Listening To Palestinians Speak In Portland And The Kairos Palestine Document: A Prayerful Call Of Palestinian Christians To End The Occupation

The struggle in Palestine goes on and on. A pessimist will say that it has gone from bad to worse and will continue to do so. Somewhere in the back of our consciousness we can imagine Palestinians completely dispossessed and living in refugee camps managed by the U.N., their land taken by Israeli settlements which suck the water from the land and change the region's ecology and the former Palestinian cities as kinds of glorified theme parks for tourists. And we can imagine the world community allowing this to happen, with some protests and conflict but with deals being cut in the end. What then? The logical progression for Israel would be to turn on its Israeli-Arab citizens and further relegate them to second-class or subserviant citizens.

A more optimistic view holds that every day that Palestinians survive is a victory. Really, given the lopsided balance of power existing between Israel and Palestine it is an amazing victory that Palestinians remain in any parts of their country and that the country itself still appears on anyone's maps. And not only that, but Palestinian resistance movements continue, however divided and contradictory they may sometimes appear to be, while something like religious fanatical settler-colonialism takes over Israel and seems to overcome most progressive or liberal Israeli forces. We can hope--we do hope--that the resistance will develop and broaden and that it will meet a powerful Israeli socialist movement that is for full peace and justice and the creation of a secular and democratic state for all. Regardless of conditions in Israel, of courrse, the Palestinians have every right to resist the occupation with any and all means chosen by their progressive and democratic movements.

I was thinking of these points as I was listening to Alison Weir and two Palestinian Christians talk this evening at a presentation given in Portland. Alison Weir heads If Americans Knew, an information-gathering and advocacy group which frequently and courageously confronts zionist disinformation and pays a heavy price for its work. One of the other great speakers this evening was the director of the International Middle East Media Center, who could speak from his own experience about Israeli terrorism. The other was Hala Gores, who I always learn so much from.

This evening's events were thrown together quickly, but the talks were to the point and directed at Christians who may have forgotten our origins and our sisters and brothers in Palestine. I was dismayed to see how the apartheid wall constructed by Israel has encroached upon places in Palestine familiar to me. Like many people, I have avoided looking previously because seeing the wall and the spread of the settlements has been too painful. In two hours the speakers guided me through some of my most pessimistic feelings.

The point of departure for the talks this evening was, besides the approaching Christmas, the release of the Kairos Palestine Document, a prayerful call of Palestinian Christians to End the Occupation. Really, this document needs to spread through the American churches as part of a struggle for liberation theology and as part of the broader anti-imperialist struggle. It should be made available and studied carefully. We have a responsibility to this and hold clergy accountable for reacting positively to it. After all, in the current situation christian-zionism has emerged as a major force backing the occupation and a means of holding the megachurches here hostile to reactionary politics.