Why Palestinians Matter: And How Your Church Can Help Them Get Their Rights Through Faith-Based Advocacy

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Colleague Philip Farah is a Palestinian Christian born and raised in East Jerusalem.  He is a founding member of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace and a co-founder of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP).  We present this under the rubric of Voices for Justice because of the personal history Farah recounts here.  We present it as another piece of the work around preparing for the Episcopal Church’s General Convention set for July in Austin TX.  We share his presentation at the 3 March gathering in Washington DC: Why Palestinians Matter.

The title of this session is ADVOCACY FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS IN ALL CHURCH CONGREGATIONS, but I was also asked to tie it to my own experience as a Palestinian. I will also spend a little time on some historical background that I think provides an angle for why it’s so important for us, in the American faith community, to be involved.

I was born in Jerusalem 4 years after my parents’ experience of the Nakbah—the Catastrophe– of 1948. Part of their ordeal was spent sheltering from the bombing inside the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, right next to the Holy Sepulchre. They, like over one half of the Palestinian population, lost everything. But they eventually got back on their feet and rented a small apartment right at the border of the now-divided Jerusalem. I was raised less than 4 blocks away from the house in which my Mom grew up, but it was now beyond the border in what became West Jerusalem, the most ethnically cleansed city in Palestine. Mom was never able to set foot in her family home again– except for once. After Israel occupied the rest of Palestine in 1967, she knocked on the door of one of several Jewish families who became the new inhabitants of her home. This family happened to be fairly friendly and invited her in, and she saw that they were still using some of the same furniture and kitchen ironware. 

The UN, which had, up until then, been complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians, had the decency in December 1948 to pass Resolution 194, urging Israel to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their neighborhoods and villages, and even the US State Department argued for the right of return. But Israel did everything to prevent such a return, continuing the process of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the new State of Israel, and demolishing about 500 Palestinian villages.  One of Israel’s great successes was, through its already powerful lobby in Washington, to muzzle the State Department’s advocacy for the right of return. 

My Mom is now 98, living in Toronto, part of one of the largest Diasporas of the twentieth century. She frequently dreams—literally– about her old family home and tells me numerous stories about her life there until the age of 28.

1967 became my Nakbah, and, 10 years later I found myself in the notorious Israeli Makobiyeh prison, about 7 minute-walk from my Mom’s old home. I was under administrative detention for two months. This means that you’re detained without knowing what charges are brought against you, and not knowing when your prison term might end. Most of my prison mates were poor Mizrahi Jews, and two were members of ha-Panterim ha-Shahorim, the Israeli Black Panthers. These were Israeli Jews who were fighting discrimination and racism towards darker-skinned Jews who were bought in from the Arab countries. 

My arrest was probably due to my activities with a small number of Palestinians, mostly intellectuals, who were dialoguing and building relations with Israeli progressives opposed to the occupation.

It so happened that, days before my arrest, I had finished reading a book by the great Israeli leftist attorney, Felicia Langer. The book went into some detail about her Palestinian clients, and the torture techniques that they encountered in at the hand of their Israeli jailors. Upon finishing the book, I passed it to my Mom to read it. You can imagine her state of mind while I was incarcerated.

In prison, I developed very strong friendships with a number of Jewish inmates. Their parents were basically Arab Jews, mostly from North Africa. While they grew in households where Arabic was spoken, and the food and music were Arabic, Israeli society treated them as inferiors who had to shed their shameful commonalities with the Arabs in order to become New Israelis. Despite the fact that they were effectively second-class citizens, they were—after all- Israelis who enjoyed far greater privileges than the Palestinian Arabs. Any of you familiar with Frantz Fanon, the black Frenchman from Martinique whose experience as a psychiatrist in colonial Algeria turned him into one of the greatest progressive thinkers of the Twentieth Century? If you are, you’ll understand why many of these darker-skinned Israelis became even more hostile to the Palestinians than the average Israeli.  In fact, Israeli prison authorities would sometimes place a Palestinian prisoner in a cell with Jewish inmates with the expectation that the Jews would harass the Palestinian. In my case, a number of factors helped me become close to them on a human level. I really felt that I could easily live with Jews, just as my father’s generation did before Zionism started becoming stronger in pre-Israel Palestine. Despite my imprisonment, and the ill treatment at the hand of my jailers and interrogators, my friendship with the Jewish inmates felt like a major victory for me.

My prison experience validated many of the ideas that I was developing about Israel, partly from my readings of progressive Jewish critiques of Zionist ideology. Zionism thrived on selling itself to the European colonial powers. It adopted European racism towards darker-skinned people from the colonies. Like the worst type of settler colonialism, it required the ethnic cleaning of large segments of the native population. But displacing the natives meant others had to fill the ranks of the working classes, and the darker-skinned Jewish immigrants from mostly Arab countries fit the bill. Zionism also meant cooperating with anti-Semites who wanted Jews out of Europe, and even coaxing western countries to shut their doors in the face of Jews fleeing the horrors of fascism in Europe so they’d have no alternative but to go to Palestine [the Patria!].

The colonial nature of Zionism fit extremely well with the rising power of the U.S. While many of the early Zionist leaders and foot soldiers viewed themselves as socialists, Ben Gurion veered sharply to the western camp, especially towards the rising superpower in North America. A little-understood aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is how the special relationship between Israel and the U.S. developed. But it says so much about where we are today, and why it’s so important for us to fight for peace with justice in Israel-Palestine. Part of the story starts with Jewish European partisans who did amazingly heroic things to save Jews and smuggle them away from the Nazis and other fascists in Europe. In doing so they developed, with the help of progressives and anti-fascist allies, an amazing clandestine network almost all around the world. Ben Gurion decided that this network would be immensely useful for the U.S. in its already rising rivalry with the Eastern Bloc, in return for military, financial, and diplomatic support from the rising superpower.

In both the western and eastern blocs, there were leaders and social forces that wanted the Russian-Western co-operation during the Second World War to continue, and others who wanted the exact opposite. In the U.S. the militarists used fear mongering to defeat progressives like Henry Wallace, who almost won the democratic nomination against Harry Truman. 

Israel’s already amazing clandestine network played a vital role of supporting U.S. Cold War hawks in various strategic places around the world, including Central America, South Africa, and Zaire. In the Middle East, Israel played a major role in helping the CIA prop the intensely unpopular and brutally repressive regime of the Shah. The icing on the cake was Israel’s defeat of the Egyptian regime of Nasser in 1967. For its secular anti-colonialism was viewed as a threat to Saudi Arabia, which the U.S. military-industrial complex valued as a protector of one of its greatest strategic interests– oil. U.S. and other western powers encouraged Saudi Arabia to use its extremely reactionary version of Islam, along with petrodollars, to counter the secularist non-aligned movement all over the Islamic world. Egypt’s Nasser, along with Kwame Nkruma of Ghana, Sukarno of Indonesia, and Tito of Yugoslavia were leaders of this non-aligned movement which the U.S. viewed as a threat to its neo-colonial interests in the Third World. 

This brings me to the churches. Western churches have always had a large presence in Palestine. While many in the western religious establishment looked the other way as Israel engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, some others in the western church missions did speak out. The western churches have an extensive presence not only in the holy places in Israel and Palestine, but also in the mission-supported educational institutions where students are victimized by the Israeli occupation forces, and the hospitals which receive the dead and injured on a daily basis. 

