The Liberator & Palestine
A short note to subscribers on this publication's stance on Palestine
For thirty-five dark and horrifying days, the world has borne witness to some of the greatest atrocities committed in the 21st century to date.
First, the brutal slaughter of Jewish civilians by Hamas on October 7, echoing over a millennium of anti-Jewish hatred and demonstrating the depth of moral bankruptcy in the power given to a terrorist group following decades of an oppressive and violent occupation.
Then, a genocide, claiming to be an act of “self-defense” launched by a corrupt, opportunistic, racist, and imperialist prime minister with the full intention of wiping every Palestinian off the face of the earth, and, short of that, destroying Palestinian sovereignty and subjecting millions to the status of a permanent underclass.
This genocidal prime minister acts with the full support of a Western alliance of world powers, guilt-stricken from thousands of years of pogroms, concentration camps, and anti-Jewish hatred, and seeking a pardon for their crimes through more crimes; trading blood for blood and evil for evil.
We have witnessed terror and we have witnessed that terror responded to with even more terror. Truly, the culmination of a modern world built on genocide, exploitation, and sectarian forms of hatred has led us to this moment, and the majority of us can only watch in horror.
I have been deeply shaken, as I know all of you have been, by the events of the last thirty-five days. Not since the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and Mike Brown in 2014 have I seen such a compounded and unbearable sequence of evil events unfold with my very eyes. I’ve seen too many dead children to count, I’ve seen too many antisemitic remarks and acts of violence to count, I’ve seen too many grief-stricken parents to count, and by God, I’m fucking tired.
And yet I know that my exhaustion at witnessing this genocide is nothing compared to those who have lost everything, seen their neighborhoods destroyed, had their families wiped out, and God knows what else.
This is all, too much.
And yet I believe that the totality and intensity of this trauma that we are experiencing together, with our government’s full backing and support, does not excuse or permit silence or fence-sitting. This is not the moment for carefully choreographed statements condemning “violence on both sides”, nor is it the time for pathetic public policy in the calls for a “humanitarian pause”.
Now is the time for partisan action, in favor of freedom and liberation for all people, for an end to the occupation of Palestine, an end to the siege in Gaza, an end to the apartheid regime of Israel, an end to global orientalism and neo-colonialism, and the quick and total death of global antisemitism and anti-Jewish hatred in all corners of the earth. It is the time now for an immediate ceasefire, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Anything short of these things is moral cowardice, and now is the time to reject half-measures and mealy-mouthed, feel-good phraseology. We either stand for freedom for all and oppression for none, or we commit ourselves to a politics of inhumanity. There is no middle ground.
The Liberator is a publication devoted to bearing witness to freedom, and this means freedom for all. In the interest of freedom, it is incumbent upon me and this publication to be unequivocal and speak with moral clarity when the freedom of anyone is denied, and in this case, violently stolen from them.
The Liberator is also a decidedly Christian publication, devoted to proclaiming the Good News of God’s radical partisanship on behalf of the oppressed and marginalized, God’s “yes” to humankind as Karl Barth put it, and God’s definitive “no” to oppression. The oppressed of our context are Jews, facing the deadly realities of antisemitic violence and hatred, and Palestinians, struggling to breathe in an open-air apartheid state.
God has chosen them, and God has felt every wound, every piece of shrapnel, every bloody sore, and every tear. He is not idle in this moment, or any moment. Indeed, God is actively for humanity and against the forces of inhumanity.
God’s judgment is wrathful and righteous, and He proclaims woes against all who oppress and afflict, all who marry violence, and all who call evil, “good” and good, “evil”.
He will not be mocked by the cowardice of politicians who are unrepentant in their support of this evil genocide, nor will He withhold His judgment from those who work against peace and justice.
Anyone claiming the way of Christ must heed the warnings of Christ and repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand.
The duty of all of us, of many faiths and no faith, of all makeups and stories is, in the words of Toni Morrison, “to become and to remain human”.
Let us do so now! Without hesitation. Our ability to breathe depends on it.
Resources
https://orbisbooks.com/products/a-palestinian-theology-of-liberation?variant=23987695747136
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
https://www.pcrf.net/
rescue.org
https://www.jewishliberation.fund/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/