BREAKING SILENCE ABOUT THE HATEFUL FAITH OF U.S.-ISRAELI ZIONISM, SETTLER COLONIALISM, APARTHEID, WHITE SUPREMACY, XENOPHOBIA, AND VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS AND PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN THE “HOLY LAND”
©Wendell Griffen, 2024
I am a public theologian, pastor in the
religion of Jesus, retired jurist, legal scholar, activist for peace and
justice, and cultural competency and inclusion consultant who has written and spoken
publicly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[1] I now offer my latest and
most extensive judgment about the impact of the hateful faith of U.S./Jewish
Zionism, white supremacy, racism, Anglo-European imperialism, settler
colonialism, apartheid, genocide, and xenophobia on Palestinians, other people
of African descent in Palestine and Israel, and on the Muslims, Christians, and
persons of other faiths in the region of Africa between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea that is called “the Holy Land.”
The United States government has invested over
$150 billion in foreign aid to Israel since 1948. Israel has used that money to
arm its military and depopulate indigenous Palestinians from Palestine, Zionist
Christian and Jewish settler colonies in Palestine, state-sponsored assaults
against Palestinians in Jerusalem, the Israeli occupied West Bank, and Gaza.
THEREFORE, I call on prophetic people to take the following positions.
1.
Condemnation of U.S. support for and to the apartheid State
of Israel.
We should deplore, denounce, and condemn United States diplomatic, economic,
military, and other support to and funding for the apartheid State of Israel
from its inception.
2.
Call for end to all U.S. governmental aid to Israel. We should call for the
immediate end to all U.S. governmental aid to Israel.
3.
Demand that the United States vote for a UN resolution
calling for an immediate bilateral ceasefire. We should demand that
the United States vote in favor of a resolution in the United Nations 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.
4.
Demand that funding be restored to UNRWA. We should demand that
funding be immediately restored to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for humanitarian assistance and
welfare relief for displaced Palestinians refugees from Gaza, the
Israeli-occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
5.
Demand that the U.S. withdraw opposition to South Africa’s
Petition in the International Court of Justice charging Israel with genocide. We should demand that
the United States withdraw its opposition to the Petition of the Republic of
South Africa which accuses the State of Israel with genocide against the
Palestinian population of Gaza.
6.
Demand that the United States formally recognize East
Jerusalem, the Israeli-occupied West Bank Territories, and Gaza as the
independent sovereign State of Palestine. We should demand that
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.
7.
Demand for reparations through United Nations diplomatic,
security, economic, and cultural relief to the State of Palestine from the
United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and their allies in genocide,
depopulation, settler colonialism, land and mineral theft, and apartheid in
Palestine.
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 persons of African descent in Palestine and Gaza, we should demand
that the United Nations establish and administer a temporary diplomatic,
security, economic, and cultural presence in Palestine tasked with the
following mission:
(i)
to
support the right of Palestinians to sovereignty, security, restoration, return
to their homes, villages, and neighborhoods;
(ii)
to
coordinate the safe release, recovery, and return of all persons who are
detained or otherwise held hostage by Hamas and the Israeli regime; and
(iii)
to
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 other
Nations during its almost 76-year scheme of settler colonialism, white
supremacy, Christian and Jewish Zionism, mass murder, and land and mineral
theft from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
8.
Demand an end to Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, West
Bank territories, and Gaza. We should demand that the Israeli regime
immediately thereafter withdraw all civilian, military, and intelligence
security personnel and forces from East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank, and
Gaza, and that the United Nations 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.
9. Demand that Israel and the United States be prosecuted for war crimes in the International Court of Justice. We should demand that 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.
Admonition
to U.S. President Joseph R. Biden. We should also remind President Biden that
during his lifetime, another U.S. president who worshipped the gods of
bloodlust, imperialism, domination, and subjugation of indigenous people,
suffered damage to his legacy. Despite his success in securing passage of the
landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, by 1968,
public disgust surrounding U.S. atrocities and warfare in Vietnam, Cambodia,
and Laos, forced Lyndon Johnson to abandon efforts for reelection, and ended
his political career.
Finally, I offer this this admonition to President Biden and others who claim to love God, whatever their faith may be, while being complicit in state-sponsored injustice by Israel and the United States against people of African descent in Palestine, across Africa, in the United States, and elsewhere throughout the African diaspora. At best, their claims of allegiance to God, and especially to the gospel of Jesus, are woefully misguided. At worst, such claims are manifestly counterfeit.
Any
assertion that the divine imperatives of love, justice, hospitality,
generosity, and peace are being followed by people who condone racist bigotry,
white supremacy, settler colonialism, land and mineral theft, depopulation,
genocide, apartheid, and mistreatment of vulnerable persons is not only
specious. Such claims amount to moral and ethical nonsense.
The land that was called Palestine for more than two thousand years before May 15, 1948, is located on the continent of Africa. I am a follower of Jesus and faith leader to people with deep painful knowledge about the ways the “Hateful Faithful” hijack the gospel of Jesus and fraudulently use Christian identity to disguise white supremacy, Anglo-European paternalism, bigotry, discrimination, militarized authoritarianism, greed, and lust for empire. I will not betray the gospel of Jesus and become a counselor to, and a cheerleader for, the Biden administration of the U.S. empire as it murders, maims, robs, poisons, and torments other siblings in the family of God, in the United States, across the African diaspora, Palestine, and elsewhere in the world.
Chicago, Illinois, USA
[1] See,
https://baptistnews.com/article/this-week-we-must-remember-the-palestinian-nakba/;
also, https://baptistnews.com/article/deja-vu-jewish-settlements-in-palestine-u-s-policy-and-support-from-conservative-christians/;
https://goodfaithmedia.org/the-blatant-failure-of-israeli-us-propaganda/;
https://goodfaithmedia.org/tag/wendell-griffen/;
Thank you!
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