The witness of American Christians operating on the ground in Palestine has played a crucial role in the success of resolutions to boycott products made in the illegal Israeli settlements and to divest from companies that profit from the occupation. But we should also remember the role of Israel in supporting the most hawkish U.S. policies in the Middle East. Israel will do anything to deflect attention from the plight of the Palestinians, and now harps on Iran being the greatest threat to America. American and Israeli militarist hawks are escalating their direct involvement in hostilities in Syria and increasingly threatening to engage in direct confrontations in Syria with Iran and Russia, gravely endangering world peace. 

US faith communities have always played a leading role in fighting militarism at home and abroad, and we must rise to the occasion by condemning and countering this madness.

Our witness is a painful thorn in Israel’s side, because it is the strongest antidote to the predominantly pro-Israeli western media. This is why, today, we see a concerted attack on the churches in Palestine. That is why Israel planned to place a debilitating tax on Christian properties in the Holy Land, reversing practices dating back to the Ottomans. International pressure forced the Israelis to freeze this plan, but I’m certain there’ll be renewed assaults.

Our task is to continue the struggle here. We’ve had great successes, as evidenced by the church denominations and individual churches that have divested from companies that profit from the occupation, and passed resolutions to boycott products made in the Israelis settlements.

The other fronts where we’re making a difference are:

  • The campaign to lobby Congress to pass legislation condemning Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children.
  • The fight against state and federal legislations criminalizing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
  • The campaign to sell fair-trade Palestinian olive oil and other products. This is not just charity; it engages church goers and they start learning about Israel’s attacks on Palestinian farmers and their lands.

Another promising campaign, being considered by some faith-based groups, is to raise funds for supplying Gaza schools with water desalination units. This too, educates churchgoers about Israeli crimes in Gaza.

Of course, education is extremely important, given the biases of our mainstream media. An amazingly successful example is the Voices from the Holy Land film series in the Washington DC Metro area. 

You’re the best judge of what works in your church or your denominational organizations. And remember, most things start with one individual!

A Wall of Sound: Cliff Cutler writes about the campaign opposing the Philadelphia Orchestra’s tour in Israel

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The wall of sound describes the music produced by Phil Spector in the 1960s and the Grateful Dead in the 1970s. It has been given new meaning in the 21st century by the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performing in the State of Israel.

Sandy Tolan in his book, Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land, describes the Ramallah Orchestra’s journey in 2011 to the French Church of St. Anne in the Old City of Jerusalem to play Beethoven’s Symphony no. 4 in B-flat Major. The orchestra is made up of Palestinian musicians in their teens and 20s with 15 visiting teachers and performers from Europe and the United States. They stopped as required at the Qalandia checkpoint in front of the massive “soundproof” wall that separates Jerusalem from the West Bank. All the Palestinians except one with lighter skin who passed for a Westerner were ordered off the bus by soldiers carrying M-16s. Five of the musicians do not have the proper permits and are sent back out the way they came. The separation wall has given rise to an enterprising Palestinian business of transporting people across who have been turned away at the checkpoint. After agreeing on a price the five are taken to a place where it is safe to scale the wall by ladder using a knotted rope to drop down on the other side. The Ramallah Orchestra is finally reunited in time to play its scheduled performance, but not without risk and danger. The separation barrier has created a new wall of sound (an unfortunate classical version of the old rock and roll technique) whose purpose is to keep Israelis from listening to Palestinians and vice versa.

It is in this hard land that the Philadelphia Orchestra has chosen to play. They will play for the 70th Anniversary of Israeli Independence or what the Palestinians call the Nakba or catastrophe when 750,000 of their own fled or were driven into exile. The orchestra’s celebration of Israel’s independence is also, though separated by a wall of sound, the silent marking of Palestinian catastrophe. 

On Monday, March 19 over 100 musicians, artists, scholars, and human-rights activists, clergy, together with 35 social justice organizations sent a letter to co-presidents Ryan Fleur and Matthew Loden of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin asking the orchestra’s leadership to cancel its trip to Israel. The letter began “It troubles us that one of Philadelphia’s most celebrated cultural institutions will participate in the Israeli government’s “Brand Israel” propaganda strategy.” Brand Israel, showing “Israel’s prettier face so we are not thought of purely in the context of war,” Tolan argues, is in part a response to the isolation of Israel by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The Gaza protests only increased this isolation. An Inquirer article on May16 describing global criticism reported “In Geneva, U.N. human-rights spokesman Rupert Colville denounced what he called the ‘appalling deadly violence’ by Israeli forces.” 

The March 19 letter concludes, “Performing in Israel with the blessing of the Israeli government conveys the Orchestra’s tacit approval for Israel’s systemic denial of Palestinian rights. It has now been over 50 years since Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been subject to a regime of military occupation and colonization, and 70 years that Palestinians have lived inside Israel as second-class citizens, subject to over 60 discriminatory laws, or as refugees in the diaspora, denied their right of return to their homes as guaranteed by international law. We urge you not to lend your good name to covering up Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.” The response to this letter was muted. One signer of this letter (signed also by three Episcopal clergy) Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University, wrote in the Forward to the new study guide Why Palestine Matters: The Struggle to End Colonialism, that Israel has “fragmented Palestinians in the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, as well as separating residents of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza from one another…. This pattern of fragmenting and exercising domination over the totality of the Palestinian people is a violation of the 1973 International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.” The letter included the words of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “People who are denied their dignity and their rights deserve the solidarity of their fellow human beings. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor…” The organization that rose up to challenge the Orchestra’s trip to Israel called itself “Philly Don’t Orchestrate Apartheid.” 

The grassroots Great March of Return began on March 30, Good Friday. Two dozen Palestinians were shot and killed and hundreds more wounded at the Gaza border. A week later, four dozen protesters stood in witness at the Kimmel Center to oppose the Philadelphia Orchestra’s trip to Israel. It had been two weeks since the letter was sent to the Orchestra. Irish composer Raymond Deane, a signer of that letter, said in an email to The Philadelphia Inquirer “that the presence of foreign artists in Israel is meant to ‘normalize’ the abnormal, ‘which is to say the oppression of Palestinians…. If the Philadelphia Orchestra goes to Israel in violation of the Palestinian boycott call, it will be thumbing its collective nose at the oppressed.’”

As with the Great March of Return, the Kimmel Center demonstrations were held weekly though on different days. They were not intended as an uncrossable union picket line. They were not a request that loyal followers of the orchestra stop attending concerts. Rather their purpose was to encourage supporters of the orchestra to tell their leaders that playing in Israel is morally wrong. Jewish Voice for Peace, Philadelphia member Marta Guttenberg writes, “The protest asks audience members to call on the Orchestra that they love, and want to support, to DO THE RIGHT THING and skip the propaganda trip to Israel. Let management HEAR from loyal patrons that they are OUTRAGED by the trip!!”

On Thursday, April 26 Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian novelist and human-rights activist, wrote an op-ed for Philly.com, the digital home of the Inquirer, entitled: “By touring Israel, Philadelphia Orchestra ignored crimes against Palestinians.” She noted that, “based on their press release, the orchestra’s tour is in celebration of Israel’s 70th anniversary, which marks the year when 80 percent of the indigenous non-Jewish population was forcibly evicted and had their properties, homes, and heritage stolen by recent European Jewish immigrants with no direct ancestral ties to the land.” Abulhawa concluded, “The orchestra’s tour is ultimately a collaboration with an apartheid state that oppresses millions through the use of color-coded IDs denoting one’s ethnicity, color-coded license plates, segregated roads, segregated buses, and a two-tiered legal system (harsh military orders and courts for occupied Palestinians and a civilian justice system for Israelis).

