There is a rage burning, in many human hearts around the world.
Begging Creator,
Begging our leaders,
Begging our fellow human beings,
Please. Please. Stop the shooting. Stop the bombing. Stop the killing. Stop the blockades. Please, for all that is Holy and of God, please let those who are still alive, live. Let their families live.
Every day, we weep.
Every night, we weep.
Every day, we face a world of smiles and continue ons.
And every day we give face to our own, smiles and continue ons.
What does one do with this pain ?
Each day, we weep.
And each day, we continue on.
Such is true of a genocide in a land, far away.
For those in that place, at that time, it is the singularly defining devastation of their lives, and will reverberate for many generations to come.
But for those not in that place, not at that time, life often continues on as though nothing has changed whatsoever.
We get coffee. Groceries. Pay bills. Move from here to there. Laugh from time to time.
Smiles and continue ons.
What are we meant to do with this violence ? Watched in real time.
How are human beings meant to respond?
Shall we protest ?
We should and many are.
Shall we share online ?
Yes, however one has the capacity for.
Shall we engage with friends and family, and work to form a global consensus for peace and liberation for all ?
We should and we shall and we do.
Shall we struggle to find candidates worthy of those marching, being arrested, dissenting, and suffering? To demand with our whole souls that there be a ceasefire?
Yes, emphatically yes.
And yet, the question remains.
What are we meant, to DO with this violence?
In our bodies. Our minds. Our souls.
The work of war is the work of destruction. Only those who have felt it, can understand the devastation. In a moment, what has taken centuries or longer to create, can be destroyed with such completeness, such absolutism, that those who come after may never know again, what belonged in a place for millenia.
The work of peace is the work of creation. In contrast to the instantaneous destruction of violence, the work of peace is a generational work. Just as the land takes time to heal, so do human bodies and hearts and societies and traditions and languages and songs and ways of being. And just like the land, some never come back.
When uranium is dug from the ground, whether from the lands of Congo, or the lands of the Diné in Arizona, it becomes a scar upon the earth. Death follows these holes, wherever they are dug. Whether among the small bugs of the dust, or the small cells of living beings, all that is exposed is forever changed. Such is also true for what violence does to the human being. Destroys parts of us filled with life, and love. Parts that were once open and available, become dormant and buried. Feelings inaccessible, which were once as natural as a river's flow.
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As far back as I’ve been able to go with the history of my fathers family, there is exile and exodus. We have always been on the run. From Egypt, from Portugal, from Spain, from Italy, from Greece, from Turkey. We have fled and fled, on the run always, eventually. Though the names of the countries are different, many Jewish families have their own list, and it is often a long one. The list of nations which have expelled Jews over the course of history, includes many names.
Every time we found a new place, a new land to build a home, a new place to raise our families, we worked hard. Generations of entrepreneurs, of Rabbis, of farmers, of traders. The stories and traditions passed down suggest we lived with respect for the cultures around us, and asked only to be allowed to practice our own.
For nearly two thousand years we lived in a generational cycle of hard work, followed by prosperity, followed by being refugees, followed by hard work. We know this story well.
There were times when we felt we could stop. To settle. To breathe and be. To thrive generationally. But inevitably, for one reason or another, we were compelled to gather what could be gathered, and find our way elsewhere.
The promise of Israel was one many believed was sent from Creator. A place to be. To be safe. To create life. To plant and watch our seeds grow. To pray, without fear of persecution or violence or expulsion. To find love and a future for our children. The dream of Israel is one I deeply long for. A home. A place. To be. To exist. To live in safety, and full sovereignty. Our identities protected. Our traditions practiced. Our sacred histories shared. Our sites revered. Our ways endured.
Just as the Kurds deserve their sovereignty and freedom and peace, and just as the Ojibwe deserve their sovereignty and freedom and peace, the Jewish people do as well. And today with great urgency, the Palestinian people do as well.
This is the dream of all peoples. It is the dream of the Karuk and Hoopa, who after more than a century of seeing their waters dammed, will live once again on a free river. It is the dream of the Bantu, who wish to live on the equator, free of the industrial mining and deforestation which works to destroy every inch of earth around them.
It is the dream of the Lakota. Who still believe, generations after the Battle of Greasy Grass, that the Black Hills will one day be theirs, free and sovereign. That they will roam the lands of their ancestors, along with their four legged relatives, free to expand beyond fence and border.
It is the dream of the Kayapo. Who see the river in the sky as immeasurably more abundant than the rivers on the ground, and see them drying up as well, as forests are cut down each day.
It has been the natural dream of many peoples, to live free on the lands of their ancestors. It is the world we should work to create.
