University campuses across the United States are quiet as the school year ended more than a month ago: most encampments have been cleared, campus protests have been discontinued and the mainstream media have all but forgotten about student-led demonstrations.

The spirit and the cause, however, are very much alive. And that is because the encampment movement was not the start of the struggle towards Palestinian liberation, nor was it its end. Rather it was a pivotal shift, as it made the general public aware of the complicity of elected officials and public institutions in the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. It also expanded and solidified the solidarity network of the Palestinian movement well beyond its usual supporters.

Whereas, before, pro-Palestinian protests were overwhelmingly attended by Palestinians and other Arabs, there is now a whole community of new allies that have been introduced to the Palestinian cause and show up at events.

Americans across socioeconomic and racial backgrounds now believe that Palestinian life has value, that it is not anti-Semitic to say Palestine, and that Palestinians – like all other people – have inalienable rights to life and self-determination.

Given that the impact of the student encampments has gone way beyond the confines of university campuses, it cannot be undone with the suppression of the protests. Pro-Palestinian action has continued mostly off-campus and taken a variety of different forms: from local protests to teach-ins and conferences to various modes of mobilisation, including online.

At the end of May, just as the school year was wrapping up, the Palestinian Youth Movement, along with a number of other organisations, held a three-day conference in Detroit, Michigan.

Thousands gathered to learn more about the role of technology in apartheid, solidarity with labour unions, and the importance of media in shifting the Palestinian narrative.

“We will be here, in the streets, on our campuses, in our classrooms, in our workplaces, every day until Zionism is defeated and until the........

© Al Jazeera