SABBATICAL 19: "How Are the Children?"

Beit Sahour in the West Bank

Today I visited with Dalia Qumsieh (Founder & Director) and Amir Almufreh (Project Coordinator) of the Balasan Initiative for Human Rights in Palestine.  Started in 2020, Balasan manifests its human rights commitment in addressing issues of injustice and oppression in the West Bank: advocacy in the international community; concrete legal assistance in matters of illegal settlement, annexation and occupier intrusions; empowerment for young adults seeking support for justice inititives; and a new women's collective linking Palestinians in the diaspora with Palestinian women here in the West Bank.

I'm eager to report out on what I learned today.  There was so much by way of motivation and reflection...so I think I'll simply jump in with several critically important take-aways:

Dalia Qumsieh

1. Balasan was conceived as a Palestinian human rights initiative.  And Dalia Qumsieh--its founder--is quick to say that anything now, any future now, any arrangement now is all about, and only about, protection and commitment to the human rights of this land's peoples.  Whatever political arrangements are possible, whether or not there's a second state on the ground, the machinations of global powers trying to save face politically...none of this really matters in the end.   What matters (morally and consequentially) are the human rights of human beings.  The right to self-determination.  The right to live on ancestral lands and in beloved cultural communities.  The right to move freely without restriction, violence and fear.  The right to be recognized by the global community as fully worthy of the same freedoms and rights as all others on the planet.  

Does the church believe in the sacred rights and capacities of the human being (and every human being) or not?  Are we willing to rationalize these rights away--in service to whatever ideology, xenophobic political party or racist trend is current?  Isn't a church dedicated to the teachings of one who gave every last breath for human dignity obligated to do the same?

(And this brings to mind my colleagues in the UCC network and, in particular, Loren McGrail, John Thomas and Allie Perry.  They read the urgent Cry for Hope of Palestinian Christians and insisted that we in the UCC also turn to human rights as a "plumbline" that determines resistance and action and the shape of our partnerships.  I'm so grateful for that network, and the prophetic spirit of a church that has raised me up and fired me up.)

2. Dalia notes that Israel carries out genocide in Gaza with absolute "impunity" and is not only unaffected by moral outrage (and statements to such)...but almost emboldened by it all.  This is something we've all seen...but to hear a committed, engaged Palestinian say it, and with such anguish, affects me deeply now.  She insists that the time for statements is past: the occupying power is all too happy to wave another statement on by.  Each one proves, in a way, Israel's exceptionalism and its moral "high ground"--the only nation unaccountable to the laws of others.  And righteously so.

Flaunting international law for decades, Israel has made it all too clear how much "reform" is needed in this critcally important area.  While international law and consensus is important to all nations, it's essential, Dalia reminds me, for the work and resistance of dis-empowered peoples in occupied lands.  And rather than seeing international law as "fatally flawed" (as some would like it now), we must resolve to do better: to reform it where reform is urgently needed, to bring into the center of diplomatic and moral diliberations our shared commitment to consequential laws and agreements among the nations.  The Geneva Conventions have to mean something!  For everyone.

2.  Dalia is quick to remind me that, though Israel maps out the Gazan genocide and executes it daily, the United States (my United States) bears an even "greater responsibility."  This is, of course, hard to hear; but she is compelling, earnest, kind and truthful.  Without American support, so many UN resolutions blocked, international law rendered toothless and ineffective--Israel could do very little of what it's done over the last 60 (and especially, the last 25) years in Gaza and the West Bank.  Without billions and billions and billions of lethal aid (funded by Democrats and Republicans)--Israel's daily bombardment and sophisticated gutting of Gazan society could not inflict the destruction and death we've seen.  

Amir Almufreh

Somehow, she says, American voters have to come to grips with this, with our complicity and responsibility.  Just because this violence is half a world away does not mean it is not our violence.  Amir mentions, in particular, the "battle testing" of weapons systems that Israel and the US then "market" to other governments (and players) globally.  And I wonder: Doesn't this (finally) reveal the death-wish of 21st century capitalism itself?  To "market" genocidal violence and techniques world-wide?  To build an economy around that kind of sin and cruelty?  God, have mercy.

3.  The urgency of the moment, then, requires (in their words) sanctions, sanctions, sanctions.  The global community (and the US, in particular) have to say NO MORE.  An arms embargo.  An end to funding of any kind for a rogue state.  A principled commitment to human rights as the basis of any future, any arrangement, any way forward.  But it all begins with sanctions, sanctions, sanctions.  And urgently.  Because children, mothers, communities, cultures are dying.  It's about erasure now.