Palestine has never been a “land without a people, for a people without a land.” Palestine is a land where people have lived and grown food and families, and existed as human societies, for millenia. Centuries before Christ, the land was referred to in this way. Despite nearly a century of erasure, their identity has endured, and will continue to. It is not power structures that determine people's relationship to the land and one another; it is the people.
In the context of the modern world, mapped out by Colonizing powers, the pursuit of a nation state for the Jewish people, seemed reasonable to many in the West. But a great deal of what seemed reasonable to European powers a century ago, has rarely seemed so to the rest of the world, and assuredly not to the Global South.
When the ancient Hebrews left the lands of Egypt, we arrived in a land with Philistines and Canaanites already living there. The unified empire of Judah lasted a couple centuries, centuries that are reverent to our people and always will be. But those centuries as an empire, following thousands of years of Egyptian rule, and followed by thousands of years of other peoples finding their homes among the region, do not make roots in the region exclusively ours. The story of people finding land after many years of searching, is not the story of indigeneity. It is the story of migration, and finally finding a home where we could raise our babies in peace. Our stories tell of a people called to the land in a sacred way surely, and this relationship must be honored. But this relationship is also true for many peoples, who pray in many languages.
Our history will forever connect the Jewish people to the land we call holy, but it does not give Israelis the right to supremacy on that land for all time. It certainly does not give them the right to perpetual expansion. Whether all Jews are indigenous to the region, or whether the Jewish Diaspora may be more complex, still does not however, address the heart of the injustice. The primary question is whether my right, as a member of the Diaspora, is greater than the right of a Palestinian who has been on that land for anywhere from twenty to fifty generations.
And the answer must be; of course not.
The reason someone whose family has lived in Palestine for the last seven hundred years can no longer live there, and the reason my family can go and receive subsidized housing, is because of the vast violence of the United Kingdom and then later the United States. It was never a great sacrifice for the Imperial Powers, to bequeath the forever frontlines of western conquest. Many did not want us in their lands to begin with. Whether intentionally or not, our beautiful children have become the swords of empire, slain to defend the nuclear hegemony of the West, religious supremacy in Jerusalem, and to continue punishing another people, for the sins of European genocide.
The holy land belongs to all of us, and all land is holy. Terrifying swaths of human history, have been written by those who spilled blood in those lands. I will never be an expert in the ways so many claim to be, but when I walk the lands of Jesus and the many teachers before and after, every cell speaks of an ancient history, beckoning us beyond conquest. If there is a place on the planet that ought to be internationally shared, it would seem to be Jerusalem. Home to three of the world's largest religions, this place above all, should be separated from wars of expansion, and kept sacred for all people.
If any place on earth is deserving of permanent International Peacekeeping, it is Jerusalem. The center of monotheism, and religious conflict on the planet. Only an international solution to Jerusalem will create the conditions for peace. The seat of three of the world’s great religions, cannot belong to one. It cannot belong to two. It must belong to all.
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In the years we built an organizational focus in the democratic republic of Congo and the Great Lakes region, we learned some lessons that may perhaps be relevant in this time.
The first is that in order to understand a conflict, it is often worth beginning with the explicitly expansionist force. Who is currently working to expand? Who holds dominion over the territory being fought over, and who wants it?
Said simply, who is expanding, into whom?
The next question, is who benefits? Which companies or governments or treaties or institutions, benefit from this expansion?
And finally, who benefits the most? Who has the most incentive to see this expansion come into being? Who wins the biggest game?
From there, we can begin to map a strategic context, for understanding a conflict.
What became clear regarding the Great Lakes region, was the intractable reality that Rwanda is small with few resources, and Congo is enormous with more resources than just about anywhere else in the world. The United States has strategically used Rwanda as a military proxy in the region, and Rwanda has then used M23 as their military proxy in Congo. Those who understand this intrinsically expansionist intent, often refer to it as the Balkanization of eastern Congo. Expanding through violence, and settling with words of reconciliation.
When Rwanda retreated in 2013 along with their proxy militia M23, it was in direct response to the United States cutting funding intended for the Rwandan military. Those cuts were then joined by several European Nations, and as the funding removals reached their pinnacle, M23 retreated.
Those who demonize BDS, offer few peaceful alternatives. Whatever the final terms of a solution may be, those demanding peace must engage all levers of power, to align the incentives of those actually in power. In the final hour, humanity’s only choice will be peace. What can we each do each day, to ensure that choice is made now.
In resolving disputes, whether between spouses or siblings or states, there is a natural balance in asking the same questions of each party. If one side wishes for something, the first question is whether the other side may have it as well. If they may not, what exchange could be considered of equal or greater value, to give that thing up?
In the context of spouses, this may have to do with how we spend our time, or our resources, or our focus. In the context of nations, it is often about the use of violence, dominion over a territory, and the capacity to tax and criminalize those within.
