An interfaith group of clergy and other pro-Palestinian protesters blocks buses filled with attendees for the Christians United for Israel summit in National Harbor, Md., July 30, 2024. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)

The bus driver could have been pissed. About a dozen of us put our bodies in front of his tour bus as it pulled up to a busy intersection at the National Harbor in Maryland. Christian pastors and Jewish rabbis, we sat on the pavement in front of the rumbling bus – some of us “locked in” together in a physical and symbolic gesture of solidarity with our siblings in Palestine and one another – and prevented it from moving forward. The bus was full of CUFI (Christians United for Israel) members heading from their conference at the National Harbor to the Capitol to lobby their representatives for more money and more bombs to Israel, fueling the genocide in Gaza.

The bus blockade was designed to interrupt – if only briefly – CUFI’s deadly Christian Zionist theology rooted in white Christian nationalism, racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and ethnic cleansing. CUFI is the largest, most powerful pro-Israel organization in the United States. With over ten million members, there are more CUFI members in this country than there are Jews. Their goals are to move all Jews to Israel, ushering in the end times in which Jesus will return and save only Christians. They are fiercely aligned with far-right Christian nationalists, and have widespread support among U.S. politicians. CUFI is simultaneously pro-Israel and anti-Jewish. John Hagee, CUFI’s founder and president has said, “God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land.”

This was just one among many actions during the Interfaith Action for Palestine – the recent three-day (July28-30) multi-action, multi-state disruption of CUFI organized by Christians for a Free Palestine, Rabbis for Ceasefire, and other faith-based groups, and endorsed by UCC PIN. The actions included a singing “flash mob” which delayed the start of the CUFI conference, interfaith leaders, including UCC PIN steering committee member the Rev. Crystal Silva-McCormack, registering as CUFI participants and disrupting the conference from within, a banner drop, a series of kayaks on the national harbor with a large sign saying “CUFI Kills,” bird-dogging and meeting with representatives, the raising of voices in the Capitol, and a teach-in on Christian Zionism.

Our group of activists delayed the bus for an hour, praying and singing, surrounded by police. As a white American Christian pastor, I came to put my body on the line with other people of faith, offering an alternate narrative in which all human life is sacred, and a vision of the world in which solidarity, not bombs, is what keeps us all safe. I sat where I believe Jesus would sit.

That man driving that bus could have been furious. It’s no easy thing to place your body in front of a 24-ton, moving mass of steel, not knowing who is behind the wheel or how they will respond. But when you offer yourself in witness, you can’t know how you will be received. After the angry CUFI members stormed off the bus, our bus liaison checked back in with the driver. With hands clasped as he leaned out the window, the driver told her, “I am a Syrian American. Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring about Palestine.

I, for one, am willing to risk the consequences of an action like this if it means that one Syrian man driving a busload of people who just prayed for God to “rain down fire” on his own people feels less alone. I pray that bus driver knows that those people do not speak for Jesus. They certainly do not speak for me. 

This is a section of the UCCPIN August 2024 E-Newsletter. To read the entire newsletter, follow this link.