Naomi Adler, the CEO of the Jewish Federation, was unable to secure agreement from the Inquirer not to publish Abulhawa’s article in print, but she did convince them to run a rebuttal piece alongside by Nancy Baron-Baer, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. Baron-Baer asserts “that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely complex, challenging, and heartbreaking on all sides.” The words “on all sides” lead to a normalization of the conflict. One side is as guilty as the other, disregarding the huge imbalance of power and loss of life. And the words “extremely complex” implies that efforts to correct injustice are simplistic and do not address the core issues. Such efforts are thus invalidated and discounted. Jamie Stern-Weiner, editor of Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel-Palestine’s Toughest Questions, writes: “The world is replete with morally difficult conflicts and complex ethical dilemmas. Gaza is not one of them.”

Five days after Abulhawa’s op-ed and the rebuttal piece were published, Inquirer columnist Stu Bykofsky took aim at the Orchestra demonstrators. He argued that the more than 20 percent of Israelis who are Arab have full rights. There is no apartheid in Israel. The “occupied territories” have a “separation wall, some separate roads (to thwart attacks) for Jews, and different license plates for Jews and Arabs.” But that is not apartheid in Israel because the occupied West Bank and Gaza are not Israel, though he adds somewhat ominously “some parts may be, eventually.” He ends with the common charge of antisemitism for those who criticize the Israeli state. The letter of March 19 belied Bykofsky’s claims.

Both Naomi Adler and Dan Segal of the Jewish Community Relations Council, not finished with the Inquirer, wrote to insist that its reporters and staff attend a BDS training session for members of the media planned for May 3. They also requested an Inquirer editorial board meeting.  

The ADL organized a petition drive, “Support the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Right to Travel to Israel.” The petition says: “The Philadelphia orchestra recently announced that it will be traveling to Israel as part of its 2018 tour. This elicited protest and pressure from anti-Israel activists, demanding that the orchestra revise its itinerary to avoid Israel. These demands and type of pressure, especially in response to a trip intended to build bridges and undertaken in the spirit of cultural exchange, is anti-Semitic and we must speak out.” The trouble is that this petition is making an assertion that is not true. No one is claiming that the Orchestra doesn’t have the right to travel to Israel. It is the Orchestra’s right to play wherever it pleases. The question is whether it is morally right and wise. As would be made clear at the University of Pennsylvania teach-in on May 5 it is far from evident how “a trip intended to build bridges” by the Orchestra is going to be able to do any such thing.

At this presentation on boycott, divestment, and sanctions at Penn, Dr. Lawrence Davidson, retired professor of Middle East history at West Chester University argued that the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performing in Israel would have little if any positive impact on the political situation in Israel. In fact such performances sustain U.S. approval of Israel’s policy toward Palestinians. Performing classical music in Israel does nothing to convince anyone in Israel that killing people on their southern border is wrong. On May 14, protesting the inauguration of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, at least 61 Palestinians including a fourteen-year-old boy were killed by Israeli gunfire during mass demonstrations along the Gaza border. More than 2700 were wounded. It was the deadliest single day of protests since the Palestinians on March 30 began staging weekly border demonstrations against the Israeli-Egyptian blockade. 

In Philadelphia on the 14th, a few hundred gathered at the rally in front of the Kimmel Center where the Orchestra performs. The police closed off streets so that protesters could march and chant from City Hall down Broad Street to the Kimmel Center. A helicopter flew noisily overhead. Members of Christian-Jewish Allies for a Just Peace in Israel-Palestine were interviewed by Channel 6 News briefly at the start.  

The last rally at the Kimmel Center took place five days later on Saturday, May 19. It was the eve of Pentecost. Ramadan had begun three days earlier. The Philadelphia Orchestra was about to give a stunning performance of Tosca. The audience was seated. The lights went down, and Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin ascended the podium. Two protesters entered the stage dressed as musicians. Before the orchestra could sound its first note, the protesters turned on a pre-recorded message that could be heard throughout the Hall. It began “You’re playing Tosca when you don’t even know what it means. We don’t know what it means to oppose power. We don’t know what it means to be powerless, what it means to have no voice in the world; to be slaughtered year after year by the thousands, and then have people like the Philadelphia Orchestra go and celebrate your oppressors…” The recording went on for two minutes. Yannick threw down his baton and left the stage followed by some twenty of the orchestra. Some in the audience reacted with vituperative shouts, all appeared disturbed. One member of the audience suggested that the orchestra itself brought this on by scheduling such a trip at such a time but clearly this was a minority view.

On Monday, May 21 the Philadelphia Orchestra sent a “Bon Voyage” email touting that the Orchestra will be sharing the “renowned ‘Philadelphia Sound’… in important musical cities in Europe.” In addition, the Orchestra will perform in Israel creating a “wall of sound.” No other American Orchestra has gone there since 1996. The Bon Voyage referenced the May 1 article in the Inquirer by Ryan Fleur: “Despite controversy, orchestra’s Israel tour will foster diplomacy.” The email did not reference the boycott called for by Palestinians or the protest outside and eventually inside the Kimmel Center. 

“We have heard the cries”: EPF PJN at General Convention

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EPF PJN member Linda Gaither sets the context for EPF PJN’s work at General Convention 2018.

Our presiding bishop, +++Michael Curry, heard the cries of the people during his Holy Week visit to the Diocese of Jerusalem:

“We have heard the cries of Palestinian Christians throughout the land, who strive only for equal treatment and kindness and justice for all regardless of race or religion…We have heard the cries of people in Palestine, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, Israeli youth whose longings are the same, to breathe free, safe and secure.”

“We have heard the cries of people in Gaza, where the church here provides an oasis in a hospital, and oasis in the midst of a war zone through a hospital built on the teachings and spirit of Jesus, where healing and care is made available to all regardless of religion, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of politics.”

Since Good Friday, which coincided with the eve of Passover, the whole world has heard these cries and witnessed the agony of a desperate people, trapped in a humanitarian crisis, marching near Gaza’s border.  The hospitals of Gaza have indeed functioned as an oasis in a war zone.  We watch in disbelief as Israeli soldiers let loose a hail of sniper fire using live ammunition and rubber bullets from behind bulldozed earth berms, while tear gas is fired from the skies by drones. The targets are unarmed, thousands of men, women and children, many of them refugees who fled their homes in 1948 in the violence of  Israel’s founding.  As a result of the Good Friday assault, 16 people were murdered, 805 were wounded by live ammunition, 425 suffered tear gas inhalation and 154 were hit by rubber bullets.  As May begins and the weekly demonstrations continue, the death toll has risen to 40 with over 5500 Palestinians wounded.  Not one Israeli has been wounded.  As Human Rights Watch reminds us, using lethal force is banned by international law except to meet imminent threat to life.  

At General Convention in Austin, the Palestine/Israel Network of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship will include among its resolutions a call to hold Israel accountable under international law for its lethal targeting of unarmed demonstrators protesting at the border of what has been called the world’s largest open-air concentration camp. The resolution also calls on Congress and the US Secretary of State to reinstate the full funding commitment of the US government to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, while at the same time demanding that Israel lift its decades-long siege of Gaza by land, sea and air.

The Episcopal Church has taken a strong first step toward demanding Israeli accountability to international law by joining with 15 Christian denominations and agencies in a call to end the Israeli military’s use of deadly force against unarmed demonstrators. The April 12 Statement included among its recommended actions an investigation into the deaths and injuries resulting from the use of live ammunition against civilians. 

