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UCC PIN NOVEMBER E-NEWS
In this issue:
- "One Week Later: a Reflection on the Election," by the Rev. Sara Ofner-Seals
- Take Action Now!
- "How Long, O Lord?": a Gathering for Prayer, Witness & Support, Nov. 20
- Advent Resources for 2024
- "Friends of Palestinian Detainees": FOSNA Pilot Project
- Webinar on Anti-Palestinian Racism, Dec. 5
- The Mother's Day Five: Enacting a world of communion and justice
- Breaking the Stories, curated by the Rev. Loren McGrail & the Rev. Sara Ofner-Seals
- Recommended Recent Podcasts
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Follow UCC Palestine Israel Network | |
by Palestinian artist Sobhiya Hasan Qais | |
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One Week Later: a Reflection on the Election
by the Rev. Sara Ofner-Seals
UCC PIN Steering Committee
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“Fight for justice, not just for Palestinians. For everyone.”
I can’t really tell you how many times I heard some version of this sentiment when I was in the West Bank. So often, when we would ask Palestinians what we should do and how we could take action, after telling us to talk to our political leaders, they would often add some version of this comment. “Fight for justice, not just for Palestinians, but for everyone.”
Today, just one week after the election, the words of my Palestinian comrades echo in my mind. Something our Palestinian friends seem to understand quite well is the intersectionality of all justice and liberation struggles (see Noah Trevor's conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates in this month’s podcast recommendations for more on this). And so our fight for justice can never just be for one people, one tribe, one nation. Our fight for justice is for all creation, and we do the work in whatever ways we can, from wherever we happen to be.
For some of us, this will simply mean that after a period of taking stock, grieving, and holding space for all who are hurting right now, we get right back to what we were doing before. Whether our particular fight was for a free Palestine, women’s rights, queer liberation, immigrant rights, combatting climate change, or fighting racism and white supremacy, the work is still there, waiting for us to pick it back up again with a renewed sense of commitment.
As one friend said to me, the work is the same, it’s just gotten harder. I know that is a disheartening thought. The work is the same, it’s just gotten harder. But maybe, just maybe, we can be stronger than we think. Maybe, just maybe, this little apocalypse will reveal hidden reserves of strength within us. Maybe, after a period of grief, we will emerge more courageous, more willing to sacrifice for what we know is right. And make no mistake, that’s what it will take to overcome this setback. It will take all of us making sacrifices of some kind.
For those of us who are committed to the fight for a free Palestine, it’s very clear that our work has just gotten much harder. The Israeli government is already taking steps towards even more aggressive policies in Gaza and the West Bank, assuming that they will receive little pushback from the incoming administration. You can read about some of these policies in the Breaking the Stories portion of this newsletter.
There is another phrase that I have heard many Palestinians say, which I think is also appropriate in this moment. “We do not have the luxury of despair.” Friends, the fight has come to us in earnest. This is a moment of truth for all of us who care about justice, human rights, and building a better world. We can grieve for a time, but we cannot allow ourselves to fall into despair. The people we care about— our black and brown friends, our immigrant and refugee friends, our queer friends— do not have that luxury and so neither do we.
And so today we grieve. But tomorrow… tomorrow we pick ourselves off, dust ourselves off, and we fight. We resist. We practice joy, because we cannot let them steal our joy, and to practice joy in the midst of troubling times is itself an act of resistance. We fight for our friends, we fight for ourselves, we fight for our country, we fight for a free Palestine, and we fight for a better world.
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by Jordanian artist Osama Hajjaj | |
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We are likely continuing to grieve the outcome of the U.S. election and that is important to do -- we need to grieve-- and then as Sara urges in her opening reflection, “we get back to what we were doing before. . . we fight. We resist.” To do that, we must avoid the temptation of sliding into despair. Despair, as some have observed, is “the spirituality of empire.” Empires succeed when people of conscience lose hope, concede their power, stop fighting, and give in. So let our responses be to work even harder and engage in the “radical action” that Natasha Lennard prescribes in a recent Intercept article. We are not, as she reminds us, “starting from scratch.”
