This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
The victory for divestment in the Presbyterian biannual convention last night is being widely heralded and rightly so. The work of many Christians – and Jews – over the years is finally coming to fruition. So celebration is in order. Now the political work has to begin again.
The political challenge at the moment is captured vividly by a YWCA – Palestine Action Alert published in conjunction with the divestment vote. The alert is sobering. It’s also a wake-up call.
Israel’s invasion of the already occupied West Bank continues. The title “Assaulting and Kidnapping Our Future” is apt and more. The alert defines the issue before us:
There is much talk and violent responses to the abduction of three Israeli youth. Although we join with others in our condemnation of all abductions, yet the raids of cities and towns and refugee camps and siege over a whole population by the Israeli army calls on us to act. The West Bank is under a full scale siege which includes hundreds of raids and assaults on homes, media stations, refugee camps, and even charitable societies. At this moment over 370 people have been kidnapped and detained including members of Hamas, members of Parliament, and released prisoners from the Shalit exchange. Three young people have been killed and at least 7 critically injured. Roads and checkpoints are closed and work permits are being ripped up. In addition, Israel bombs Gaza “targets” nightly. A three month year old baby was killed last night. This is what it means to live under military occupation and what is meant by the term “collective punishment.”
The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) condemns Israel’s reprisals against the Palestinian population in carrying out its investigations of the disappeared settler youths and demands Israel to abide by the Geneva conventions.
We also believe that all of Palestinian society has been kidnapped. Every time a soldier enters a Palestinian home in the middle of the night and with violence threatens or takes away a brother, a sister, a father, or a mother this is kidnapping. In addition, there are 5,271 prisoners in Israeli jails with hundreds under “administrative detention.” Their lives and their family’s lives have been kidnapped. This military siege and all its many forms is more than “collective punishment”; it is violence against Palestinian women and their families on a grand scale. It deserves our prayers and our actions to stop it.
This alert’s language is concise – “We also believe that all of Palestinian society has been kidnapped” – is much stronger than the Presbyterian’s often repeated assurance last night that their divestment vote was a form of love for “both our Israeli and Palestinian brothers and sisters.” For when “our brothers and sisters” are being assaulted, symbolic action has to be complemented by direct action.
But then the alert’s suggestions for action, while instructive, are limited. We all know they won’t be applied.
• Pray for our families in all the refugee camps and all the traumatized children through the West Bank and Gaza.
• Hold Israel accountable for these gross violations of international law including SCR 1325 that demands protection of women;
• Send letters to your MPs, representatives, or Foreign Affair Ministers to demand that the attacks end;
• Pressure your governments to continue to seek a just Peace for both Palestinians and Israelis, and for the implementation of all UN resolutions pertaining to Palestine, so all peoples can live in peace and security.
This is where we are. As a nation is being kidnapped and assaulted once again, even our most dedicated activists are handcuffed by the reality unfolding before the world’s eyes.
So many thoughts on the divestment vote are worthy of comment. Watching the streamed discussion at the convention was instructive, invigorating and sobering – often at the same time. But the deeper exploration of the Presbyterian divestment affair awaits another day. Right now the same energy expended on divestment should be applied to the politics that allow Israel to invade Palestine at will.
Reversing the occupation. Where the activists’ rubber meets the apartheid road.
Thanks, Marc.
“We also believe that all of Palestinian society has been kidnapped.”
Sickeningly true. It’s even worse than that. Some killed & ALL terrorized by the state of Israel.
What is most frustrating for me is that there is not one word in the Irish MSM about this criminal behaviour by the Apartheid rogue regime.
If one Israeli Jew got his teeth knocked out by a Palestinian , it would be prime time fare.
Grrrrrrrr.
Abbas the stooge and Israeli collaborator has shown more concern for the missing Israeli youths than the 3 murdered Palestinians and all his people being abused. Please retire you old fool.
Is this what the puppet abbas soldiers are for at the west bank?
Also if palestinians did what israel did at the photo at the top in 1(!) house, israel would cry antisemitism along with obama!
Justpassingby @- “Is this what the puppet abbas soldiers are for at the west bank?” What’s interesting about Dayton and the forces that he’s been training in the West Bank is that when Dayton thought to give his first interview to an Israeli paper, one of the key sentences and one of the messages that he sent to the Israelis was the following: what they were doing is that they were training the Palestinian Authority forces not to combat Israel’s occupation or even to resist Israel’s occupation, but instead they were training the security forces to undermine those very individuals who at any point in time believe that it is alright to resist Israel’s military occupation. In other words: pit Palestinian against Palestinian rather than ensure that the Palestinians are able to resist Israel’s military rule. https://bodyontheline.wordpress.com/tag/keith-dayton/