EPF/PJN believes that our resolution on Gaza, along with other resolutions to be submitted on behalf of a just peace, offers the next step forward in our church’s response to the unfolding tragedy in Palestine/Israel.  May the bishops and deputies gathered in General Convention hear and respond, with our Presiding Bishop, to the cries of the people in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem and wherever the fundamental human rights of Palestinians are ignored or suppressed. Our church has prayed, our church has studied; now it is time to act.

Voices for Justice: EPF PJN Member Newland Smith reports on his time in Palestine/Israel

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UK and USA Palestine Mental Health Network Study Tour

The ten-day tour (March 25-April 4) with seven nights in Bethlehem and two in Nazareth was led by a woman who has been facilitating tours for internationals for nearly twenty years and this was the third study tour done in conjunction with the UK Palestine Mental Health Network and the first for USA Palestine Mental Health Network.  Participants included four from the UK and eight from the US.  Rebecca Fadil who is a member of the Steering Committee of the USA Palestine Mental Health Network was part of the American contingent.  The 2018 study tour’s special focus was on trauma within families and its impact on women and children.  

More than twenty encounters were arranged so that participants could meet with professional colleagues, primarily Palestinian but also Israeli, and to receive information and understanding about the political reality on the ground.      

It became clear that the situation continues to worsen as settlements grow including the Judaization of East Jerusalem, the fifty year old military occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank continues its draconian control and repression of Palestinians with adverse effects especially on children and women, and the two state solution is no longer viable as the extreme Right calls for the annexation of the West Bank. At the same time we heard from mental health practitioners of their hard ongoing work with Palestinians trapped both in a military occupation in the OPT and second class citizens within the State of Israel. 

Jeff Helper, Co-Founder of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, took us to the large Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adummim, which with a population 35,000 and all the amenities of an American city, functions as a suburb of Jerusalem. One of the owners of the Educational Bookshop on Saladin Street, East Jerusalem described the levels of “membership” in Israel/Palestine with Israeli Palestinians living within the State of Israel having the most privileges, then East Jerusalem residents, followed by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Palestinians in Gaza. Gerard Horton and Salwa Duaibis gave a very moving presentation on the impact of the fifty year old occupation of the West Bank on the Palestinian population.  The Israeli military have been very successful in protecting the settlers in the West Bank now numbering 420,000 by dividing the West Bank into military districts each of which has extensive intelligence of any active resistance by the Palestinians.  The Israeli military has also been very successful in building a cadre of informants/collaborators to the extent that Palestinians no longer know who they can trust.  Child arrests in the middle of the night are part of a system of intimidation.  These arrests have a profound impact on families.  Fathers who cannot protect their child, sleep deprivation with health implications, mothers who become numb. “I am afraid of being afraid”.  They are afraid of a tomorrow with their child out of school while nearby settlers are happy and are sleeping at night.  The Director of the Arab Association of Human Rights in Nazareth gave an excellent presentation on how the State of Israel has and continues to treat its Palestinian citizens through over fifty laws that limit their rights.  For example Palestinians are not welcomed in 922 Israeli villages.  The goal is “pure Jewish”.  Palestinians do not fit “culturally” for they are not Jewish.  

At the same time we heard the amazing work being done by social workers and psychologists.  Palestine Counseling Centre emphasizes a “positive direction” as staff work with Palestinians in East Jerusalem, for whom no aspect of their lives is predictable. The staff supports each other in part by sharing in cooking lunch. The work of Physicians for Human Rights -Israel with a staff of 27 and volunteers numbering 3000 includes Palestinian political prisoners and refugees.  Doctors are sent to Gaza monthly.  We learned of the bureaucratic system a patient in Gaza seeking treatment for cancer in an Israeli hospital must endure and of the role PHR plays as a key advocate for these patients.  Faculty at Birzeit University emphasized the need to contextualize mental health practices for excluded people who live in the domain of suffering, violence and uncertainty.  While adhering to high academic standards, the Institute of Community and Public Health works with local Palestinian communities with interventions.  Staff walks with the community, including mothers, and helps kids get to school.  Tomorrow’s Youth Organization in Nablus, founded nineteen years, ago serves children and mothers from the refugee camps in and around Nablus.  Families must apply.   There is a long waiting list.  TYO has classes for children ages 9 to 15, 15-18 and for mothers.  Work also includes parent teacher meetings.  Kids are suffering and some are suicidal.  Kids experience violent soldiers as they pass through checkpoints.  The occupation has become normal. So TYO is a form of resistance.   The Director of TYO had to tell her son how to behave at the checkpoints when he went to Ramallah to have fun.  She added that until we have equality and have equal rights, we will not talk with Israeli Jews as equals.

On the first day of this study tour we met with Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, from the Hebrew University, in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City.  In addition to being a prolific scholar, Nadera is also an advocate for children in East Jerusalem.  Many an early morning she is on the streets observing children who are on their way to school.   She told us of her encounter with a young boy who one morning simply left his apartment to play with his skateboard only to encounter Israeli soldiers on patrol.  The soldiers quickly surrounded him to the dismay of his mother.  Nadera slipped the boy a small piece of wrapped chocolate.  The boy who was sitting on the ground defiantly unwrapped the chocolate and ate it in the present of the soldiers.   Participants in this study tour acknowledge the amazing work of the staff of mental health and human rights organizations with whom we met who cope with limited resources to give hope to a people, especially children and mothers who are living under frightful conditions.  Beginning on Friday, 30 March, we carried with us the news of the terrible indiscriminate shooting by the IDF at the Palestinian demonstrators participating in the Great March of Return.  As we ended our final session on the evening of April 3, our tour leader charged us to be faithful in the work of costly solidarity with the Palestinian people.   

Marching and Standing for and with Gaza

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Many places around the world have been standing with the people of Gaza.  EPF PIN member Harry Gunkel of San Antonio TX tells us about the rally there on 13 April.

4 PM, April 13, 2018 in San Antonio. Midnight in Gaza where most of those demonstrating in the Great March of Return have gone home, while hundreds of them have gone to hospitals because of injuries from the Israeli military, and a few are being prepared for burial, martyrs who will join the dozens of others who have gone before. 

In San Antonio we’re gathering for a rally and vigil at Alamo Plaza to stand up and witness for brothers and sisters in Gaza, and to try to awake awareness of this latest chapter of the genocide of the Palestinian people. Our group is a remarkable gathering who represent the manifold pathways toward justice: teenagers and seniors; T-shirts and hijabs; an American who quit his job in the financial sector to start a permaculture farm in Nicaragua; a scion of a conservative Texas first family; representatives of Students for Justice in Palestine, San Antonio for Justice in Palestine, Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Voice for Peace, Our Democracy; a family from Ramallah visiting here. 

In mid-April in San Antonio there is bright sunshine and it’s already quite warm. It’s dark at the eastern edge of Gaza – don’t call it a border, it’s not, it’s another apartheid barrier illegally put down against the indigenous people of the land that Israel has stolen. These days, the Israeli military make only desultory attempts to justify their actions – use of poisonous gases and snipers who shoot to kill or maim with outlawed exploding bullets. But you cannot justify injustice; the mission is to kill Palestinians, the evolving legacy of the European colonialists who came to take the land and extinguish the indigenous inhabitants. 

At our rally in San Antonio, speakers remind us that here where we stand, other European colonialists hundreds of years earlier stole land from the indigenous people. Killed some, imprisoned others, took away their languages and cultures and religions. The Alamo behind us is known as “The Shrine of Texas Liberty”, but we know it is a shrine to colonial conquest. 150 miles from here, 3 hours if we get in our cars and drive, is another demarcation line where armed forces are also ready to shoot and criminalize people who seek freedom and better lives. Gaza is not so far from San Antonio after all.

