30 November 2023: The recent shooting of three Palestinian American college students in Burlington, Vermont has highlighted the way in which Palestinians have been dehumanized in the eyes of many Americans. That a 6 year old boy in the Chicago suburbs could be murdered by his landlord; or that these young men, graduates of the Friends School in Ramallah, could have been shot while walking to a Thanksgiving meal at the home of a grandmother because they were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic is also one of the reasons why we at EPF PIN believe we need to highlight authentic Palestinian voices for justice and peace.
In late October, while we and most of the world were reeling from the violent events of October 7th, and the massive and indiscriminate retaliation which followed, the leadership of EPF PIN was asked to endorse A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians issued by 12 Palestinian Christian organizations. If you haven't read it yet, we encourage you to click on the link provided. After considering what this group of Palestinian Christians from the Middle East, Europe and the Americas have to say, you may want to join our PIN Steering Committee in affirming and amplifying their voice by becoming an individual sponsor. At the time this article is being written, almost 18,000 individuals already have! You might also wish to share this with your parish or diocesan leadership and ask them to sign as organizational sponsors as well.
Of what are our Palestinian Christian siblings asking us to repent? First, of "the way many western Christians are offering unwavering support to Israel’s war against the people of Palestine." This is not just a phenomenon of the evangelicals and religious right. Bishops and other voices in our own Episcopal Church were quick to condemn Hamas' violence, but nearly silent on the Israeli bombing campaign, even after it became apparent that a huge number of children, women and non-combatant men were being murdered.
Further, they call us to repent of "the myopic and distorted Christian responses that ignore the wider context and the root causes of this war: Israel’s systemic oppression of the Palestinians over the last 75 years since the Nakba, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the oppressive and racist military occupation that constitutes the crime of apartheid." As we at EPF PIN, together with many other so-called "justice, then peace" organizations have been saying, "The history of the violence did not begin on October 7th." But we ALL need to repent of our dullness, and really listen to what our Palestinian Christian and Muslim, as well as our progressive including Palestine Jewish siblings are telling us.
They also call us to repentance over the "glaring double standard that humanizes Israeli Jews while insisting on dehumanizing Palestinians and whitewashing their suffering." They would have us see that this double standard "reflects an entrenched colonial discourse that has weaponized the Bible to justify the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples in the Americas, Oceania, and elsewhere, the slavery of Africans and the transatlantic slave trade, and decades of apartheid in South Africa." In relation to Palestine, they would tell us that Colonial narratives "continue in wide-ranging Zionist theologies and interpretations that have legitimized the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the vilification and dehumanization of Palestinians," thereby "making [us] complicit in Israel’s violence and oppression."
Emphasizing their own commitment to non-violence, the 12 Palestinian Christian organizations which composed and signed this Call to Repentance note that they "reject all theologies and interpretations that legitimize the wars of the powerful", and they "strongly urge western Christians to come alongside us in this. "God", they remind us, "is the God of the downtrodden and the oppressed," and that "Jesus rebuked the powerful and lifted up the marginalized. This is at the heart of God’s conception of justice."
If. as we are told, the Advent season we are about to enter is about "preparing the way of the Lord", our Palestinian Christian siblings have certainly highlighted some ways to prepare our hearts and make our paths straight.
