Black and Palestinian Christians in Solidarity

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Check out this Sojourners Magazine conversation between Josiah R. Daniels and Azmera Hammouri-Davis.

Honestly, I never thought much about Israel before college. Then, during my sophomore year, a prominent New Testament studies scholar had been invited to speak on campus; after it came to light that they were openly critical of the state of Israel, they were summarily disinvited. A few other students and I were still able to meet with the scholar, and we were shocked by the language they were using to describe the conditions in Israel for the Palestinians: “Second-class citizens,” “genocide,” and “apartheid” were the terms that struck me most.

“It can’t be as bad as what Black people have faced in the United States or what they faced in South Africa,” I remember saying to the scholar. “Go and see,” they admonished. And so, one year later, that’s exactly what I did.

In 2012, three other students and I had been invited to attend a conference at Bethlehem Bible College called Christ at the Checkpoint. The mission of this conference, which will be convening for the seventh time in May 2024, was to invite evangelicals to think about Israel and Palestine in ways that prioritized “peace, justice, and reconciliation,” while also explicitly giving voice to Palestinian Christians. And while I’m grateful that I was introduced to authors, theologians, and activists like Munther Isaac, Jonathan Kuttab, and Salim Munayer, nothing was quite as transformational as experiencing a checkpoint for myself.

I’d been stopped at police checkpoints in the United States multiple times — either alone or with friends or my dad. During those stops, humiliation, pain, or death always seemed to be a likely outcome. So when I was preparing to pass through one of the checkpoints at Israel’s apartheid wall, I imagined the Israel Defense Forces soldiers would hassle me the same as the Chicago police. But there was no hassling. I handed them my blue U.S. passport and waltzed through the checkpoint. “I feel like the scholar exaggerated a bit,” I thought to myself. But as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I turned around to see a long line of Palestinians, each of them being hassled by an IDF soldier. When I looked into the eyes of those Palestinians, I saw that they, too, felt humiliation, pain, or death was a likely outcome.

To read the interview go to Sojourners Magazine here.

What is Christian Zionism?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Jewish Voice for Peace and Showing Up for Racial Justice are hosting a free webinar called Understanding Christian Zionism on Wednesday, November 29 at 8:00pmEST. You can register for it here.

What is Christian Zionism, how is it showing up in this moment, and why is understanding it important in our efforts to demand a ceasefire and an end to the violence in Gaza? Join SURJ and Jewish Voice for Peace for a mass teach-in about Christian Zionism. We’ll hear from an expert panel– Palestinian Christian activist Jonathan Brenneman, Jewish researcher and writer Aiden Orly, and scholar of pentecostalism and the Christian far right Elle Hardy– who will share their analysis of how we got here and how our strategies to demand a ceasefire and fight for Palestinian liberation can be aided by a deeper understanding of the forces we’re up against. Live ASL interpretation will be available on the call. If the Zoom reaches capacity, we will be livestreaming on SURJ and JVP’s Facebook pages. Register to receive the recording if you’re unable to make the call.

How Do We Celebrate Christmas While Bombs Drop in Gaza?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Another compelling offering from The Alternative Seminary.

How Do We Celebrate Christmas While Bombs Drop in Gaza?

Jesus was born in a context of occupation, political violence, and militant resistance. As much as we try to wrap the “Christmas story” in innocent, Hallmark-card imagery, the biblical texts describing the coming of Jesus are making powerful assertions about the politics of the Bible that speak very much to our contemporary global crises – including the current violence in Israel and Palestine.

Once again this year, the Alternative Seminary is offering their annual Advent gathering “Peace on Earth and the Politics of Christmas.” In this virtual program, we will explore the “nativity narratives” in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to see how they express core biblical themes of justice and liberation. We will “un-domesticate” these stories and reflect on how they are truly challenging us to a revolutionary discipleship – an especially urgent need as we witness more violence in Jesus’ homeland. This program will be facilitated by Will O’Brien, coordinator of The Alternative Seminary and contributor to Radical Discipleship.

Continue reading “How Do We Celebrate Christmas While Bombs Drop in Gaza?” →

Only Two Things

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance1 Comment

An excerpt from Mosab Abu Toha’s November 6 essay in The New Yorker. Toha is a renowned Palestinian author who was kidnapped by Israeli forces, just a few days ago, at a military checkpoint along with about 200 other Palestinian men.

My brother-in-law Ahmad suggests that we set out on our bikes to find my father. After only three hundred metres, we see him, his head tilted downward while he pedals.

My father tells me later that debris covered every inch of the street that led to our house. He did not feed his fifteen ducks, thirty hens, five rabbits, and six pigeons. “Maybe some are alive and stuck under the rubble,” he says. But, after he saw the bombed house and heard the frightening whirring of drones, he headed back to the camp.