Does Israel have the right to defend itself? Of course.
Does Palestine have the right to defend itself? Of course.
Does Israel have the right to sovereignty over clearly defined borders? Of course.
Does Palestine have the right to sovereignty over clearly defined borders? Of course.
Does Israel have the right to their airspace, and to trade along the sea? Of course.
Does Palestine have the right to their airspace, and to trade along the sea? Of course.
The fundamental rights so often espoused by Israelis with great conviction, must also belong to those who pray in other ways.
How can a Palestine exist, without a contiguous land base?
Can there be peace if one side has an army, contiguous borders and ever expanding territory, while the other side does not? Or will this lead forever to war, and conquest. If the events of the last eight months are any indication, the existing context will lead only to perpetual violence.
How can a nation exist, without being physically connected to one another? This is, in many ways, the foundation of what it means to share a nation. To be in physical proximity, directly connected, and to be able to defend collectively held borders.
How is this possible if a nation is separated in two?
I remember reading Jimmy Carter’s, “Peace not Apartheid” in University, and feeling as though I was learning a new language. A new history. A new framework for understanding reality, I had never been exposed to.
President Carter had visited Palestine, and in his time called the situation in Gaza “intolerable” and “one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth.” To those who still claim to not understand the moral imperative of a global movement for Palestine, I ask you to consider how much worse it has become since the days of Mr. Carter.
One would have to go back very far indeed, to find a proposal with borders that are contiguous. To find a possible agreement between two nations, that allowed for both nations to exist as full sovereign states. But if the grave crimes of the Holocaust warranted the creation of a Jewish State upon Palestinian land, does the genocide waged by Israel against Palestinians not warrant the creation of a true, complete Palestinian nation as well?
The changes within the United States, necessary to accomplish such a goal will be seismic. And yet, what could be more severe and consequential, than the annihilation of Gaza. If the Holocaust demanded a response that shifted history, the slaughter of those who have been caged for a generation, demands no less a response.
A Palestinian Nation. Were the world to achieve such a courageous hope, our children could perhaps be the generation that finally lives to see a Holy Land, free and at peace.
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The world changed on 1/11.
South Africa brought charges of genocide against the State of Israel, at the International Court of Justice. The accusations are clear and they are expansive. There is no joy in writing these words. The charges leveled are grave, and their implications will reverberate for generations to come.
On the evening of the same day, the wealthiest country in the world, bombed one of the poorest in Yemen. It was an unconscionable act, following days upon days upon days upon days, of the unconscionable.
When I first learned of the Holocaust, I understood it as a singular evil, unparalleled in the modern world. Words will never be sufficient to describe the depth of my surprise, when at 25 years old I met friends in the democratic republic of Congo, who shared that more than 6 million of their fellow human beings had perished over the course of my lifetime. A modern holocaust, often invisible to the eyes of modern people.
It was with horror that I learned of the first Congo Holocaust, when 10 million lives were lost so the West could have rubber, necessary for the Industrial Revolution. The horror only grew, as I learned the truths of what had happened in Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya and beyond. The truths of what happened in Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and beyond. The truths of what happened in Cambodia, Vietnam, the Phillipines and beyond. The truths of what happened in Alaska, Canada, the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, the Pacific islands and beyond. The truths of perpetual expansion, religious dominion, and the machinations of industrialized profitable war, we develop to rationalize continued growth.
Genocide has horrifically occurred many times, in many corners of the world. It has shaped the modern world as much as any other force, and many of us in the core of empire, are the daily beneficiaries of those which remain unacknowledged. To stand in common cause with the brave souls working to restore what has been lost, and honor all ancestors, has been in my own life, a distinctly and wonderfully Jewish work.
Many Jews responded to the horrors of the Holocaust, by insulating and amassing the capacity for industrial violence. Many Jews responded to this same horror, by finding solidarity and common cause with oppressed peoples all over the world. As vast swaths of peoples unite for Palestine, each of our families will face a choice. Will we see these protestors as enemies, who intrinsically hate Jews and are plotting against us? Or will we see them as human beings, responding to the mass suffering of other human beings. They are neither deceived nor foolish. They are demanding, alongside many of our Grandmothers and Grandfathers, an end to mass violence and genocide. Their call is worthy, and will be heard reverberating through the ages, as a call of collective conscience.
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In the region where I live, way out in west tejas, there is a sizable zionist movement. And yet, I wonder how many of them have met even a single person who is Jewish. On the second night of Hanukkah this year, the Rabbi stood in front of a small gathering and said, “Welcome to abilene texas, where even in the midst of our most celebrated holiday, and a war in the holy land, we still can't get even one sentence in the local newspaper.”
One sentence in the local newspaper.
