Globally, hundreds of thousands of people, horrified and outraged by the violence unleashed on October 7^th and Israel’s genocidal assault in response, have taken to the streets, demanding an immediate ceasefire. In the U.S., many Jews have taken the lead, organizing mass protests at a variety of prominent venues -- the White House, the Cannon Building in DC, Grand Central Station, Philadelphia’s 30^th Street Station, the Statue of Liberty -- with a uniform message (and tee shirts): Not in our name. A poll conducted in mid-October documents that 66% of voters “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that the US should call for a ceasefire. 

And yet, the Biden administration refuses to even utter the word much less push for the policy. As if with forked tongue, Biden is backing a so-called ‘humanitarian pause,’ while hypocritically feeding the war machine with yet more military funding, enabling Israel to perpetrate the very slaughter that constitutes a humanitarian disaster of epic, yes, genocidal proportions. This is, as one of the UN top human rights officials Craig Mokhiber has said, a “textbook case of genocide.” After 30 years of service, he just resigned in protest.

And Congress? Where is Congress? They are parroting the exact same message. What has happened to their humanity? Where is their moral compass? To date, fewer than twenty Representatives have co-sponsored Rep. Cori Bush’s House Resolution 786 calling for a ceasefire, while Dick Durbin (IL) is the lone senator supporting a ceasefire. How many more deaths will it take?

Meanwhile, we know all too well and painfully that every day, every hour, without a ceasefire translates into more Palestinians, overwhelmingly women and children, killed, a slaughter of innocents. The number of deaths in Gaza since October 7^th is now over 10,000. Whole families, extended families, have been wiped out. The figure does not even include Palestinians in the West Bank who are being attacked daily, many killed by settlers and Israeli military, nor does it reflect the tens of thousands now injured. 

In just a month's time, 10,000 plus killed, and counting. This is staggering, mind-numbing, heart-sickening, soul-searing. We know that these numbers don’t and can’t begin to tell the whole story. Every number is a name, every name a person, every person a human being fully beloved, a child of God, unique, precious, irreplaceable, each with their hopes and dreams and loving spirits, and the contributions they would have made to our world. For just one example, one of the numbers is the 39 year-old Palestinian artist and educator Heba Zagout, described as a “one in a million talent.” 

Self portrait by Palestinian artist Heba Zagout

Heba and two of her four children were killed on October 13 when an Israeli air strike targeted the home where she was staying. Yes, every number is a name. Every name a person. Every person a human being fully beloved, a child of God. Every person.

Even as I write, the numbers are increasing, the slaughter unrelenting. According to a Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor report, “the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza exceeds that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.” These deaths are not just tragic; they are criminal.

And where is the church? Our Palestinian Christian colleagues at Kairos Palestine in partnership with Kairos Southern Africa are asking that question in an open letter addressed to church leaders and Christians in the US, Europe, and the ecumenical family. Authors, Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah and the Rev. Frank Chikane, mince no words. They indict the Western churches for being “strangely indifferent to the murder of Palestinians.” They name our responsibility when our own government is complicit in supporting genocide and urge us to do all in our power to ensure the end of such governmental support. They call for “deep and immediate solidarity with all Palestinian people and in particular those in Gaza.”

UCC PIN is engaged to such “deep and immediate solidarity.” And, in partnership with Global Ministries, other denominational PIN’s, and the Apartheid-Free congregations initiative, we are working to promote and to equip all expressions of the UCC for activism. The stones are continuing to cry out.

At our most recent steering committee, we named these imperatives for this time: be faithful to our covenantal relationships, specifically in Palestine and Israel (see article that follows); stay deeply grounded in nonviolence, the “logic of love”; bear witness to the suffering of all; and persist without ceasing in advocacy for an immediate ceasefire now, then next for an end to Israel’s occupation and apartheid regime, and always for justice and equality for all.