Israel

Bekah McNeel 3-04-2024

A woman holds a baby, as displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, take shelter in a tent camp amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 6, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

When Israeli troops stormed Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, the ensuing chaos effectively shut down the hospital, with soldiers forcing women and children to leave the maternity ward according to Doctors Without Borders. The invasion of the hospital underscored the heavy toll the Israeli assault has had on pregnant people and infants. Doctors Without Borders described Israel’s incursion as forcing “inhumane” birthing conditions.

Judges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands rule on emergency measures against Israel on Jan. 26, 2024, following accusations by South Africa that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

The World Court ordered Israel on Friday to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help civilians, although it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by South Africa. While the ruling denied Palestinian hopes of a binding order to halt the war in Gaza, it also represented a legal setback for Israel, which had hoped to throw out a case brought under the genocide convention established in the ashes of the Holocaust.

Rodlyn-mae Banting 1-25-2024

Fans wave big heads of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift after the fourth quarter of the NFL Week 17 game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., on Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023. The Chiefs won 25-17 to clinch the AFC West Championship. Credit: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect.

In July of last year, an estimated 50,000 fans flooded Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City to see Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert. Among those in the crowd was football tight end Travis Kelce, eager to woo Swift. Arrowhead has been central to Swift and Kelce’s romance ever since: After making their romance official last September, Swift has routinely joined the 76,000 Chiefs fans to cheer for Kelce and his teammates. From concertgoers to sports spectators, the thought of that many people in the same space is difficult to imagine. Equally hard to imagine, and significantly more heartbreaking, Israel Defense Forces have killed 25,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023; that number of people would fill about a third of Arrowhead Stadium.

This is a jarring image, but such is the reality of our present moment: While the state of Israel carries out a genocide against Palestinians, we are easily distracted by our adoration for Swift and Kelce, along with spectator sports.

A woman looks on at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in the southern Gaza Strip on Jan. 18, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

The prevailing public narratives we have used to justify military strategies amid diplomatic fantasies are being exposed as meaningless: Unfettered Israeli military power can never impose a lasting solution nor quench Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty and justice. Likewise, Palestinian armed factions can never defeat Israel’s military power, backed by the unequivocal support of the U.S. These exclusionary self-vindicating visions dominate in a completely zero-sum game. Escalating violence wantonly kills, intensifying the compulsion to eradicate the human dignity of the “other.” In short, there is no military solution to the raging warfare spilling over our screens and tearing our hearts asunder.

Pope Francis leads the Angelus prayer at the Vatican, January 7, 2024. Vatican Media/­Handout via Reuters

Pope Francis, tackling conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in his yearly address to diplomats, said on Monday that “indiscriminately striking” civilians is a war crime because it violates international humanitarian law.

Mitchell Atencio 12-11-2023

Dov Baum. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas/Sojourners

“I have friends and family who lost people in the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. I have colleagues and friends in Gaza who were bombed by the Israeli attack. I go to demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza because I want to be with others that shout and call for the immediate stop of this unforgivable crime. And I cannot chant all the chants in those demonstrations. I chant some of them.”

Noah Berlatsky 12-06-2023

People gather on the National Mall during an event in support of the state of Israel and against antisemitism in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2023. CNP/startraksphoto.com via Reuters

I’m older now and a good bit more skeptical about Israel’s virtue and Israel’s safety. I am far from convinced that Israel could or would serve as a refuge from violence for the American Jewish diaspora — the home of the majority of Jewish people outside Israel. And I think that viewing regions across the world in which the diaspora has settled to be temporary or lesser than ideal is dangerous to Jewish people and to the Jewish experience.

Ezra Craker 11-30-2023

A view shows the deserted area outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Oct. 11, 2023. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

At a vigil for peace in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday, Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac spoke about the approaching Christmas season in his home of Bethlehem in the West Bank.

“How can we celebrate when we feel this war — this genocide — that is taking place could resume at any moment?” he said.

