08 May 2026:
Dearest friends in Christ,
We write to you with unwavering solidarity, with broken hearts, and with a crushing awareness of our inability to end the nightmare in which you are living. We mourn our weakness and confess our shame at the profound moral failure of our political and our Church leaders during this most urgent crisis.
For years, our Episcopal Church has rejected appeals to name apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. It has failed to endorse a full economic and cultural boycott of the genocidal Zionist state and refused even to acknowledge Palestinians as an indigenous people of the Holy Land. It has instead adopted a cowardly and delusional stance of “engaging both sides” and “keeping open the lines of communication”. The bleak harvest of these failures and delusions is now apparent.
In times like these, where does the resurrection hope live? As you have taught us by your decades of sumud, we believe that it lives in the assurance of resistance and in the cultural and spiritual expressions of Palestinian national identity, which will shine forever amidst all efforts to extinguish them.
During these dark days and in whatever future awaits, we pledge to stand with you and to stand in opposition to the Church’s complicity of silence about genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.
With great respect and steadfast love,
The Episcopal Peace Fellowship Palestine Justice Network
I fully agree with the heart and purpose of this letter.
Rev. Alex Awad
Former Pastor of East Jerusalem International Church
Thank you for publishing this open letter, I hope more voices will join you in speaking against complicity and complacency.
I fully support this pledge. It is beyond time that not only The Episcopal Church, but all member churches of the Anglican Communion, and our ecumenical partners, take a stand through their own synodical processes and collectively. The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches issued a powerful call last year, identifying very specific and entirely reasonable and peaceable measures that all can take. These must be implemented as a matter of urgency, and the cost embraced as taking up our cross and following Christ.
I support this letter and pledge, and the comments below.
Thank you for stepping forward! Our leadership needs to stand up for justice and peace.
I pledge my solidarity with Palestinian Christians as they plead for justice for all Palestinians. Let's all take a stand with them!
How many lives could have been saved,
How much suffering could have been alleviated,
Had we, leaders and people of faith, all spoken up earlier…(including Arab countries)
Israel literally got away, and keeps getting away with its horrible crimes. But this was and is possible ONLY with their past and current access to billions of US tax dollars, and U.S. military weapons!
What does this say about human nature, when true victims (80 years ago) become true victimizers in this generation!? If we are not mindful, Do we become what we experience?
God Help Us All!!!
I am Thankful that eyes and hearts have been opened, to help Stop the ongoing Israeli Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Starvation and State Terror!
To the current, rabid, radical right wing, Fascist Israeli government, every Palestinian is Hamas ,
(and now Hezbollah, in Lebanon) So they can justify killing them.
Yet, I ask you:
How many jet fighters, tanks, modern weapons do either Hamas or Hezbollah have?
How many hospitals, schools, homes have they bombed?
How many hundred of thousands Israelis have they killed?
We all know it’s Not a “war”
when only one side has all the weapons.
The drastic discrepancy in comparing the number of dead in Israel and Palestine
Speak for themselves!
The good will extended globally to the Jewish people after WWII until now, has vanished,
globally, due to Israel’s wholesale slaughter in this generation.
God Help Us All!!!
I pray for peace
I pray for a new awakening in our church's and our country
I wish the letter were written to all Palestinians, rather than Palestinian Christians.
Is it possible to boycott Israel for the war crimes it has committed and, at the same time, keep communications open among all parties?
Though Israel has acted horribly and cynically, the letter takes a complex situation and stereotypes views on the topic.
Palestinians need to be recognized and a state established that enables them to live well and shape their own future.
Where should the current inhabitants of Israel go, if anywhere? Where and how can disparate views be tolerated and co-exist
peacefully?
Thank you for this letter. It needs to be addressed to all Palestinians and not just Christians. The Episcopal Church must adopt a statement acknowledging the genocide and the many years of apartheid. A religious ethno-state is an unacceptable thing regardless of what the religion is.
Palestine Justice will only happen when all peoples come together to cry for Peace. The decades of injustice and living in continual fear within each side of a Wall of Shame has played out the Power Games of other nations. There are Jews and Muslims who want a country where both can live in peace. This land has to be shared and only then will Gods Justice reign.
Thank you for stating what seems so obvious.