Palestine

Arthur Waskow 1-29-2009
Beyond anguish, what can we say about the massive death and destruction in Gaza and the traumatic fear of falling rockets in Israel?
J. Daryl Byler 1-27-2009
I began a fast for peace when Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip. Last week, I ended the fast, as fighting has stopped and most if not all the troops have left Gaza.

Leonard Rodgers 1-16-2009

As of Thursday, the Red Cross reported 900 Palestinians from Gaza killed, half of them civilians, over 3,400 severely wounded, and 28,000 displaced from their homes. The special medical supplies which I brought here from the U.S., augmented by blankets and powdered milk and other food bought locally in Cairo, all seemed a drop in the bucket compared to the dimension of need.

This kind of feels close to an exercise in I-told-you-so, but for all the folks who assert that voting is a hopelessly corrupted exercise in irredeemable empire, consider as an indicator the testim
Nate Van Duzer 1-16-2009
A year ago I heard a Palestinian diplomat describe Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory" in a speech given at Georgetown University.
Why do we value blood and tears so cheap? Is it because we all own them? When we grieve the various losses that life brings to us, the tears seem to flow from some inexhaustible source.
Ali Elhajj 1-08-2009
It has been over a week now. Over 600 Palestinians and ten Israelis have been killed (seven of them soldiers), and 3,085 Palestinians have been injured.
1-07-2009
A well-repeated Arab saying dealing with conflicts states: al bad'azlam, "the initiator [of a conflict] is the wrong one." So if you are trying to figure out who is wrong in the current ro
Omer Goldman 12-16-2008

My name is Omer Goldman. I am 19 years old. I am one of the Shministim. I need your help.

Ayelet Ophir-Auron 12-11-2008

It's hard to believe that people all around the world are learning about my 19-year-old son Yuval. I know that I'm proud of him. I just never expected the world to be proud of him. As I write this, Yuval's in jail, serving his second term. We don't know how or when this will end.

Howard Zinn 12-03-2008

I've been thinking a lot about courage. See that fresh-faced, bold young woman on the right? Her name is Raz Bar-David Varon. She's an 18-year-old Israeli who just graduated from 12th grade. And as I write this, she's sitting in jail in Tel Aviv because she refuses to join the Israeli army.

Forming relations with people of faith in the Holy Land could help transform the U.S. role in the region.
A plea from Christians in the Middle East.
The Editors 12-01-2008

When President Bush leaves office in January, he’ll take with him the cadre of neo-cons who shaped the administration’s foreign policy over the last eight years.

Lynne Hybels 11-20-2008
In October I spent a week in Amman, Jordan, listening to Arab Christians from Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt.
11-12-2008
A curious thing has happened as Americans were choosing their first black president. Democracy suddenly ceased to be a bad word for many genuine democrats in the Middle East.

Philip Rizk 7-30-2008

On March 19, Israeli forces rounded up Assad Salach and his sons, Fahmi and Salach, and Assad's brother Sa'id and his son Ghassan -- along with more than 300 men age 16 and above -- along its northern border with the Gaza Strip. It is not the first time Israel has arrested the male members of the Salach family.

These days when militants launch homemade Qassam rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, they are usually launched from within the cities, not these border areas. Thus, [...]

Philip Rizk 6-25-2008

I arrived in the West Bank the afternoon of Saturday, June 7, and hit the ground running. The next morning we starting filming for a film on Palestinian nonviolent resistance I am working on this summer. That Sunday, we did a long interview with Daoud Nassar, whose family owns a plot of land in the Palestinian village of Nahalin, just a few [...]

4-23-2008

When approaching a conflict, any world statesperson would consider trying to break up the logjam. A Christian leader who has always stood for justice and human rights and who takes the issue of the sancity of life seriously has no choice but to try and see what he or she can do to stop the bloodshed. In a protracted conflict, adding new ideas from a high-profile figure can help shake up the status quo. While it is unlikely for an ex-president to be able to extract major concessions, what [...]

United Methodists in the U.S.