The recent Israeli Supreme Court decision upholding the forcible expulsion of Palestinian villagers from their homes and land in Masafer Yatta, The United Church of Canada has written a letter to the Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada.  
The letter urges Canada to hold the government of Israel accountable for violations of international law and specifically to

• denounce the government of Israel’s plan to forcibly expel the villagers of Masafer Yatta and press the government of Israel to rescind this decision.

RE: Canada must denounce and call for an independent investigation into the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

Dear Minister Joly:

It is with deepening sorrow that The United Church writes again within the same week urging you to take urgent and immediate action to protect Palestinian human rights. Today, thousands of Palestinians gathered in occupied East Jerusalem to pay their respects to murdered Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as she was laid to rest. Eyewitnesses present on the ground have told The United Church that mourners were beaten by Israeli police as they carried Abu Akleh's coffin to Mount Zion Cemetery to be buried beside her parents. Canada must condemn the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, and demand an independent investigation into her killing.
​
Reports on autopsy results carried out on the body of Shireen Abu Akleh say that she was killed by a bullet to the head which struck underneath the protective metal helmet she wore. She was also clearly identified as press and could not have been misidentified as an immediate threat. B'Tselem, a highly respected Israeli human rights organization and a United Church partner, has stated that its initial investigation proves that the Israeli army narrative about the shooting of Abu Akleh is untrue. A thorough and independent investigation is crucial.

By Munther Isaac in Sojourners

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!”

Palestine and Israel are back in the news. So again, we Palestinians hear this common
refrain. But such calls for prayer are no longer enough. I say this as a Palestinian pastor
who believes in prayer, leads prayer services for peace, and genuinely values your good
intentions.

But good intentions are not enough.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are the peace prayers.” He said,
“Blessed are the peacemakers.” (Matthew 5:9, emphasis added).
​
Peacemakers of every faith pray — and they discern what’s really happening, call things
by their names, then speak truth to power. Here’s how this works.

Source: Mondoweiss, BY STEVE FRANCE  MARCH 1, 2022

In a new book, “Apartheid South Africa! Apartheid Israel!” Brian J. Brown, a South African Methodist minister, calls on Christian churches, not just to recognize that Israel is an apartheid state, but to declare that total opposition to that apartheid is mandatory for any person or church that claims to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Brown’s lifelong war against apartheid has been driven by the conviction that it is utterly incompatible with any Christian theology faithful to the social teachings of Jesus Christ.

His position was true in South Africa and it’s true in Israel-Palestine today, he says, offering a detailed comparison of the two regimes; but in the case of South Africa the churches saw the light more easily and took a stern line more quickly. Faced now with the cresting consensus of the human rights community that Israel is an apartheid state, mainline churches in the U.S. and around the world are finally hearing Palestinian church leaders’ clarion calls to action, such as the 2020 “Cry for Hope” declaration from Jerusalem. Brown’s own passionate cry makes clear why Western liberal churches can no longer temporize on the question of apartheid or fail to understand its profound significance to them as followers of Christ’s teaching.

​Brown began fighting apartheid in the 1960s, helping to lead the radical, multiracial Christian Institute of South Africa. In his book he recalls that most members of the CI came to believe that “support for apartheid was not just evil but heretical.” Today, this is becoming the view of many church-based Palestinian solidarity activists. That means that as mainline denominations continue to move rapidly to condemn Israel as an apartheid state – a forced move really, given the irrefutable reports – they will find themselves not just lending support to the long-suffering Palestinians but in an existential struggle for “the very being of the Church, the integrity of the Christian faith, and the credibility of the Gospel,” to quote “Cry for Hope,” which Brown reprints in his book. 

2021-10-28

Dear Friends, 

Your urgent help is needed. We’re asking you to spare 2 minutes out of your day in support of Mission & Service partner Defense for Children International-Palestine and five other Palestinian human rights defenders who are under serious, immediate threat from the Israeli government.
 
Six leading, respected Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations have been extraordinarily and suddenly designated as “terrorist organizations” by the Israeli government. Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP is a Mission & Service partner) is one of the six organizations. This means all their activities are now banned, and it authorizes the Israeli government to close their offices, seize their assets, and arrest and jail their staff members. It also prohibits funding or even publicly expressing support for their activities.
 
Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem (also a Mission & Service partner) has called it an “act characteristic of totalitarian regimes”.  

​I am a proud Canadian Palestinian. Palestine is my homeland and Canada is my adopted country. I love both.

Interestingly, Canada equipped me with tools and concepts to help me process my Palestinian experience and understand it more deeply. Canada's welcome of refugees showed me that there is no shame in being the grandson of Palestinian refugees.

Welcoming and assisting refugees gave me firsthand appreciation to what Jiddo and Tata (Grandpa and Grandma) might have gone through when they fled the onslaught of the Jewish militias on their neighbourhood in Haifa in 1948.  

When I hear of the hopes (unrealistic as they may be) of some new Canadians to return to their countries of origin for even just a visit, I understand why my jiddo refused to buy a house in the diaspora. He always wanted to go home. 

My grandparents did not willingly choose to leave Palestine, they were forced to, and they never got over it.

I also acquired vocabulary. Thanks to the amazing resilience and powerful sharing of Indigenous Canadians, I became more able to explain my own experience and that of my family.

Press Release: 

​An Israeli container ship was prevented from docking Monday at Prince Rupert, B.C

2021-06-15 — Today at the meeting of the Coordinating Team, UNJPPI commended the action of the protesters who prevented an Israeli container ship from docking Monday at the Prince Rupert, B.C., port. Their aim was to block Israel from shipping goods to North America.

As reported by CBC News, “The container ship, the Volans — owned by Israeli shipping company ZIM — was anchored in Prince Rupert's harbour for most of the day Sunday. 

“The protesters said they were acting in solidarity with a movement called Block the Boat, which aims to block Israel from shipping goods to this continent as a reaction to the recent conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants.”

The #BlockTheBoat campaign is an action by the Palestinian BDS. “In response to Israel’s ongoing atrocities, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and a large coalition of all major Palestinian workers unions and professional associations have called on their fellow trade unions and workers worldwide to boycott Israel and businesses that are complicit with its apartheid regime.”
 
                                                                               ###
For more information, contact [email protected]
https://bdsmovement.net/news/block-boat-longest-blockade-israeli-zim-ship-history
 

BY MUNTHER ISAAC
MAY 19, 2021
​
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!”

Palestine and Israel are back in the news. So again, we Palestinians hear this common refrain. But such calls for prayer are no longer enough. I say this as a Palestinian pastor who believes in prayer, leads prayer services for peace, and genuinely values your good intentions.

But good intentions are not enough.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are the peace prayers.” He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” (Matthew 5:9, emphasis added).

Peacemakers of every faith pray — and they discern what’s really happening, call things by their names, then speak truth to power. Here’s how this works.

Call things by their names
Peacemaking begins by refusing to repeat the common descriptor of what is happening in Palestine and Israel: a conflict. Palestinians are not experiencing a conflict between two parties. We Palestinians are experiencing an occupation: one nation controlling another; the laws, policies, practices, and military of one state oppressing the people of another, controlling nearly every aspect of our lives. Palestinians in Jerusalem are not facing evictions from their homes. They are experiencing ethnic cleansing, which the U.N. has described as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”