Michael Rowley 11-09-2023

Activists hold American and Israeli flags after joining a convoy to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem to show support for U.S. President Donald Trump, ahead of the upcoming U.S. election, in Jerusalem Oct. 27, 2020. Credit: Reuters/Ammar.

Like many across the world, the events in Israel and Palestine have had me glued to a wide variety of sources in search of live updates. My first reaction was to message my dear friends living in Israel-Palestine to check on them and their families’ safety: Sami, Mohammad, Jehad, Feras, Jack, Miriam, and Naama. My heart is tremendously heavy with the immense loss of precious life that has already unfolded and the dread for the violence still to come. I say this sorrowfully and without an ounce of callousness: This attack by Hamas, though sudden and horrific, did not come as a surprise to me.

Catholic and Christian activists call for a cease-fire outside the White House in Washington, D.C., during a “pray-in” on Nov. 2, 2023. Juliann Ventura/Medill News Service for Sojourners

Fifty protesters gathered for a “pray-in” in Lafayette Square on Thursday afternoon, holding signs directly facing the White House that said, “Catholics say ceasefire now.”

Adam Russell Taylor 11-02-2023

Demonstrators call for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war at New York's Grand Central Station on Oct. 27, 2023. Photo: Kyodo via Reuters Connect

Wars, by their very nature, often force people to choose sides and dehumanize the other side to justify violence. We’ve seen the dangers of this binary here in the U.S. as some student groups in support of Palestinian liberation have wrongfully praised or failed to condemn Hamas’ attacks, while some pro-Israeli groups (including many U.S. Christians) have failed to acknowledge the injustice of the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the severe death toll Israel’s response has inflicted on Gazan civilians. Yet while the powers of the world want us to take a side and declare ourselves fully (and exclusively) pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, Christian compassion must be freed from favoritism. As peacemakers, we must honor the image of God in every Israeli and every Palestinian.

Mubarak Awad 10-20-2023

A welcome sign in Bethlehem. Photo: Simona Pezzi / Alamy

I have spent my life advocating for Palestinians and Israelis to use nonviolent means to resolve their conflicts. Because Israel feared Palestinian unity and mass nonviolent action, I was expelled by the government in 1988. Since then, I have, on several occasions, personally advocated with Hamas leaders to abandon armed struggle and embrace nonviolent campaigns. Yet, today, Palestinians and Israelis are once again killing each other.

A woman mourns Danielle, 25, and Noam, 26, an Israeli couple who were killed in a deadly attack by Hamas gunmen from Gaza as they attended a festival, during their funeral in Kiryat Tivon, Israel on Oct. 12, 2023. REUTERS/Shir Torem

We all are shocked by Hamas’ horrific, inhumane attacks on the people of Israel, which killed more than 1,000 people, according to recent estimates. Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes have killed at least 1,000 more; thousands of people on each side are wounded. In both Israel and Gaza, innocent civilians are bearing the brunt in this latest round of indiscriminate, militarized lethal violence — violence that will solve nothing and only further entrench mutual mistrust, hatred, and the thirst for vengeance.

Mitchell Atencio 10-10-2023

Rev. Mae Elise Cannon. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas. Original photo courtesy Cannon. 

“We had a prayer meeting [Monday] morning with dozens and dozens of people from all different traditions, from bishops to people sitting in the pews,” Cannon told Sojourners. “We’ll have another prayer gathering on Wednesday morning. We’re grieving, we’re lamenting, and we’re also working really hard.”

Rose Marie Berger 10-09-2023

A rescuer reacts as he works with others to remove Palestinians from under the rubble of a house destroyed in Israeli strikes, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa 

“They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain...” —Isaiah 11:9

Pope Francis speaks during the First General Congregation of the Synod at the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 4, 2023. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS

Pope Francis called for an end to attacks and violence in Israel and Gaza on Sunday, saying terrorism and war would not solve any problems, but only bring further suffering and death to innocent people.

Joe Roos 4-24-2023
An illustration with a bright yellow background of a white robed arm with blue outlining. The hand thereof is holding the lower portion of a cross that's uneven and bendy in shape.