Here are two current issues needing our immediate attention and action:
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) funding: The Biden Administration suspended all funding of UNRWA in January 2024 and then in March Congress followed suit passing a one-year ban on funds. Now the Israeli Knesset has banned UNRWA from operating within Israel. Take action by demanding Congress condemn Israel's ban on UNRWA and sponsor or support the UNRWA Funding Restoration Act. You can deliver this message (1) through FOSNA here; and (2) through this month’s Global Ministries’ 3rd Thursday alert coming out soon. Look for that.
The Joint Resolutions for Disapproval (JRD) on US Weapons to Israel: These resolutions, submitted by Senator Bernie Sanders, come up for a Senate vote, mandated this week between Nov. 12-15. Prompted by this schedule for the JRD vote, Peace Action Now has designated Nov. 10-24 National Days of Action, a time to tell Congress and the Administration, “Stop arming genocide.” You can deliver that message to Congress in multiple ways: (1) through Peace Action Now here; (2) through our own Global Ministries alert here; and (3) through the Friends Committee for National Legislation here.
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"How Long, O Lord?": a Gathering for Prayer, Witness, and Support
Wednesday, Nov. 20
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The UCC PIN’s Clergy Resource and Training Team invites UCC clergy, seeking connection, support, and partners in the work to end genocide and war and to bring justice to all, to attend an online gathering Wednesday, November 20, at 6 pm ET, 3 pm PT.
UCC PIN offered a similar space for people to come together, once before. That was within days of October 7, 2023. It was a spontaneous invitation, so we expected maybe a dozen people to attend; over 70 signed on. The need then was intense and palpable.
It is all the more so now, after a year of Israel’s on-going and ever brazen genocide and in the aftermath of the U.S. elections. This gathering will include space for prayer, lament, and sharing of feelings, as well as opportunities for strategizing with and support for one another. Looking for such support and solidarity? Join this gathering, facilitated by members of UCC PIN’s Clergy Resource and Training Team.
For questions, contact the Rev. Dave Grishaw-Jones DavidGJ@CCDurham.org. To register, use the QR code below.
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Advent Resources for 2024: a reading, prayers, hymn text, and communion | |
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Bethlehem continues to be a town under Israel’s increasingly oppressive occupation. As the liturgical cycle brings us to yet another season of Advent, the image, which Pastor Munther Isaac invoked last Advent, of Jesus born under the rubble sears our souls ever more deeply. Jesus is still under the rubble created by Israel’s airstrikes and bombings in Gaza and now Lebanon. He is wrapped not in swaddling cloths but shrouds. Meanwhile, the violence in the West Bank, perhaps less visible to much of the world, is none the less lethal. Bethlehem does not stilly lie.
UCC PIN’s Liturgical Resource Team has developed, for the Advent season, resources that speak to this current, unsettling, and unpeaceful reality. For one example, see below Micah Bucey’s “Reading - A Kind of Magnificat.” You will find that and the other Advent resources on UCC PIN’s substack here.
Reading - A Kind of Magnificat
by Micah Bucey
Our souls are meant to magnify divinity,
So why do we settle for staying so small?
We are meant to be saved by joint joy,
So why do we tear ourselves apart with apartheid?
We are chosen to uplift the next generations,
So why do we instead choose the weight of hate?
We are born to balance our strength with sanctuary,
So why do bombs overshadow our benevolence?
We are blessed to inherit abundant bubbles of vision,
So why do we scatter them amongst the mounting rubble?
We are able to root the future in both history and hope,
So why does dishonesty strangle our growth?
We are equipped to embody a love beyond the local,
So why do we build borders of inward-facing apathy?
