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The Editors: Bearing Witness to Gaza

An introduction to the September-October 2025 issue of ‘Sojourners.’
Bill Moyers (1934-2025) was a preacher, former political adviser, and journalist. A longtime advocate for democracy, independent journalism, and public broadcasting, Moyers started out as an ordained Baptist minister in rural East Texas. / Illustration by Becki Gill

AS WE NEAR the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, we don’t forget the hundreds killed that day. Neither do we dare look away from the cascade of human rights abuses Israel has unleashed upon the Palestinian people since. As Mae Elise Cannon and Ben Norquist report, this ongoing war has even turned water into a weapon — and the people of Gaza are dying of thirst.

We can be conscientious objectors to war profiteering.

The late theologian and longtime Sojourners contributor Walter Brueggemann would remind us that we have alternatives. A poll in July showed that 74% of Israelis back an agreement with Hamas that would release all hostages at once in exchange for an end to the war on Gaza. In May, 600 Israelis led an anti-war protest along Israel’s border with Gaza. In the U.S., college students have led the largest anti-war demonstrations seen in years, despite a targeted smear campaign to label pro-Palestinian groups as “terrorist support networks.” We can be conscientious objectors to war profiteering and join with Palestinian American memoirist Sarah Aziza in conspiring against the forces of destruction and erasure to relentlessly pursue life.

This appears in the September-October 2025 issue of Sojourners