“This is no longer just about Palestine; it’s about our collective humanity,” a Palestinian Christian pastor told the World Methodist Council March 19.
Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and author of Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza, was one of three speakers for a 90-minute webinar, “Steadfastness as Resistance,” focused on Israel’s U.S.-backed campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The webinar coincided with Israel breaking a ceasefire with Hamas and resuming bombing raids on Gaza.
Munther Isaac
Co-sponsored by The United Methodist Church, the British Methodist Church and the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, the session also featured Lamma Monsour, an expatriate Palestinian scholar specializing in social science research with young Palestinians, and Sidwell Mokgothu, bishop of Limpopo District of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and a veteran of the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa.
Isaac sparked the “Christ in the rubble” meme of the past two Christmases by placing a baby Jesus doll wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh in a nativity scene strewn with broken concrete to represent Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
“I’m angry and I’m appalled,” he said. “International law is ignored; the global church is silent at the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
“Maybe it was our fault to allow the Western world to determine the moral piety of the world, because human rights are being outlawed and we’re paying the price,” he said.
“Maybe it was our fault to allow the Western world to determine the moral piety of the world.”
Referring to actions by President Donald Trump’s two-month-old administration, Isaac noted U.S. citizens are afraid of being challenged, losing their jobs and even being arrested. But that’s not what’s needed right now, he declared. “This is a time when we need to unite, to say, ‘No, we won’t bow to the empire.'”
Likening Trump to Herod of the Bible, Isaac said the president’s proposal to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East” showed its idolatry by including a golden statue of Trump in its AI-generated presentation.
“No one wants to talk about this,” he said.
Isaac also had harsh words for what he called worldwide Christianity’s failure to hold Israel to account for slaughtering Palestinians.
“Can we rely on the global church in this crucial moment? The same global church that hasn’t called Israel’s action genocide?” he asked. “South Africa led the way in calling Israel’s actions genocide, but the West dismissed it.”
During a Q&A session, Isaac said he thinks Americans’ lackadaisical reactions to the Trump administration stem from their painful realization that the United States is an empire causing widespread pain and destruction to other nations.
“It’s time to wake up,” he urged. “I tell my American friends: Realize America is an empire concerned about its own interests and has no real interest in the lives of others.”
Sidwell Mokgothu
Mokgothu said his view of the Palestinian crisis was formed by three characteristics:
- The witness of biblical prophets
- The South African anti-apartheid struggle
- Jesus Christ as a model of prophetic resistance
Biblical prophets such as Daniel and Habakkuk proclaimed mercy and truth even in the face of torture and violence as they denounced injustice and evil, the South African bishop said.
Lamma Monsour
Mansour, a social scientist, said she takes the Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Parable of the Corrupt Judge from Luke 19 as a model for steadfastness as a “lived reality.”
“The widow didn’t receive justice because the corrupt judge was morally good,” Mansour said. “Her persistence forced the judge to act.”
Her research with young Palestinians shows they are redefining what resistance means for today. She cited methods such as telling stories of hardships through networks formed by WhatsApp and other nontraditional media. Thus, they’re establishing new forms of social solidarity around the world, she said.
However, Mansour cautioned against romanticizing resistance.
“Why does the world keep expecting Palestinians to prove their humanity?” Mansour asked. “We want the world to act so Palestinians don’t have to keep being resilient.”