More than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli assaults in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
“The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that many people reportedly continue to be killed and injured, including people seeking food along the UN convoy routes and militarized distribution points. Some 1,500 people have been reportedly killed since May,” Farhan Haq, United Nations deputy spokesperson, told reporters.
He added a health care worker with the Palestine Red Crescent Society recently was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunus, southern Gaza.
Countless other people are buried under the rubble of demolished churches, mosques, residential dwellings, hospitals, schools and other structures because of Israeli attacks against Gaza. Meanwhile, the United States has repeatedly vetoed resolutions in the UN Security Council calling for an immediate bilateral ceasefire and provision of humanitarian aid to besieged and defenseless Palestinians.
I am a liberation theologian in the religion of Jesus, an activist for peace and justice, and a faith leader who has painful knowledge about how politicians hijack the religions of Jesus and Judaism and fraudulently use religious identity to disguise white supremacy, Anglo-European paternalism, racist bigotry, discrimination, militarized authoritarianism, greed and Zionist lust for empire concerning Israel and Palestine.
Now, as Allan Boesak of South Africa and I did in a jointly worded statement in February 2024, and as the world is aghast about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, I again implore prophetic people to take the following positions:
Deplore, denounce and condemn United States diplomatic, economic, military and other support to and funding for the apartheid State of Israel.
- Deplore, denounce and condemn United States diplomatic, economic, military and other support to and funding for the apartheid State of Israel.
- Call for the immediate end to all U.S. governmental aid to Israel.
- Demand the United States support a resolution in the UN Security Council calling for an immediate bilateral unconditional ceasefire by all parties to the ongoing Israeli war against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and for the safe unconditional release and return of all hostages held by Hamas and Israel.
- Demand funding immediately be restored to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East for humanitarian assistance and welfare relief for displaced Palestinian refugees from Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
- Demand the United States withdraw its opposition to the Petition of the Republic of South Africa, which accuses the state of Israel of genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza.
- Demand the United States formally recognize Palestine as an independent state and support the admission of Palestine as a free and independent sovereign state before the United Nations.
Wendell Griffen
Conditioned on acceptance by and cooperation from indigenous leaders from the state of Palestine, and as reparations for almost a century of Zionist-inspired and U.S.-funded and -outfitted white supremacist violence against Palestinians and other people of African descent in Palestine and Gaza, demand the UN establish and administer a temporary diplomatic, security, economic and cultural presence in Palestine tasked with the following mission:
- Support the right of Palestinians to sovereignty, security, restoration, return to their homes, villages and neighborhoods.
- Coordinate the safe release, recovery and return of all people who are detained or otherwise held hostage by Hamas and Israel.
- Cooperate in demanding, procuring and distributing reparations to the free and independent state of Palestine in an amount equal to the monetary value of all funding, weapons, munitions, other materiel support and diplomatic support provided to Israel by the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and their allies during more than 77 years of Israel’s scheme of settler colonialism, white supremacy, apartheid, mass murder, and land and mineral theft against Palestinians.
- Demand Israel immediately withdraw all civilian, military and intelligence security personnel and forces from East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and the UN supply a security force, with the advice and consent of the state of Palestine, to ensure the security of Palestine and protect Palestinians from settler- and other Israeli/U.S.-sponsored and subsidized violence.
Demand the United States and Israel be prosecuted in the International Court of Justice …
- Demand the United States and Israel be prosecuted in the International Court of Justice for mass murder, starvation, land theft, depopulation, genocide, atrocities, unlawful detainment and other war crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank Territories and East Jerusalem.
As Boesak has written: “The wrongs we see are not just happening; they are caused to happen, and they are happening to … God’s children who are vulnerable, targeted and excluded from human consideration. They are not happening randomly, they are deeply systemic, deliberately built into systems of oppression, domination and dehumanization. And we must not be afraid to say it.”
My disgust grows minute by minute as the world views live footage of starving, dismembered, unhoused, sickened and grief-torn men, women and children being exterminated in Gaza. I will not betray my commitment to the gospel of love and justice and be silent while the United States and Israel murder, maim, loot, poison, starve, torment and commit genocide on our Palestinian siblings.
And I am not so foolish as to believe that continuing to finance, arm, cheer and provide diplomatic cover for Israel will produce peace and justice and end its genocide in Gaza. When people are murdering others, it makes no sense to give them more weapons, ammunition and money and expect them to quit their killing spree, let alone confess to being murderers.
Wendell Griffen is a retired circuit court judge and pastor of New Millennium Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark.
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