Our Mission

The Palestinian Activism Collective (PAC) is a diverse and intergenerational body of community organizers and activists located across the western Chicago suburbs. We are committed to taking direct action to primarily stop the genocide in Gaza, end all military funding to Israel, and struggle toward total liberation and self-determination for the Palestinian people, as well as for our local communities. We are dedicated to a variety of strategies including organizing our own actions, as well as elevating and supporting the actions of other local groups.

Our Why

We live in a country founded upon the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the enslaved labor of Black peoples—a country that now continues oppressing marginalized communities while funding Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people with our federal tax dollars. We must resist every form of injustice, oppression, colonialism, militarism, and bigotry. Our struggles for justice are intertwined, and we value solidarity building with other liberation movements. None of us are free until we’re all free. Our organizing work is an enactment of our anti-colonial view of the world and an embodiment of our political values and convictions toward a liberated Palestine and justice globally.

Our Values

• Human rights, dignity, freedom, and justice for all peoples.
• Supporting the Palestinian people’s struggle for total liberation, including a future free Palestine in a single secular state with the right of return to our ancestral homeland.
• Centering the leadership of local Palestinian community members and amplifying Palestinian voices and demands, especially Palestinians from Gaza.
• Centering the voices and demands of the marginalized people most affected by issues pertaining to them, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, marginalized gender, religious, economically oppressed, and disabled community members.
• Dismantling violent systems of oppression and opposing bigoted ideologies, including racism, colonialism, imperialism, Zionism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, queerphobia, sexism, classism, and ableism

Our How

• Mobilize our local communities in the suburbs to take action together for justice and freedom for the Palestinian people, and for all people, by organizing protests, actions, and teach-ins.
• Pressure our elected officials in Congress to support our demands for a permanent ceasefire now, an end to arming Israel, and a free Palestine.
• Demand that our local city governments follow the lead of the city of Chicago and other suburbs by introducing and passing a resolution for a permanent ceasefire now, as well as divesting from Israel, settlements, and complicit institutions and companies.
• Support boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) tactics to achieve Palestinian human rights by applying economic pressure. This includes supporting the McDonald’s & CosMc’s boycott and driving institutions and companies to divest from weapons manufacturers.
• Raise awareness about the genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people, including the active role of politicians, companies, institutions, and our federal tax dollars funding and enabling it.
• Support other local campaigns and struggles for liberation for all people, resisting oppression and state violence, demanding justice for the marginalized, and fighting for resources to support our communities instead of funding genocide.