On Alamo Plaza, we hold signs and photos of Gaza’s most recent martyrs. We chant: “From Palestine to the Rio Grande, No More Walls on Stolen Land!” “Gaza! Gaza! Will Be Free!”. Hundreds of tourists and downtown workers stroll and wander nearby, some pause to look and listen, a few offer thumbs-up or Good Job. Police gather; are they here to protect us, or to protect from us? Or to be sure our dissenting voices don’t get too loud or go too far? 

Later, we sit with lighted candles and remember our brothers and sisters so far away in the dark. We share poems by Mohammad Moussa (“For life itself, we march”) and Remi Kenazi. We cry. 

Did our rally change US policy in Israel and Palestine? No. Did some people who saw and heard us learn something, or find courage to step out, or seek to know more? Possibly. Did those of there find succor and encouragement, new vigor to continue the struggle, new friends for consolation and solidarity? Certainly.

Gaza! Gaza! Will Be Free!

In Israel/Palestine Christian Zionism fills Episcopal Church’s Silence

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EPF PIN member Cliff Cutler, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, reflects on Trump’s decision declaring Jerusalem Israel’s capital.

 
Just one month after a resolution to educate about peace in Israel/Palestine was not permitted to reach the Convention floor of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced plans to relocate the US embassy there, reversing seven decades of US foreign policy. This is not to say that a resolution to learn about the call for justice in that place would have had any effect upon the President’s decision, but is merely another instance of the silence of the Episcopal Church on matters of Bible and theology that impacts Israel/Palestine.

This silence has allowed theology in Palestine to be defined by Christian Zionism and Biblical dispensationalism. Dispensationalism interprets scripture as having seven dispensations, the final one being the Millennial Reign of Christ. According to most Christian Zionists this final dispensation began with Israel returning to the land (1948), the return of Jerusalem to the State of Israel (1967), and continues with the recognition by the U.S. of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (2017). All of this for Christian Zionism heralds the second Coming.

Christian Zionists look for a blockbuster end-time when the church will be raptured, the dreadful war of Armageddon fought, and Christ will return to rule for 1000 years as a victorious God whose reign resembles empire. With this goal in mind, ethical guidance and moral call take a back seat. What do they matter when it is all going to end soon? Hence the support for increasing settlements, exposure of Palestinian school children to high levels of tear gas shot into schools, 45 Palestinian schools facing Israeli demolition orders, olive trees uprooted on Palestinian land, and 206 companies from around the world doing business linked to Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank in violation of international law. These things are accepted because after all they yield a “blessing” to Israel.

Christian Zionists see in Genesis 12: 3 a divine mandate to support the modern state of Israel, “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.” The Episcopal Church would see Gen. 12: 3 as God’s promise of protection to Abraham in his situation (not to a secular state in the 20th and 21st centuries). Scholars interpret the meaning of Genesis 12: 3 to assert the faith of Abraham as an ideal to be sought by all nations, and that his privileges would be extended to other nations, such as Palestine. We cannot let our Christian faith be hijacked through our silence.

The Episcopal Church when it finds a voice has a hopeful understanding of life. We believe in partnering with God to transform the world. We participate in society and are invested in the world to make it better. In 2008 I had dinner with a Palestinian Muslim family in Ramallah on the West Bank. Afterwards some of their friends joined us. They knew I was a Christian priest, and asked: “Do Christians believe that the Temple must be rebuilt in Jerusalem?” No, I replied. Jesus’ Second Coming is not about a rebuilt Temple but a rebuilt world. The Christian hope is that Christ will come at the completion of God’s purpose for the world that is the well-being of all, when all things will be made new, truly alive, compassionate, just, at peace. Rebuilding the Temple and the discord that would result seems hardly congruent with that.

Still, Christian Zionists are organized in this country under the leadership of John Hagee as Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Of themselves they say: “With more than 3.8 million members, Christians United for Israel is the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States and one of the leading Christian grassroots movements in the world.” This organization is a significant portion of President Trump’s base, and explains why he would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital when his predecessors would not. Dr. Juergen Buehler leads the global Christian Zionist organization, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

As an Episcopal Church our voice, Biblical understanding, and theology need to be heard in the Middle East. They are what give rise to ethical stances and efforts to respond to the moral call that is issued by Palestinians, 4 million of whom (some Christian) are under occupation.

 

EPF PJN Joins Allies and Colleagues in Celebrating the Nomination of the BDS National Movement for the Nobel Peace Prize

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We share the nomination statement.

Statement by Norwegian Parliamentarian Bjørnar Moxnes on Nominating the BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights for a Nobel Peace Prize:

As a member of the Norwegian parliament, I proudly use my authority as an elected official to nominate the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nominating the BDS movement for this recognition is perfectly in line with the principles I and my party hold very dear. Like the BDS movement, we are fully committed to stopping an ascendent, racist and right-wing politics sweeping too much of our world, and securing freedom, justice and equality for all people.

Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement and the American Civil Rights movement, the grassroots, Palestinian-led BDS movement is a peaceful, global human rights movement that urges the use of economic and cultural boycotts to end Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights and international law.

The BDS movement seeks to end Israel’s half-century of military rule over 4.5 million Palestinians, including the devastating ten-year illegal siege collectively punishing and suffocating nearly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, the ongoing forcible eviction of Palestinians from their homes, and the theft of Palestinian land through the construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. It seeks equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, currently discriminated against by dozens of racist laws, and to secure the internationally-recognized legal right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes and lands from which they were expelled. Palestinian refugees constitute nearly 50 percent of all Palestinians, and they are being denied their right to return, guaranteed by law to all refugees, simply because of their ethnicity.

The BDS movement’s aims and aspirations for basic human rights are irreproachable. They should be supported without reservation by all democratically-minded people and states.

The international community has a longstanding history of supporting peaceful measures such as boycotts and disinvestment against companies that profit from human rights violations. International support for such measures was critical in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the racist colonial regime in former Rhodesia.

If the international community commits to supporting BDS to end the occupation of Palestinian territory and the oppression of the Palestinian people, new hope will be lit for a just peace for Palestinians, Israelis and all people across the Middle East.

The BDS movement has been endorsed by prominent figures, including the former Nobel Peace Prize winners Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire. It is gaining support from unions, academic associations, churches, and grassroots movements for the rights of refugees, immigrants, workers, women, indigenous peoples and the LGBTQI community. It is increasingly embraced by progressive Jewish groups and anti-racist movements across the world.

Twelve* years since BDS’ launch, it’s high time for us to commit to doing no harm, and for all states to withdraw their complicity in Israel’s military occupation, racist apartheid rule, ongoing theft of Palestinian land, and other egregious human rights violations.

Awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement would be a powerful sign demonstrating that the international community is committed to supporting a just peace in the Middle East and using peaceful means to end military rule and broader violations of international law.

My hope is that this nomination can be one humble but necessary step towards bringing forth a more dignified and beautiful future for all peoples of the region.

An earlier version of this statement mistakenly said the BDS movement was launched 11 years ago. It was launched in July 2005.

You can view this statement here.

Voices for Justice: Hebron District, West Bank Special Report 2017

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Abdulhadi Hantash, land surveyor and cartographer for the Palestinian Authority, is a colleague and friend of the editor.  He circulates this report of the effects of the Israeli Occupation in the Hebron District (West Bank) of Palestine during 2017.  While we took in reports of these things with dates and names and places last year, here are the hard numbers.

The area covers 375,000 acres (1.5 million dunams).
The Palestinian population includes 706,000+.
121 types of military occupation attacks are described .