We are pushed toward peace by every faithful fiber of our frames,
So may we listen for ourselves over the saddest sounds of ourselves and
Magnify a ceasefire on our souls.
Amen
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“Friends of Palestinian Detainees”: Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) Launches Pilot Program for Congregations | |
As of September 10, 2024, Israel was incarcerating over 10,100 Palestinian political prisoners, with 3,398 held in administrative detention, a benign sounding term for a perverse procedure that allows Israeli occupation forces to hold prisoners indefinitely with no charges or access to a trial. These figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, document a dramatic and alarming spike over the past year, even higher now than the figures reported in this April 2024 Addameer graphic. | |
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While predominately men, those incarcerated also include women and children, some as young as 12 years old. Israel feels no compulsion to provide evidence for the arrests and detentions of Palestinians, and doesn’t. Meanwhile, there is increasing evidence and documentation of Israel’s escalating use of torture against Palestinians detainees.
FOSNA is launching their Friends of Palestinian Detainees pilot program in an effort to humanize and personalize the reality of the Palestinians detained and subjected to Israel’s cruel and tortuous punishment. The project seeks to recruit, as participants, a dozen North American faith communities. Each congregation will be matched with a Christian Palestinian detainee and their family members. The goal through these pairings is to build relationships of friendship, support, and solidarity that will be sustained over time.
Might your congregation feel called to join this initiative and befriend a Palestinian detainee? For more details about FOSNA’s pilot program and to apply digitally, go here.
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Webinar on Anti-Palestinian Racism: Recognize and Counter
Thurs., Dec. 5, 4 pm PT, 7 pm ET
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Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME) has organized a upcoming webinar, Anti-Palestinian Racism: Recognize and Counter; UCC PIN is one of the several co-sponsors. Facilitated by staff and leaders of The Institute for the Understanding of Anti-Palestinian Racism, the webinar will help participants identify aspects of anti-Palestinian racism and strategies to counter it.
The media coverage of the recent barrage of violence in Amsterdam exemplifies the imperative for just such a webinar. Headlines of mainstream media described the attacks only as expressions of antisemitism while ignoring or erasing the context of precipitating anti-Palestinian actions. (See "The West buries a genocide" article in Breaking the Stories.)
The webinar will be Thursday, December 5, at 4 pm PT/ 7 pm ET. To register, go here.
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The Mother's Day Five: Enacting a World of Communion and Justice | |
The Rev. Dave Grishaw-Jones testifying at the Mother's Day Five trial | |
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“Despair is not an option; and genocide requires courage and resistance,” so testified UCC PIN steering committee member the Rev. Dave Grishaw-Jones during a two-hour trial in a New Hampshire district court October 29. Dave, pastor of the Community Church of Durham, was one of five defendants, the “Mother’s Day Five,” charged with criminal trespass for their nonviolent sit-in at the office of their member of Congress Rep. Chris Pappas last May. After numerous attempts, with no response, to communicate with Rep. Pappas about the U.S. government’s complicity in funding Israel’s genocide, the group felt called, indeed compelled, to intensify their efforts and to engage in civil disobedience, knowingly risking arrest. To read news coverage of their trial, go here.
“I think of our civil disobedience as confessional,’ said Dave, reflecting on the group’s witness, “Somebody, somewhere has to confess American complicity in genocide and apartheid. . . active complicity, driven by corporate greed and anti-Arab racism. I’m a part of that complicity-system. And I want to confess that, repent, turn from it. Our civil disobedience is not an act of heroism or individual merit; it’s a collaborative project of creative nonviolence, confession and solidarity. I confess. I move to stand in a different space, with those who suffer. And I work then to enact a world beyond genocide and war, a world of communion and justice.”
As we prepare for the peril that a second Trump administration threatens here at home, in Palestine, and globally, we already know, at a cellular level, that we will need to intensify our efforts to “enact a world beyond genocide and war, a world of communion and justice.” May resistance become our modus operandi, and insistence on nonviolent love and solidarity be our mantra. And may the persistent and faithful witness of those like the Mother’s Day Five provide inspiration.