CSA-Archive / iStock

IN LATE MARCH, when Far Right former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro returned from self-imposed exile, supporters greeted him with chants of “God, family, and liberty,” harkening back to the motto of the dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Overwhelming political support from evangelical Christians — similar to that received by Donald Trump — had swept Bolsonaro into office in 2018. Both men repaid this support by moving their respective embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, actions that were long sought by conservative Christians in the West, signaling a rejection of Palestinian aspirations for independence.

Brazil is only one of the countries in Latin America where right-wing evangelical Christians have become a political force. Today, evangelicals constitute about 27 percent of Brazil’s population, compared to about 25 percent in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. As the number of Latin American evangelicals has soared in recent years, Christian Zionism has also risen as a political and cultural force in the region.

Christian Zionists believe that support for the modern secular state of Israel is a scriptural obligation with theological ramifications for the “end times.” Too often Christian Zionists defend Israel while perpetuating Christian supremacy and antisemitism; they remain ignorant of the persecution of Jews throughout history. Adopting uncritical, religiously motivated support for the secular state of Israel, Christian Zionists provide cover for Israel’s internationally recognized human rights abuses against Palestinians. The embrace of Christian Zionism threatens to be as damaging to marginalized communities in Latin America as it has been to Palestinians.

Jim Rice 4-21-2023
An illustration of a tan wall decorated with pieces of Palestinian art. From left to right, there's a painting of a woman holding up the Palestine flag behind her, a map of historic Palestine, a framed key, a white tapestry with complex red patterns, etc.

Illustration by Nada Esmaeel

WHEN BSHARA NASSAR moved to the United States in 2011, he quickly noticed that something was missing. “There was no place for our story to be told,” said Nassar, a Palestinian Christian born in Jerusalem and raised in Bethlehem. (“My family has been Christian for 2,000 years,” Nassar told Sojourners. “We didn’t convert — the faith was born here!”) But he felt the story of the Palestinian people “was always being distorted or minimized — it was always about either ‘victims’ or ‘violence.’” So, in 2015, Nassar started visiting universities, churches, and community centers with a “traveling exhibit” of only two pieces, focused on refugees from Palestine. “It took a while to build momentum,” Nassar said.

Nassar is now director of the Museum of the Palestinian People, situated in a rowhouse near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. Through the museum, Nassar said, “We want to share our story from our perspective — who we are, where we come from. For too long our stories have been told by others, who portray us in often negative stereotypes. We want to share with the world who Palestinians truly are.”

The museum’s latest exhibition focuses on tatreez, the art of Palestinian embroidery, and looks at the role of “material culture and art history in preserving a nation’s identity,” according to exhibit curator Wafa Ghnaim. For Ghnaim, the first Palestinian embroidery instructor at the Smithsonian Museum and now a senior research fellow for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibit is about addressing the question, “How do we reclaim our heritage?” The exhibit includes embroidered dresses from before and after 1948—the year of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when according to the Institute for Palestine Studies, two-thirds of the Palestinian population was uprooted as the State of Israel was created. “The dresses created before 1948 reflect a village identity,” Ghnaim, an expert in Palestinian traditional dress, told Sojourners, “while dresses created after 1948 reflect a national identity.”

4-21-2023
The cover image for the May 2023 issue of Sojourners, featuring an illustration of blue disembodied hands pulling white strings in various directions in the shape of the Enneagram symbol. The background is a mixture of bright colors of the rainbow.

The Enneagram's potential for building community and creating a more just society.

Mitchell Atencio 2-16-2023

A graphic of Shane Claiborne. Original photo courtesy HarperCollins, graphic by Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners

When I opened Shane Claiborne’s new book, I rolled my eyes and sighed. Claiborne’s book, Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person, was dedicated to “all the women of faith over the centuries, the midwives of a better world, and to the two most significant women in my life—my mom, Patricia, and my wife, Katie Jo.”