Who claims to be jewel of democracy in the world and leader of human rights? And who says that Israel is the oppressed? Do you have the courage to condemn these crimes or at least to criticize them? If only one word? Shall God judge such a nation?
“Our Lives Begin to End the Day We Become Silent”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. March 8, 1965

A. Martyrs: The number of martyrs during this year: 5

B. Confiscation of lands, dredging and the following:
1. The confiscation and razing of 800 dunums of land, including the declared military orders, and the areas that were razed by the settlers. This operation was concentrated in the areas of Hebron, Yatta, al-Dhahiriya, Beit Aula, al-Urub, Ramadin, Aynna, Kharsa.
2. Uprooting of trees: 900 trees concentrated in Yatta – Dhahiriya – Halhul – House first – Arroub Kharas, these trees were uprooted by the occupation forces and the settlers.
3. Prevention of tillage and labor: 10 cases.
4. Destruction of walls and walls: about 800 meters from the retaining walls.
5. Destruction of agricultural crops: 200 dunams (49 acres) were razed and damaged crops in different parts of the province.
6. Building and residential units and the addition of caravans: 600 new housing units were added, a caravan and a factory and a huge building in the settlements and outposts erected on the land of the citizens in the province.
7. Land surveys: 6 cases.
8. Expansion and expansion of roads: 2 cases occurred in the areas of Bani Naim and Samou.
9. Construction of a section of the apartheid wall 43 KM west of the Hebron District

C. Demolition, house bombing and other attacks:
1. Demolition of houses, barks, agricultural rooms, tents and quarries: 27 cases were concentrated in the areas of Hebron – Yatta – Athena – Beit Ummar.
2. Demolition and detonation of water wells: 10 cases concentrated in the areas of Yatta – Seir – Athena.
3. Demolition and construction notices: 122 notices, most of which are located in Yatta, Beit Ula, Beit Ummar, Hebron, and Sa’ir.
4. Eviction orders: 3 cases concentrated in the town of Surif that requires the evacuation of 11 dunums of the land of the citizens in the town.
5. Destruction and bombing of houses and shops: about 60 cases.
6. The seizure of houses and converted into military barracks: more than 90 houses and converted into barracks and military observation points either for days or for hours.
7. Closing shops at gunpoint: 47 cases and not a shop.
8. Storming shops and tampering with their contents: about 20 cases and not a shop.
9. Confiscation of agricultural machinery and equipment: 12 cases and not mechanism.

D. Military operations:
1. Home raids: More than 1,586 raids were carried out against houses of citizens throughout the governorate
2. Storming houses, establishments, stations, power stations, government offices, radio stations, media production centers, companies, hospitals, libraries, stone saws, presses, colleges and cemeteries: 89 cases
3. Blocking houses: 20 cases. Each case includes several houses in that one
4. House searches: 1500 cases
5. Car searches: more than 530 cases
6. Mixing of food supplies (soldiers raid homes and mix oil, rice, sugar, and wheat together so the family has nothing to eat: 10 cases
7. Destruction of the contents of houses: about 250 cases
8. Robberies of houses: 4 cases involving gold and silver
9. Confiscation of computers and mobile devices: 10 cases
10. Confiscation of cameras and DVDs: about 5 cases during the military operations carried out by the occupation in the province
11. Storming the villages and towns and camps in the province: 1252 incursions
12. Shooting at citizens: 180 cases
13. Shooting at houses: 2 cases
14. Shooting at funerals: 2 cases
15 – Shooting at civilian vehicles and civil defense: 12 cases
16 – Launch of gas bombs: 220 cases.
17. Launch of sound bombs: 159 cases.
18. Light bombs: 3 cases.
19. Detaining and detaining citizens: 570 cases
20. Detention of citizens in one room: 30 cases. The case includes several operations in that one region
21. Remove citizens from their homes: 70 cases
22. Attacks on citizens: 54 cases
23. Assault on citizens beaten: 200 cases. Each case has several citizens
24. Steel citizens on the walls: 33 cases
25. The pursuit of citizens by the occupation forces: 40 cases
26. Attacks on government crews: 5 cases
27. Chasing workers: 150 cases
28. Forcing citizens to take off their clothes: 8 cases in both house raids and checkpoints
29. Driving over citizens with military vehicles: 4 cases
30. Attempts to drive over citizens with military vehicles: 4 cases
31. Preventing citizens from traveling: 20 cases.
32. Assault on worshipers: almost daily.
33. Attacks on students of schools, universities and teachers: 80 cases.
34. Assault on children: 39 cases.
35. Attack on farmers: 70 cases.
36 – Attack on journalists: 20 cases.
37. Attacks on foreigners: 6 cases.
38. Attacks on marches: 39 cases.
39. Detainees: Approximately 1100 detainees, including those who were released after hours of arrest, including those who remained in detention.
40. The use of citizens as human shields: 4 cases.
41. Kidnapping of citizens: 3 cases.
42. Provocations: 20 cases (Soldiers slapping a person so the person will slap them back).
43. Aberrations: 15 cases: soldiers partying with loud noises, music and lewd dancing .
44. Joint attacks with settlers: 8 cases.
45. Intercept of ambulances, firefighters and assaults on their crews: 20 cases.
46. Smashing of glass and windows of houses: 8 cases.
47 – Smuggling and blacksmithing workshops: 16 cases.
48. Closure of roads and entrances to the villages and towns of the province: 130 cases, either by iron gates or berms and concrete blocks.
49. The removal of houses and institutions: 20 cases.
50. The establishment of barriers: 300 checkpoints, and there are permanent barriers erected several years ago.

 

Through the lens of human rights in our work for justice: A sermon from Dick Toll

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EPF PIN member Dick Toll preached this sermon on Advent 2, 10 December 2017.

We are experiencing Advent….the preparation for the coming of Jesus. We hear from John the Baptist during the time when the Roman empire was causing great unrest, torture, killing, and brutality to the people who lived throughout the region but especially in the Galilee. The people were experiencing an occupation that was very cruel and many of the religious thinkers of the day were predicting an end to the world or a messiah that would come and lead an army to vanquish the Romans. Their expectations were many and varied.

But what happened was the most unexpected event that no one was predicting.

What happened was a man by the name of Jesus. Born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth in the Galilee, a person raised in the understanding of what it meant to belong to a tribe, it just so happened his tribe was Jewish. He was aware of the teaching of what we now call The Old Testament. He was aware of the danger of speaking out against the Roman occupation. Every breath he had taken, every step he took, every conversation he had, every person he met, was somehow affected by the cruelty of the Roman occupation. People lived in fear and yet hoped for a future without fear. They were hungry for the words of John the Baptist. And John was aware that a new moment in time was coming. He probably knew Jesus. He had probably heard him. And they were probably friends who disagreed on matters of religion and politics. Jesus would say, “You have heard it said by men of old but I say to you”. And he spoke with authority.

John recognized that authority and was preparing people for the ministry of Jesus. So much happened in the brief ministry of Jesus. No more than 3 years and maybe even less.

One of the most important teachings Jesus made was to equate the love of God, neighbor, and self that had never before been taught. He taught us the Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

We have heard this so many times over the years; we fail to recognize it as a revolutionary teaching in the 1st century and it remains revolutionary today.

At the time of Jesus, love your neighbor means that you love your neighbor within your tribe within your own family…..yet Jesus was revolutionary in teaching that to love your neighbor you were to love your enemies and to give special attention to people who were excluded such as Samaritans and all people could share and know the love of God as well as sinners and unbelievers.