When we get “home,” we all sit on the floor. It’s not until later that I start to realize: I lost not only my house and its rooms but also my new clothes and shoes and watches. My books, too.

Continue reading “Only Two Things” →

I Will Keep Your Memory Alive

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

From Ahmed Alnaouq (above), a Palestinian journalist based in London and the co-founder of We Are Not Numbers. Originally posted to Twitter on November 17, 2023.

I will never ever forget you. I will never forgive your killers. And I will keep your memory alive.

My father, Nasri Alnaouq, age 75

My sister, Walaa Alazayizi, age 36

Her children:

-Raghd Alazayizi, age 13

-Eslam Alazayizi, age 12

-Sara Alazayizi, age 9

-Abdullah Alazayizi, age 6

My brother, Muhammad Alnaouq, age 35

His children:

-Bakr Alnaouq, age 11

-Basema Alnaouq, age 9

My sister, Alaa Salman, age 35

Her children:

-Eslam Salman, age 13

-Dima Salman, age 12

-Tala Salman, age 8

-Noor Salman, age 4

-Nasmah Salman, age 2

My sister, Aya Bashir, age 33

Her children:

-Malak Bashir, age 12

-Mohammed Bashir, age 9

-Tamim Bashir, age 6

My brother, Mahmoud Alnaouq, age 25

My Name

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

By Zeina Azzam, a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Thank you to Linda Sarsour for posting on social media.

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Use the black permanent marker
with the ink that doesn’t bleed
if it gets wet, the one that doesn’t melt
if it’s exposed to heat

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Make the lines thick and clear
Add your special flourishes
so I can take comfort in seeing
my mama’s handwriting when I go to sleep

Continue reading “My Name” →

Because God is Kind of Blue

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Johari Jabir

a little Palestinian boy, walking to school in Gaza
encountered an Israeli soldier driving a U.S. – made tank
Looking up into the soldier’s eyes, the little boy said,
“Mr. American President, when you look at me, would you say
he could have been my son,
like President Obama said of Trayvon Martin

meanwhile, a little black girl,
in a studio apartment in north St. Louis
waiting for her father to pour milk into her bowl of captain crunch cereal,
turned her gaze toward the tv,
where images of fire and smoke rained down on gaza
“daddy,” she said,
“is god blue?”

Continue reading “Because God is Kind of Blue” →

We are Here to Make Ourselves Clear

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

An open letter from a coalition of anti-occupation Jewish students at Brown University. Re-posted from The Brown Daily Herald (November 7, 2023)

“Solidarity is the political version of love.” – Jewish feminist activist Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

As of today, it has been a month since the Oct. 7 attacks that have dominated global political consciousness and discourse, not to mention our experiences as young Jewish people. Zionist institutions purport to be representative of all Jews, often using us as a rhetorical shield to support the unconscionable actions of the state of Israel. We feel a particular pain as Jews having to continuously justify our stance against genocide. We are here to make ourselves clear: We stand in solidarity with Brown Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Caucus in the pursuit of the liberation of Palestinian peoples. We know intimately that Jewish struggles are necessarily bound up in global struggles for freedom. We are a group of Jewish students who have coalesced around our shared vision of justice, anti-occupation, liberation and community. We ask you to listen to us now:

1. What do we mean when we say, “from the river to the sea”?

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is not a call for the forced removal of Jews from Palestine or, as it is commonly misconstrued, a call to “throw Jews into the sea;” instead, it is a call for the end to the oppression of all Palestinians — in Gaza, the West Bank and within the Green Line. Liberating all of Palestine requires revolutionary change: not an eradication of Jews from the land, but a total dismantlement of the apartheid regime occupying it. The assumption that this phrase is inherently genocidal falsely conflates liberation with the annihilation of each citizen of the oppressive state and ignores its liberatory intent. Within this conflation, we hear a racist assumption that Palestinians are ruthless “animals” and an intentional obscuring of the violent intent of a neo-fascist government — a characterization shared even by writers in Israel’s newspaper of record. It is not only blatantly false but obscene to frame a call for liberation and justice as genocidal while Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza funded by billions of American tax dollars. If calling for a future in which Palestinians can live in their homeland unshackled implies an existential threat to the Zionist ideology, it is that ideology that must be called into question — not the call for liberation. 

Continue reading “We are Here to Make Ourselves Clear” →

I Grant You Refuge

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

By Hiba Abu Nada. Re-posted from Protean Magazine. This poem was written on October 10th and is among the last pieces she composed before being martyred by an Israeli airstrike on October 20th. Huda Fakhreddine translated it from the original Arabic.

1.
I grant you refuge
in invocation and prayer.
I bless the neighborhood and the minaret
to guard them
from the rocket

from the moment
it is a general’s command
until it becomes
a raid.

Continue reading “I Grant You Refuge” →