Recorded discussion on December 14, 2023, to UUs for a Just Economic Community with speaker Curtis Bell of UUs for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME)

• Thank you for the kind introduction. I am a member of First Unitarian Church in Portland Oregon, on the homeland of the Confederated tribes of Grand Ronde compromising the Multnomah, Clackamas, Clowwewalla and Watlala bands of Chinookan peoples, and the Tualatin Band of Kalapuya, in addition to many other peoples of this river confluence.

I’d like to begin by telling you a little about myself and my interest in the Palestinian issue. I was born in Bahrain of American parents and went to high school in Beirut, Lebanon. That was in the early fifties, a few years after 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes and livelihoods in Israel to become refugees in camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. I saw and visited the camps around Beirut. To my young mind, it seemed that a great wrong had been done to this people. 

I didn’t become active in the struggle for Palestinian rights through until 2008 with Operation Cast Lead.  I began by trying to move our church in Portland toward engagement on the issue. I organized talks and lunches after church with titles like “Taking the fear out of talking about Palestine/Israel.” I went on a Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME) delegation to Palestine/Israel in 2011 and led a delegation there in 2015. I joined UUJME and was president of that organization for six years up until the end of last year. Finally, in the fall of 2019, I spent three months in Hebron in the West Bank, working with the Christian (now Community) Peacemaker Team there. 

For those who are new to this issue, UUJME is a good place for UUs to get involved. UUJME works for the well-being and security of all people in Palestine/Israel. In practice, this means we work for the rights of Palestinians since they are the people who are now oppressed. We have 26 chapters nationwide, a newsletter, and a website, UUJME.org, with all manner of resources. We encourage new members and the formation of new chapters. 

I condemn the killing and hostage-taking of civilians by Hamas on October 7 and the apparent brutality of some of the attackers. The right of an occupied, oppressed people to respond, even with violence, is enshrined in the UN charter, and I wish that Hamas had limited its killing and hostage-taking to Israeli soldiers. Still, they did not, and that is quite too bad. 

But one war crime does not excuse another, and the continuing Israeli bombing and blockade is very, very far from proportionate. I won’t dwell on the horror being visited upon the people of Gaza at this moment. You who are listening already know a lot about that. Up until now, I have been reluctant to use the term genocide to describe Israeli oppression of Palestinians, but that word now seems appropriate. Even if one is uncomfortable with using that word, one can support the need for action to prevent genocide from occurring. 

What else but genocide can one call the medieval cutting off of food, water, medicine, and fuel to a walled-in population of over two million people? What else can one call the bombing of apartment houses and homes with people in them with no warning, the bombing of hospitals, schools, mosques,  and clinics, the killing of over 18,000 people in two months, the wounding of 40,000, the destruction of over half the housing units, the creation of almost 2 million displaced people, and the likelihood of starvation and infectious diseases in the absence of food, sanitation, and water?

It seems clear that Israel wants to force the people of Gaza out of Gaza. Israeli Intelligence has proposed moving them into camps in the Sinai desert. President Sisi of Egypt has said he would not permit that, but he is desperate for loan forgiveness and money and might be bribed. The “international community”, in quotes and by which is meant in the US and Western Europe, might wring their hands but would probably allow it to happen just as they allowed the first Nakba of 1948 and all the oppression since then to continue. The alternative, Israel occupying a shattered Gaza militarily with two million angry, resentful people, would seem most unappealing to Israel. General Austin, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza a tactical success but a strategic mistake. 

The worldwide response to Israeli violence against the Palestinians of Gaza has been astounding. The recognition and the struggle for Palestinian rights have never been stronger. Continuing demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of participants in England, Germany, Spain, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Latin America. Ambassadors have been recalled, and direct actions of all kinds have resulted in thousands of arrests.  The parliaments of Algeria and Yemen have given permission to their executives to declare war on Israel. Calls for a ceasefire have come from churches, unions, the United Nations, and humanitarian organizations. The calls by the United Auto Workers and by teachers’ unions for a ceasefire are especially noteworthy as they are major supporters of the Democratic Party. The heads of state of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have called for a ceasefire in Gaza. They have stated that “The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians.” The worldwide opposition to the violence being endured by the people of Gaza is reflected in the passage a few days ago of a resolution by the UN General Assembly calling for an immediate ceasefire in a vote of 152 in favor to 10 against.   

The worldwide sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza is profound.  But signs carried in demonstrations and statements make clear that the anger is directed not only at Israel but also at other targets. The most immediate additional target is the United States and the governments of Western Europe that, in the recent past at least, have joined the US in giving unconditional support to the Israeli attacks. Those are US planes dropping US bombs on Gaza. It is the use of the US veto in the Security Council and US intimidation of the International Criminal Court that prevents the world’s people, the real “International Community,” from stopping the horror in Gaza.  The Center for Constitutional Rights has, in fact, filed a lawsuit against US officials for their complicity in the crime of genocide. This is not only an Israeli war on the Palestinians but a US war on them also, and the world knows that.

The major reason for US support for Israel is probably geostrategic.  Control of the Middle East with its oil and major trade routes through the region is considered essential for US domination and imperialism mediated militarily and through US control of the world’s financial system. Russia, China, and resistant regimes such as Iran must not be allowed in. Biden, in the 1980s, in calling himself a Zionist, said that if Israel did not exist, we would have to create it. Alexander Haig said Israel was our biggest US aircraft carrier and one we did have to pay for or provide sailors for. 