What was so revolutionary about the Commandments to love God, neighbor and self was that Christianity left its tribal heritage in Jerusalem. Under the leadership of the Apostle Paul Christianity became a worldwide religion that has incorporated many cultures, languages, and people of many colors. In fact, every child sees the baby Jesus as a reflection of their own part of humanity. At the Roman Catholic Basilica in Nazareth, Jesus and Mary are artistically celebrated as persons of color whether in India, Africa, Europe, Asia, South America and that is how it should be. The word becoming flesh in the person of Jesus is about all of humanity….at all times and in all places. One of my favorite places to visit in Jerusalem is the Church of the Paternoster where the Lord’s Prayer is on the wall in over a hundred languages. Proof of the way the Spirit has moved in the lives of millions of people over the centuries.

I would like to submit another way as to how the Spirit is moving in our lives today. Sixty-nine years ago today the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations produced a document that needs to be honored by all people throughout the world. But especially by Christians as they reflect the Commandments of Jesus. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, I will read from its preamble.

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and unalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscious of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress in better standards of life in larger freedom.

Now therefore, the General Assembly, proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples in all nations, to the end that every individual and every organs of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observant, both among people of member states themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”

Following this preamble, there are 30 articles that spell out the meaning of human rights. In your spare time you may wish to read it.

All of us know this past week the disruption that is taking place regarding Jerusalem. I received a letter that I wish to speak to you about as part of human rights regarding Palestinians and especially those who live in East Jerusalem.

Subject of the letter “Still occupied in East Jerusalem”.

The following letter is someone who works for an Israeli peace organization called B’Tselem. He as a Palestinian is employed for purposes of Jewish human rights organization issues.

“My name is Kareem Jubran. I am a Palestinian in East Jerusalem. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump “recognized” Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Yet this announcement does not change the fact that East Jerusalem is occupied territory, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are deprived of political rights. We must recognize this reality and work relentlessly to change it.”

He goes on further to say:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”, states The Unuversal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 and marked every year on December 10th. Yet, since annexing East Jerusalem unlawfully in 1967, Israel has made it unequivocally clear that Palestinians are unwanted in the city and repeatedly demonstrated how little it values our lives. On a routine basis, Israel authorities wrongfully detain, wound, and even kill us, they deny us permits to build our homes, schools and roads and they bar us from living with our love ones who are not residents of Israel. After more than 50 years of deliberate underdevelopment, the Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem suffer from overcrowding, poverty and substandard infrastructure.” End of letter.

Human rights violations occur in every country throughout the world including our own country. It is our task as Christians throughout the world to challenge these violations and to adhere to the teachings of Jesus especially within the great commandment of love of God, Neighbor and Self. All three understandings of love becomes a focus for spirituality that reflects love to a world that often gives in to evil. We often do not advocate for our own rights much less the rights of others. Witness the explosion of sexual harassment and how women are now dismantling a male dominance over women. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was a direct response out of the evils of World War II and the Holocaust and the ways in which we mistreat each other. We know there is a way that points us in a direction that leads to healing and hope. That way has been tried and tested and proven by countless pilgrims in their own journey of life in relationship to Jesus Christ. It is a way that leads us to accept and love God, our neighbor and ourselves. It opens doors into relationships, issues of human rights, new learning’s and brings into focus the future. That way is here and now and coming to us always as the future breaks into our lives. God is with us. Oh come, oh come Emanuel.

 

 

Voices for Justice: Speaking Out for Jerusalem 14 December 2017

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Last week’s announcement in which the US declared Jerusalem Israel’s capital and Trump declared the embassy would be moved to Jerusalem in the future, has generated much writing and many public witnesses. EPF PIN member Harry Gunkel attended a rally in San Antonio TX where he heard Moureen Kaki speak out. Kaki is a Palestinian-American student at the University of Texas at San Antonio where she is president of the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. She is also a founding member of San Antonio for Justice in Palestine, a local non-profit organization.  We offer her witness here.

Two days ago marked the thirty year anniversary of the first intifada, or uprising. But for forty years prior to that, we have resisted. Today, we continue. Palestinians have fought, suffered and died for our homes, our land, our families, our dignity and our freedom. What we now see is an overt acknowledgment and legitimization by the White House of Israel’s brutal occupation and apartheid. This doesn’t change the home demolitions, or the illegal land theft, or murder, or arrest and detention of Palestinian children. What Trump has done is reignite the resistance. He has emboldened the bigots and occupiers, but he has also fueled the fire of resistance which was ignited 70 years ago when we were stripped of our humanity. In the words of Sheikh Omar Suleiman, “Your recognition means nothing to us. Your maps mean nothing to us. Your embassy is as illegitimate as the occupation it seeks to legitimize. Our land is our land. Our dignity is our dignity. Our determination is our determination. Our Aqsa is our Aqsa. Our Palestine is our Palestine. We never had any expectations of tyrants, dictators or stooges. We bow our heads only to One. We will continue to insist on our freedom, even if the world has ceased to acknowledge it.”

There is no person more resilient than the Palestinian. In the words of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, “Being Palestinian is not a slogan, it is not a profession. The Palestinian is a human being, a tormented human being who has daily questions, national and existential, who has a love story, who contemplates a flower and a window open to the unknown.”  He also said “Palestinian people are in love with life.” We love life, we resist, we fight, we dream for life. To be Palestinian is to be the epitome of life, as we stand in the face of daily threats to our existence with our heads held high and our hearts strong.

My existence is resistance in the face of people who tell me I have no home, no country, no people. To those deniers and liars, I tell them nothing. To those deniers and liars, I owe you no explanation, no badge of authenticity. The resistance is in my heart, Palestine is in my blood, my head, my dreams, my motivations and my inspirations. I am the threat. My power is in my life and in this right here—the union of different people to stand for the humanity of a people who have too long been denied.

Let Trump’s announcement make one thing clear- the only resolution is one that includes Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. One that includes the right of return for all Palestinian refugees. One that includes freedom and dignity for all people who have too long been denied justice.

we are the boat

returning to dock

we are the footprints

on the northern trail

we are the iron

coloring the soil

we cannot 
be erased

_Remi Kanazi

Palestine Resolutions Passed in 2017 at Diocesan Conventions – California, Chicago and Maine

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As we prepare for General Convention 2018, we share three resolutions on Palestine passed at diocesan conventions this year.

California: 27-28 October 2017
A JUST PEACE IN THE HOLY LAND
Resolved, That, in light of the Diocese’s 2014 advocacy of economic pressure as a means of ending Israel’s now fifty-year occupation of Palestinian lands and fostering a just peace in the Holy Land, the 168th Convention of the Diocese of California submits the following resolution to the 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church:
Resolved, The House of ________ concurring, That the 79th General Convention of the
Episcopal Church direct the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee to identify by
July 1, 2019 those companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands or
whose products or actions support the infrastructure of the occupation and to place such
companies so identified on its “no-buy” list; and be it further
Resolved, That the General Convention direct the Investment Committee to divest from any investments it might have in such companies and urge the Church Pension Group (CPG) to take similar action; and be it further
Resolved, That the General Convention direct Executive Council to disseminate to Episcopalians a list of products manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and marketed in the United States; and be it further
Resolved, That the General Convention encourage Episcopalians to avoid investing in such companies or buying such products.

