Genocide, ethnic cleansing, humanitarian crisis, massacres, war crimes, slaughter of innocents. . . words crack and hearts break under the weight of trying to capture the horror of escalating violence that we are witnessing in Gaza and through the West Bank. In truth, all these phrases are accurate descriptors. Right now Israeli troops are poised for a ground invasion. Meanwhile, the Biden administration and many other ‘Western’ countries, refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire, are fully complicit.

This is a fearful and heart wrenching time. This is a time for deep lament. This is a time for persistent outcries for justice. In regard to lament, UCC PIN will be posting resources, poems and prayers, on our website (www.uccpin.org). Look for these soon.

In regard to outcries for justice, UCC PIN is issuing this second E-News in October in an effort to stay current with rapid developments (see the articles in Breaking the Stories) and as impassioned encouragement for us as people of faith to stay firmly grounded in the power of love and nonviolence as the only avenue toward justice and true peace and to speak prophetically from that grounding. We must denounce the killing of all civilians, Palestinian and Israeli, targetted and ensnared in the violence. We must call for an immediate ceasefire. And we must demand from our own government an end to trafficking in weapons and an end to the barbarism of militarization, state-sanctioned violence. 

Now is a time for fierce and unrelenting advocacy, for the sake of justice and the saving of precious lives and the righting of the wrongs of apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism. This we can do; this we must do. And for our advocacy, may we find inspiration in our Palestinian Christian colleagues and partners (see their heart-piercing Call for Repentance below) who write, “We are steadfast in our hope, resilient in our witness, and continue to be committed to the Gospel of faith, hope, and love, in the face of tyranny and darkness.” May we too be steadfast.