And this fits the work we've been trying to engage in the UCC Movement for Palestinian Solidarity (formerly UCCPIN).  If our calling is solidarity, that's about more than moral outrage.  If our faith implicates us in relationships, in partnerships--one body with many members--that faith requires consequential discipleship and action.  Like it or not, our government (representing us) is at the very heart of all of this (genocide, occupation, illegal settlements, annexation plans).  None of it happens apart from you and me.  So what?  What does that mean?  What do we do with that?  (Jesus doesn't say, by the way: "Think it over and follow me."  He simply says: "Follow me," or, "Let's go.")

4. We had a good conversation, a thoughtful exchange, around Palestinian agency.  The God-given right of Palestinian people to do their own work, build their own institutions, name their own intentions and priorities, and draw from their own traditions in relationship to the healing that must be done.  This is, to be clear, the substance of the human rights approach.  While 80 years of displacement and run-away colonialism clouds the Western mind, and often renders Palestinians either invisible or two-dimensional, Dalia's people, Amir's people are anything but.  They are bright and gifted.  They are passionate and eager to learn.  They are defiant and ready to build something new.  

The rest of the world has to stand up for those human rights, has to defy governments that would deny them (or reason them away), has to put an end to genocidal violence: so that Palestinians themselves can do what they alone can do for themselves.  Build.  Dream.  Create.  Heal.

Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions

One of Balasan's exciting new inititaives is the Al-Thuraya Women's Collective--bringing women in the Palestininian diaspora together with women here in the West Bank and Gaza for collaboration, mutual aid and strategic assessments and action.  I'm going to quote this right off their website, because it's so, so, so brilliant:

Named after the ancient Pleiades star cluster revered by the Canaanites as a source of guidance, the Al-Thuraya Women’s Collective symbolizes feminine constellation and connection, guidance, and visibility. This collective seeks to unite expert Palestinian women in Palestine and in the diaspora in bringing about their expertise and working collectively towards the protection of Palestinian rights and for the Palestinian cause. This collective creates a dynamic forum exclusively for Palestinian women with strong expertise and experience advocating for Palestinian rights, and serves as a vibrant platform for connection, where women can exchange ideas, strategize legal and advocacy efforts, and collaboratively advance the Palestinian cause.

I hope my US friends and siblings will take good note of this project, and Dalia's and Amir's enthusiasm for it, as we all move forward.  If there's a future for the Palestinian people, Dalia insists, that future must look to "Al-Thuraya"--to the wisdom, expertise and communal sensibilities of women (in the diaspora and nearby) who will become the navigational stars for communities of the future.  Agency, agency, agency. 

And again, our US calling has to involve paying attention, taking their passion seriously, centering their voices--and responding in every way we can to their creativity.

5.  Lastly, and this came up more than once or twice: Dalia Qumsieh reminds us that there are no "little" moments in this huge struggle for survival and justice.  There are no "little" achievements or efforts along the way.  Each of us can do something.  Some can join nonviolent protests and put our bodies in the way of genocide and its funding.  Some can join a boycott (see the list above, the information is not hidden, and the opportunities are many).  Some can make a contribution to Balasan or Wi'am or any number of daring Palestinian communties promoting empowerment, celebrating agency and insisting on sumud.  Some can make call after call after call to congressional switchboards, demanding action on sanctions, joining Bernie Sanders in his insistance on "NO MORE MILITARY AID OF ANY KIND."

So join the Apartheid-Free Movement, friends.  Do it now.  And tell everyone you know why you did it.  Boycott Chevron: make a point of showing up at a station, joining other communities in making plain why you're doing so.  Share news on a coming Sabeel delegation.  Invite friends and church members to come, see, act.  There are no "little" moments, and there are no insignificant choices.  We simply must step forward and choose life.

Bethlehem, Nightfall

Years ago, my UCC colleague, the Rev. Traci Blackmon asked us to consider this question as the beating heart of our witness, our discernment and our prophetic action: "How are the children?"  It was simple: "How are the children?"  But the more Traci asked the question, the more it shook the foundations of the church.  If our children are hungry, if our children are cowering in school classrooms shaken by violence, if our children are orphaned by genocide, fleeing city to city in Gaza...doesn't that reveal something of God's own suffering and God's cry for justice?  Can we say anymore that we didn't know?

Amir Almufreh and Dalia Qumsieh have reminded me that the children of Palestine are bright and brilliant and wise--but that they are also frightened and traumatized and starving and orphaned by American-funded violence.  They've reminded me that they (and many others) are committed to fighting the good fight, championing the human rights of their people, bringing them together for creative strategizing and mutual encouragement and community.  They will continue to do their work, make good on their promises.

The next step then is mine, maybe even ours.  Will we do the same?

"How are the children?"