 

Chicago: 17-18 November 2017
Subject: Palestinian children in Israeli military courts
Sponsor: The Rev. Anthony Vaccaro, Peace and Justice Committee of the Diocese of Chicago
RESOLUTION
Resolved, that the 180th Convention of the Diocese of Chicago submits the following resolution
to the 79thth General Convention of The Episcopal Church:
Resolved, The House of ___________ concurring, that the 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church calls on the State of Israel to guarantee basic due process rights and exercise a prohibition against torture and ill-treatment of detained children (defined as persons under 18 years old), noting that among the practices in Israel’s military detention system that require change are the use of nighttime arrests in the child’s home, physical and verbal abuse, blindfolds and restraints, strip searches, solitary confinement, coerced confessions and confessions written in Hebrew, as well as the separation of detained children from their parents and legal counselors (including the transfer of Palestinian children to prisons within the State of Israel that their parents are not permitted to visit); and
Resolved, that the 79th General Convention requests the Secretary of this Convention to communicate this call to the Prime Minister of Israel and the Israeli Ambassador to the United States; and
Resolved, that the 79th General Convention calls on the Secretary of State of the United States to certify annually that no funds obligated or expended in the previous year by the United States for assistance to Israel have been used to support the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill- treatment of Palestinian children in violation of international humanitarian law; and
Resolved, that the 79th General Convention requests the Secretary of this Convention to communicate this call to The Secretary of the State of the United States as well as the United States Senate, the President, and the Vice-President..
The 180th Annual Convention Diocese of Chicago November 17-18, 2017
EXPLANATION
The wording of this resolution and parts of the explanation is taken (with permission of the authors) directly from the much larger resolution, “A Call for the United Church of Christ to Advocate for the Rights of Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation,” approved as amended July 2, 2017 by the General Synod of the United Church of Christ.
The treatment of children in Israeli military courts has been well documented by Defense of Children International – Palestine (Bound, Blindfolded and Convicted : children held in military detention, April 30, 2012 [1]), Human Rights Watch, Separate and Unequal, Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Dec. 2010 [2], and UNICEF, Children in Israeli Military Detention – Observations and Recommendations – 6 March 2013 [3]. Since 2000 at least 8,000 Palestinian children have been caught up in the Israeli military detention system. Arrests of children often occur during night raids on family homes by heavily armed Israeli soldiers, children are often blindfolded, suffered from physical and verbal abuse and transferred in an army Jeep to an interrogation center where they are interrogated without the presence of a lawyer or parents. Interrogations are intended to result in a confession.
Over 90% of West Bank Palestinian children taken to military court are convicted.
In April 2016, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) published a study of 429 West Bank children detained between 2012 and 2015. Three out of four children had endured some form of physical violence after being detained by Israeli forces. In 97 percent of the cases, children had no parent or lawyer present during the interrogation process. Interrogators used position abuse, threats, or isolation to coerce confessions from some of these children. At least 66 children were hold in solitary confinement for an average period of 13 days. One child was held in isolation for 45 days. (Defense for Children International – Palestine, No Way to Treat a Child, Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System, 14 April 2016 [4]).
Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. Israeli Jewish settlers who reside in the West Bank enjoy protections provided by the Israeli civilian legal system. In contract, Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israeli military law, which fails to ensure and, in fact, denies basic and fundamental rights. Palestinian children in the West Bank thus suffer abuses and constraints of a military detention system which no Israeli child living in the West Bank ever experiences. The occupation thus creates a system where Palestinians living in the same occupied territory as Israeli settlers have inferior rights and protections under the law – a system where Palestinian children experience an environment of fear, dehumanization and violence that is contradictory to the flourishing of life to which all children, including Palestinian and Israeli children, aspire.
Furthermore the State of Israel ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on October 3, 1991 – a convention that calls on states to “Treat every child deprived of liberty with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age,” to use arrest and imprisonment
of children “only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time,” to give detained children “prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty” and “the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits,” and in n case to subject children to “torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37 [5])
The U. S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 [FAA] states that no assistance will be furnished to “any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” Josh Ruebner in his paper, “US Military Aid to Israel : policy implications and options : November 2, 2016” writes: “Given that US military aid to Israel does not further the advancement of human rights but rather directly contributes to Israel’s systematic human rights violations against Palestinians and that these human rights violations cannot constitute “legitimate self-defense’, and take place not in the context of “internal security”, but in the framework of furthering a foreign military occupation, strong prima facie evidence exists to find Israel is in violation of the FAA and AECA [Arms Export Control Act].” (p. 19) [6]
Adoption of this resolution is not expected to require expenditures that would have in impact on the Diocesan budget.
[1] www.dci-palestine.org/bound_blindfolded_and_convicted
[2] www.hrw.org/reports/2010/12/19/separate-and-unequal
[3] www.unicef.org/oPt/UNICEF_oPt_Children_in_Israeli_Military_Detention-Observations- and-Recommendations – 6_March_2013.pdf
[4] www.dci-palestine.org/Palestinian_children_in_the_Israeli_Military_Detention_System
[5] https://treaties/un.org/doc/publication/mtdsg/volume%20:/chapter%20iv/iv-11.en.pdf
[6] https://www/scribd.com/…/US-Military-Aid-to-Israel-Policy-Implications-Options

Maine: 28 October 2017

Substitute Resolution 7a: Support of the Holy Land’s Children, a resolution submitted by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship was withdrawn and the following Substitute Resolution #7 was presented to Convention. After considerable discussion, it passed.
Resolved, that we of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, assembled in our 198th Convention, direct the Maine Deputation to General Convention (GC) to propose to the 79th GC of The Episcopal Church that it ask the Israeli Prime Minister and the President of the Palestinian Authority to provide assurances that their Governments will accord those under 18 years of age, i.e., those defined as children under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, the full range of rights and protections called for under the international agreements to which they have subscribed.
And be it further resolved, that we direct the Maine Deputation to propose that the 79th GC call upon the President and Members of Congress to persuade the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to sustain their commitments to international law with regard to children’s rights and welfare, and that they ensure that children held in custody will not, as has often been alleged, be subjected to coercion, physical or psychological abuse, or torture.
And be it further resolved, that this Diocesan Convention directs the Maine Deputation to the GC to invite Deputations from New England and other States to sign on to this resolution.

EPF PJN INTRODUCES THE PALESTINE-JUSTICE EDUCATIONAL TOOLKIT

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The Episcopal Peace Fellowship Palestine Justice Network (EPF PJN) announces a new educational resource. The Holy Land where Jesus lived today comprises the state of Israel and the Palestinian territories, and is the site of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. This region is often in the headlines, but events there are little understood by many of us. To help improve that understanding, we have compiled a diverse collection of up-to-date information that we hope will help fill in some gaps and tell the story fairly and accurately:

  • What is this “conflict” really about?
  • Who are the Palestinians and what do they want?
  • Doesn’t Israel have the right to defend itself?
  • Why is understanding this faraway conflict important to baptized followers of Jesus?

We are pleased to offer this Educational Toolkit on our website so that anyone may use its resources. You can find the Toolkit by clicking this link.

We have organized the information to make it “user friendly” by offering materials that can help those just beginning to study these issues, as well as those already knowledgeable. In coming weeks, we will offer additional guidance about the best ways to use the Toolkit.

We offer the Toolkit for your own learning, to help you in telling others about these issues, and/or to use in formal teaching settings; for example, in your church or community group. Feel free to use all the materials or only those that pertain to your situation and setting.

If you visit the Holy Land today, you can walk where Jesus walked and look on the same vistas he saw. Many of the stories that people tell are not so different from the ones he heard, because although the signs of modernization are everywhere, today’s Palestine and Israel continue to witness many of the same themes of Jesus’ time: justice, mercy, compassion, and hospitality.

We hope that this Toolkit will help lead us all to a better way to follow Jesus.

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