Peace & Social Justice

Authorship of this invitation is attributed to Deb Wood and other resources. 

As I thought about writing an invitation to the Why Palestine Matters course, I came across the following quotation, which fits the Palestine/Israel situation so well:

“The purpose of propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.”

— Aldous Huxley

The Palestine/Israeli relationship and conflict can often appear so complex and intractable that we don’t know how we can ever understand enough to move forward. News coverage often lacks the entire context, leaving us unable to honor the humanity of all involved. When we stop seeing a person or group as human, we much more easily discount and discredit their experiences and humanity, making it far easier to deny their needs and right to exist.

I think about the ways U.S. taxes fund the conflict. It’s challenging to follow the accurate ins and outs of Israeli politics, to follow Palestinian politics in the West Bank and Gaza, and to sift through: Is it or is it not occupation? Is it or is it not apartheid? Is it or is it not antisemitism? These questions deflect us from the basic simplicity of the situation.

When I look at this through my Quaker lens—through the value that there is divinity in each person, which is the cornerstone of our testimony of equality and our peace testimony—I know that everyone deserves systems that center justice. How can I stand aside when systems of injustice limit the existence of a people? What can we do to help remove the occasion for war?

It does not require in-depth knowledge on my part to recognize that advocating for a ceasefire is warranted, as we are now over 15 months into this current war. The number of Palestinians killed is over 40,000, and not all hostages have been freed. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has increased under the cover of the war, and the war has spread to neighboring countries, with international boundaries likely to shift. The resulting humanitarian crisis caused by the war needs to be actively addressed. So we advocate for peace; we advocate for justice.

To advocate for justice, it helps to understand more deeply why these two peoples lay such strong, valid claims to the land. This understanding can help us sort through the propaganda—decades and centuries of propaganda about Arabs, Palestinians, and Jews. It will also help us understand a fuller history of the Middle East than we receive from news stories and what we have been taught, which is often predominantly framed by Western assumptions. Most of us have never truly learned about antisemitism, Zionism, or even apartheid in its broader context.

To learn more, the stories we hear must come from more than our schools’ history books and mainstream journalism. The stories of the people themselves are important. Hearing terms like “apartheid” applied to Israel may be shocking, but let’s remember that President Carter wrote a book about this in 2006. Even Jews have spoken and are speaking about this, including some who stand as refusers to the war (see the Refusers Solidarity Network).

Why Palestine Matters is a collection of stories—of history, data, experiences, and the thinking of a variety of people with knowledge of the area and its history through a Middle Eastern lens. It is a curriculum that provides context for the challenges of Palestinian lives, which have continued to be upended since the 1930s. It adds to our ability to address justice for Palestinians and safety for Israel—issues that have long been very hard. The curriculum helps uncover the history of the land that has not been widely shared.

Members of the Middle East Collaborative will work with allies from other organizations to present the six-session course, Why Palestine Matters, beginning February 6. See the PhYM calendar to register. To download the book, click here:Why Palestine Matters (scroll down to “Free Digital Version”).

The Middle East Collaborative looks forward to growing in understanding and advocacy together with you.