceed on the same date, organizers with the #MaineCoalitionForPalestine and #MaineVoicesForPalestinianRights announced Thursday.

"University officials told organizers late last week they could no longer use Hannaford Hall on the USM’s Portland campus for the event after learning that speaker #FrancescaAlbanese is on the Office of Foreign Assets Controls’ #SanctionsLlist.

"#Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on #HumanRights in the #OccupiedPalestinianTerritories, was slapped with sanctions in July after she wrote letters to several major American businesses, telling them she planned to name them in a U.N. report for contributing to human rights violations by #Israel; the #StateDepartment called the letters campaigns of political and #EconomicWarfare. U.S. businesses and entities are prohibited from doing business with Albanese.

"Albanese was scheduled to speak at the conference remotely, and organizers said they received guidance that her participation was permitted so long as they did not engage in any financial transaction with her or offer an honorarium for her participation.

"Organizers also say they offered to remove Albanese from the schedule, but the university said it still could not host the event because it needed, 'time to assess the risk and put in place measures to ensure compliance with all federal and state laws and university policies.'

"More than 300 people had registered for the event as of Tuesday.

"Albanese is still slated to speak at the conference, an organizer confirmed. The USM Department of Criminology and Sociology, previously a co-sponsor of the event, is no longer involved."

Read more:
https://www.pressherald.com/2026/02/26/palestine-conference-cancelled-by-usm-over-speakers-sanctions-has-new-location/

Archived version:
https://archive.md/8VwxN

#MainePol #Capitulation #USPol #Fascism #Authoritarianism #IsraeliWarCrimes #USWarCrimes #FreeGaza #Gaza #GazaGenocide #LandTheft #Colonialism #FreePalestine #BibiIsAWarCriminal #MaineVoicesForPeace

Make no mistake, #Zionism is #political #conquest, not a #religious #crusade.

#invasion #landtheft #genocide

A wake-up call for #WhiteAmericans

The deaths of #ReneeGood and #AlexPretti are forcing white people to face hard truths about power and violence

By Chauncey DeVega, Senior Writer, February 1, 2026

"None of what we have seen over the past few weeks — not the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis at the hands of federal officers, the seizure of children by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents, the callous disregard of civil rights and liberties from an increasingly authoritarian administration — is supposed to be happening in America. But it is.

"American citizens are being arrested and brutalized for exercising their constitutional rights — recording ICE, standing nearby or simply being the 'wrong' color in the wrong place. The Trump administration has labeled these Americans 'domestic terrorists,' claiming they posed existential threats to heavily armed federal agents, despite clear video evidence to the contrary. Immigrants are hiding, afraid to go outside. Entire neighborhoods and communities are under siege. Even though it’s only January, at least eight people have died from their encounters with ICE.

"The #CognitiveDissonance is dizzying. #Disorientation is one of the #authoritarian leader’s most powerful weapons.

"Hours after Pretti was killed on Jan. 24, hundreds of people protested near the site in Minneapolis where he died. There, an older white woman told a reporter that 'the government is not supposed to be doing these horrible things to the American people. It is unbelievable. This is something like Nazi Germany or Russia.'

"I yelled at the television. 'What d**n country do you live in?'

"But her sentiments are common among people who are gathering at protests, community meetings and town halls all across the country.

"Like many other white Americans, and too many Black and brown Americans, she seemed willfully ignorant of her own country’s history, which includes #genocide and #LandTheft against #FirstNations; white-on-Black chattel #slavery; #JimCrow and #JaneCrow; the #BlackCodes; the #RedScare; violent social and political repression of #LGBTQ Americans; the #PalmerRaids; mass #incarceration and the #WarOnDrugs, to name just a few examples."

Read more:
https://www.salon.com/2026/02/01/a-wake-up-call-for-white-americans/

#AmericanHistory #Racism #SystemicRacism #USPol #Authoritarianism

RE: https://mstdn.ca/@thegreenpagesBC/115896950183534423

#Imperialism #Colonialism #LandTheft #Indigenous Territory #Greenland #UNDRIP

"Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank watched as Israeli military bulldozers pulled down their homes Wednesday as part of a nearly year-long incursion into the territory's northern refugee camps.

The scene in Nur Shams has been repeated often across the northern West Bank in the roughly 11 months since Israeli troops launched operation "Iron Wall" there in early 2025. During that time, the military has demolished or heavily damaged at least 850 structures across the refugee camps of Nur Shams, Jenin and Tulkarem, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by Human Rights Watch.

Troops have also forced out the camps' populations, leading to the largest displacement in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory in 1967. Tens of thousands of residents are living with relatives, cramming into rental apartments or living in public buildings.

Israel says the operation aims to root out armed groups and says the demolitions are needed to destroy militant infrastructure or to clear routes for troops.

Israel has said its troops will stay in some camps for a year, and its unclear when, if ever, Palestinians will be able to return."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/palestinians-watch-as-israeli-bulldozers-claw-down-their-west-bank-homes

#Palestine #Israel #WestBank #LandTheft #SettlerColonialism

Looks like the #european #colonisers remembered that the countries they left in order to engage in #landtheft in #palestine just happened to also be promised to them a bajillion years ago: http://youtube.com/post/UgkxSzFi_e2C1br5K3XBiObfKV9UN8Fg0hqG

Good thing they’re indigenous to west Asia and not at all #settlercolonial #apartheid shitheads…