Though we are unusually isolated by the religious supremacy of this land, the communities in this region who support zionism are often the same people who make life actively uncomfortable for Jews, and anyone who is not European or Christian. They are often the same communities working steadfastly to remove the rights of women, and every expression of gender and sexuality. They are often the same people working ferociously to claim power with racial and religious majorities, and to use it retributively. And they are the same people who see themselves as the rightful inheritors of the land, ordained by God's grace. In ways not dissimilar from the settlers of the West Bank, the european christians who colonized Texas, justified their conquest with their own evolution of the doctrine of discovery, and two centuries later, their descendants hold it still. I am one of them.
I have family who fly the white flag with the red cross at rodeos, and family who fly the white flag with the blue star of david as well. Both use symbols of religion and connection with the Creator, as symbols of dominance and conquest.
I cannot in good conscience, speak forcefully against the perpetual expansion of the Israeli nation, without also speaking forcefully against the nation which has set the example, built the legal foundation, and then continuously funded the expansion. That nation is my own.
Gaza is often referred to as a concentration camp. It is worth acknowledging that the concentration camps which claimed the lives of so many loved ones, were originally inspired by the American Reservations. Hitler compared the Nazi genocide against the Jews and Gypsys, to the “struggle in North America against the Red Indians.” This is not some casual connection. It is the specific result of ideologies of supremacy, which so often demand religious and racial dominion over a land.
Today the poorest zip code in America is the land of the Oglala’s, who were also the last people to claim the United States flag in open battle. Although the genocide of Native People’s in the Americas is today waged more slowly, the political structure of Pine Ridge, shares a great deal in common with the political structure of Gaza. The Lakota Nation fought several wars with the United States, and won many. No matter how many generations pass, they will forever see themselves as a Sovereign Nation. This was the agreement signed in blood, as Treaty with a young invading nation, whose Constitution rightly called Treaties the “Supreme Law of the Land.”
The Palestinians have also made agreements signed in blood. Despite the deliberate destruction of libraries and universities and cemeteries and places of record keeping, despite the generational denial of their right to be on the land of their foremothers, the Palestinian people are a people and will continue to be. They must have a Nation with contiguous borders, and they must have a military to protect themselves. To deny these fundamental needs of a people is to forever deem their continued response to displacement, as terror. Demanding they accept terms we would not accept ourselves, will only create more violence for our children.
I remember when I first began to internalize and understand the staggering, generational loss that had occurred from the Holocaust. On the island of Rhodes, there is a synagogue with a large black rock on the hillside. That rock has seventy family names, of those taken by the Italians and given to the Germans. Of those seventy names, seven were our family. All my life I wondered why there were so few cousins in our family. Looking at that rock, I began to understand why.
Generations later, and we are now doing it to another. Flagrantly and unabashedly. Expressing the depths of our trauma and pain, onto an entire people group, trapped generationally, because we need somewhere safe to be.
I write to the Jews in my life. To the Christians. To those participating in the mass tribes of monotheism. Please. Please join the voices around the world, calling for a permanent ceasefire. Please join those calling for Palestinian nationhood. Abandon the echoes of dominion, and join the struggle for peace and liberation.
Peace can grow from any corner of the earth, and begins in the human heart. Even today, Palestinian mothers and Israeli mothers, are plotting in secret for peace. Even today, trading partners from across the wall, are working toward the hope of peace. In our dusty town in west tejas, we held a vigil to honor those lost. Tears wreaked havoc through our bodies, as we sat with the scale of pain and suffering occurring in real time, often with the consent of our neighbors. Each of us can, one by one, in our own way, remove that consent. Remove acceptance, even if only on the inside. Remove conformity, remove complacency, remove the myths that we are neither connected nor responsible. Whether we are willing to internalize the staggering implications of our interconnectedness, or continue to live in perpetual denial of the violence waged with our resources and blessings, will not change the depth of the connection. Will not change that it is our dollars, taxed on our labor, financing this slaughter. Will not change that it is our bombs, manufactured with our resources, decimating generations. Will not change that it is our leaders, elected with our consent - or at least without our collective defiance - approving an industrialized Wounded Knee.
In real time. Today. Tomorrow. The day after
We will never bomb our way to peace. Bombs may clear the land for state expansion, and real estate speculation, and kick the war down a generation. But they are the gravest form of disrespect to our children, for they ensure a violent response - whether now or when the babies of today finally have their chance. If we love the generations growing, we will commit ourselves to the daily work of generational peace.
Now and always, sending limitless respect and honor to those protesting around the world and here at home. The machinations of war must be confronted directly, and stopped each day and each way we are able. Our institutions will continue to fail us, only in persistent unity will we find our way.
Peace to all under this bright moon.
May it shine upon you.