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Breaking The Stories: November 2024
curated by the Rev. Loren McGrail and the Rev. Sara Ofner-Seals,
UCC PIN Steering Committee
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Israeli parliament passes law to deport relatives of ‘terrorists’ | |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the opening of a Knesset session, on October 28, 2024. The deportation law was championed by members of his Likud party and its far-right allies [Debbie Hill/Pool via Reuters] | The Israeli parliament has given its final approval to controversial legislation that allows the government to deport the family members of so-called “terrorists,” including its own citizens, to the Gaza Strip and other locations. Here | |
After Trump’s victory, Palestinians cannot afford to wait until the next US election, by Samar Badawi | |
A sign congratulating Former President Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election in central Jerusalem, November 7, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) | Not long after the first results began rolling in, it became clear that Harris had alienated a significant proportion of what had been the Democrats’ base. Among Arab and Muslim Americans, her repeated refusal to break with the Biden administration’s unquestioning support of Israel pushed tens of thousands of voters toward Green Party candidate Jill Stein or even Donald Trump. | |
Israeli army says it is staying in north Gaza and won’t let residents return, by Qussam Muaddi | |
Displaced Palestinians ordered by the Israeli military to evacuate the Northern part of Gaza flee amid an Israeli military operation in Jabalia, October 25, 2024. (Photo: © Mahmoud Issa/Quds Net News Via Zuma Press Wire/APA images) | |
Tuesday, a spokesperson of the Israeli army, Yitzhak Cohen, said in a press briefing that the army has come close to the complete “evacuation” of the population of north Gaza. The army spokesperson said that Palestinian residents of the north will not be allowed to return to their homes. This declaration marks the first official Israeli admission of the intent to permanently expel Palestinians from north Gaza. Here | |
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On Extreme Actions Taken By Israel
Israel taps staunch supporter of illegal settlements as ambassador to US Here
The Israeli army admitted it’s staying in north Gaza. Here’s the next phase of its plan, by Tareq S. Hajjaj Here
On the Election
The Politics of Despair by Chris Hedges Here
Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party, by Peter Beinart Here
‘Yesssss!’: Israel reacts to Donald Trump’s return to power in the US election Here
Democrats who warned Harris launch their rebukes: ‘These guys didn't get it at all’: Here
Fatima Bhutto: Kamala Harris’s Support for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Is a Betrayal of True Feminism Here
More Resources
The West buries a genocide – by making victims of Israel’s football thugs Here
The War on Terror Comes to Defund Left & Liberal Nonprofits Here
America & the War on Palestine: Palestinian Scholar Noura Erakat and Ta-Nehisi Coates at PalFest Here
Report of UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanesa Here
UAW members push their union to divest from Israeli genocide Here
Israel kills the journalists. Western media kills the truth of genocide Here
| Recommended Recent Podcasts |  | |
What Now? With Trevor Noah - This wide-ranging conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates touches on the intersection of multiple justice struggles, including Palestine, Black liberation in America, and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Here
Democracy Now from Wednesday, November 11/6/24 - This episode explores the recent election and the implications for Palestine and other social justice concerns. Here
Useful Idiots: A Palestinian Scholar Explains Why Kamala Harris Lost The Democrats, Munayyer explains, led four years of economic hardship for the working class and continued to double down on their support for a genocide in Gaza. “This was a change election. People wanted something different.” Here
This is Palestine: Israel’s Control of the Palestinian Economy: Since 1948, Israel has imposed policies and measures to control and hamper the Palestinian economy. In this episode of “This is Palestine,” host Diana Buttu speaks to Ali Hamdallah, a prominent Palestinian economist and analyst. Buttu and Hamdallah discuss the various ways Israel intentionally targets and controls the Palestinian economy to obstruct Palestinian sovereignty. Here
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