The US and the people of the US have paid a large price for the decades of US unconditional support for Israel and will pay a still larger price for the continuation of this support in the current Israeli siege and war on Gaza. The chickens are now coming home to roost for all those decades of support. One can easily specify some of the costs of current US support. 

1. The Democratic party and candidate Biden may lose the election in 2024 through loss of Arab American and Muslim American votes, loss of progressive enthusiasm, and loss of young people’s votes (only 10 % of Americans between 18 and 35 support Biden’s Israeli policy). Trump might actually win. 
2. A second cost is the real risk of a catastrophic regional war. I listened to Trita Parsi being interviewed by Peter Beinart this morning about the danger of a regional war. Trita Parsi, for whom I greatly respect,  is much more worried about such a war than he was a month ago. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran want war but may be forced into one by Israel, which senses that the time is right to neutralize Hezbollah, too, Hezbollah being a much more serious enemy than Hamas. 
3. A third cost is the loss of US soft power and diplomatic power in negotiating trade and other kinds of agreements.  The Arab world and much of the global South clearly recognize US hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is seen in the  US support for the immediate censuring of Russia by the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court and the lack of such support for censuring Israel for similar crimes, decade after decade. The US will not be welcome, and its so-called “Rule based order” will have no respect.  
4. A fourth cost is what is happening here at home, the Increase of Islamophobia and antisemitism in the US and the McCarthy-like attacks on free speech and freedom of assembly in the US.

I believe the energy behind the worldwide protests goes even deeper than antagonism toward Israel for its war on the people of Gaza and the antagonism against the US for its complicity in that war. However, those are the immediate foci of the protests. One sense that people of the world, many of whom have only recently extricated themselves from colonialism, are fed up with colonialism, with militarism, and with a world economic system dominated by the interests of the US and Western Europe.  They are calling for a multipolar world, a world without endless wars, and a world with respect for the human rights of all people.  A world in which the truly existential issues of climate change, nuclear war, and inequality are confronted with the seriousness they require and in which the world’s resources of money and attention are not wasted on geostrategic imperialist antagonisms and wars. 

I guess that most of those listening to these remarks also want such a world and also want the continuing humanitarian horror in Gaza to stop. It behooves us then to ask how we can take advantage of the current worldwide activism to end Israeli violence, end US complicity in that violence, and move us toward the world we desperately need and want.  

A partial answer to this question of how we can take advantage of the worldwide increase in activism is that our actions must not stop, be broad-based, and be multi-pronged. First, the actions, the sit-ins, and the protests must not stop. They cannot be temporary. In the words of Tom Paine, “This is no time for sunshine citizens or Summer patriots.” Second, we must create a broadly based movement by persuading all manner of civil society groups – health care workers, unions, educators, professional organizations, religious groups, etc. – where their true interests lie. Finally, all manner of non-violent actions should be pursued, including demonstrations, boycotts, divestment, sit-ins, sanctions, and congressional advocacy. We do not know what will finally make a difference, but economic pressure seems especially important as that was what persuaded South Africa to end apartheid. I know I am speaking here to UUs for a Just Economic Community, and economics is a major front in this struggle. 

I will close by speaking a little bit about how Unitarian Universalism fits into all this. 

Until recently, I have felt quite discouraged about the possibility of UU engagement in the struggle for Palestinian human rights. Reverend Bill Sinkford, former UUA President, once told me that no other issue is as conflict-laden among Unitarian Universalists as the Palestinian/Israeli issue, and neither ministers nor congregations like conflict. UUJME has learned of many UU congregations where education and advocacy for Palestinian rights are not allowed.  It is not that nothing has been said or done. In the early 80s, UU resolutions were passed, calling for an end to the occupation of the West Bank and declaring that criticism of the actions of the State of Israel is not antisemitic. And in 2002, a resolution was passed again, calling for an end to the occupation and obedience to international law. But in general, I have felt for many years that the social justice concerns of most UUs are largely domestic, i.e., with issues such as reproductive rights, racism, democracy, LGBTQI rights, and the environment.  Issues such as US responsibility for human rights violations abroad and US militarist foreign policy that causes so much harm and takes so many resources have not been given much attention in UU circles. It is not that the domestic issues are not of great importance, but only that there also needs to be room for concerns beyond our borders. 

But lately, there seems to be an awakening among UUs concerning the human rights of Palestinians. Thus, in 2021, the UUSC declared that no more US military aid should go to Israel until Israel respects the human rights of Palestinians and obeys international law. More recently, on October 17, the UUA called for an immediate ceasefire and obedience to international law, and Reverend Sofia Betancourt, President of the UUA, signed a letter with other faith leaders from Churches for Middle East Peace to President Biden calling for a ceasefire and restraint by all involved. Black Lives of UU and Diverse Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM)  have called for a ceasefire and an end to US military aid to Israel. A group called UU Religious Leaders for Palestine is holding webinars each Sunday where people can learn and reflect on what is happening in Palestine/Gaza, and an entire 2-hour webinar about UUs and Gaza was held by the Article II commission yesterday as the third of its Theological Panel Discussions on Covenant. 

So, there is real ferment within the UU community, especially among its leaders,  in support of peace and Palestinian rights. Our task is to broaden and deepen that ferment so that the voices of the whole UU community are heard and we have a chance to create real change in collaboration with others by increasing the power of our voices. 

What can I do? As an individual, not much. But in association with others, a great deal. You can join an activist organization such as UUJME, Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, or the American Friends Service Committee.  I might add that you do not have to be Jewish to join Jewish Voice for Peace. I will make available a PDF with information on joining these organizations and include other resources. 

With the hope that many of you will join us, I will stop talking now and hear your suggestions and questions.  Thanks for listening.