Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME) is anguished by the current violence in Palestine and Israel. We are horrified by the attacks on civilians by Palestinian fighters from Gaza and the taking of captives. We hold in our hearts everyone impacted. We are witnessing acts of the Israeli military against Palestinians in Gaza that a group of 800 scholars and other experts warn is a potential genocide. We lift up the Unitarian Universalist community witnessing the situation, recognizing that our community includes people from across the world and from diverse faith traditions. Many Unitarian Universalists have roots in the Holy Land and the region around it, including those of Palestinian Christian, Palestinian Muslim, Jewish, and blended heritage. We grieve with all who are feeling pain from this situation as an embodied experience of generational trauma.

As part of the Unitarian Universalist community, UUJME covenants to uphold Unitarian Universalist principles and values. Our respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all people is paramount to our call for an end to hostilities and the support of solutions that will bring about true safety for both Palestinians and Israelis. The values of justice and equity uphold the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, many of whom have resisted their oppression non-violently for decades, with thousands dispossessed, imprisoned, and killed as a result.

We recognize that multiple truths co-exist. Prominent human rights figures and groups have concluded that an apartheid system exists in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories alongside settler colonialism. At the same time, we must name that antisemitism is a serious global phenomenon which we absolutely oppose. And we believe it is not antisemitic to criticize the oppressive acts of the Israeli government, military, and settlers. We oppose definitions of antisemitism that are used to stifle activism for Palestinian rights. And we amplify calls to oppose antisemitism and Islamophobia.

We amplify the call of UUA President Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt to engage with this issue as a faith community that has long been committed to social justice. We are ready to support Unitarian Universalist programs of learning, reflection, and action on Palestine and Israel that center justice and accountability. Access our compilation of information sources, actions, statements, and relief funders.

The Unitarian Universalist community has pledged to dismantle the legacies of the Doctrine of Discovery, which paved the way for global colonialism, including in the lands of Israel and Palestine. Our faith has also embraced a call to accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions within ourselves and our institutions. These commitments must expand to widen the circle of beloved community and be more welcoming to Palestinians and those who work for Palestinian rights.

Because Unitarian Universalists have been on a journey of understanding and dismantling supremacy culture and colonialism, we must name that Israel’s actions of apartheid and settler colonial displacement are escalating a fanatical racist attitude in Israel further enabled by the most ultra-right government in its history. We lift up the Apartheid-Free Communities initiative, supported by Quaker, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other organizations, dedicated to ending support for apartheid, settler colonialism, and military occupation.

Further violence will not bring about safety for anyone. We urge Unitarian Universalists to contact their senators and representatives, the President, and Secretary of State and demand they push for an immediate ceasefire on all sides, delivery of humanitarian aid, an end to Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza, and the rewriting of our country’s foreign policy to enable ending the occupation and dismantling the mechanisms of apartheid. The vision of collective liberation, siding with love and safety for all, demands no less from us.

UUJME is pleased to announce that we are offering an online class this fall based on the study guide from the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA). If you are interested in the class, please sign up at the following link. There is a limited number of study guides, and we will do our best to provide a summary of the readings for those who cannot obtain a book or prefer not to have a book. There will be plenty of other resources available between classes. Guest speakers will supplement what the facilitators provide.

The class is open to people of all faiths as well as people who are not participating in any faith community or tradition.

Register at https://tinyurl.com/UUJME-WPM-Fall2023.

Registrants will receive an email by the first week of September with information about how to obtain the study guide, and Zoom connection details.

Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East

Statement on the Proposed Business Resolution Regarding Fossil Fuel Divestment & Reparations

June 19, 2023

UUJME national leadership supports the proposed resolution “Complete Divestment from the Fossil Fuel Industry and Subsequent Reparations.”

Our values lead us to support the resolution. We respect the democratic process in which delegates are the voice of UUA business resolutions. Delegates in past General Assemblies have taken a side with the concepts of divestment and reparations and we believe their votes must be honored. We also embrace the UU values of justice, equity, and respect for people as well as an awareness of how we are all connected. Fossil fuel companies are complicit in climate change which disproportionately affects BIPOC and poor communities. Major banks have financed this impact and profited from it. In effect, bank funds have been used for violent, militarized actions against pipeline protestors. UUJME supports the proposed 8^th UU principle and sees the divestment and subsequent reparations as living out the call to dismantle racism and other oppressions.

We also favor the resolution recognizing that we live in a time of increasingly obvious climate crisis which calls for increasingly determined actions. Youth and young adults are facing this climate emergency as their immediate future.

We recognize that the resolution if passed will have an economic impact on the UUA budget and would require budget adjustments that could lead to job or program cuts. We would wish to preserve employment for staff and the excellent programs provided by the UUA, especially around justice organizing. We recall with hope the fact that UUs raised almost $6 million to fund Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism in just a few years and believe that a fundraising effort could be launched to make up the funds removed by the potential divestment.

UUJME has been advocating for stronger engagement with the UUA investing activities and committees since 2015, and we have appreciated guidance from UUA investing teams in shaping our proposals. In 2016, we proposed a business resolution calling for divesting from five companies complicit in supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It is noteworthy that this resolution received a 53% favorable vote while failing to achieve the needed two-thirds majority. In 2020, we proposed a joint business resolution with other UU social justice groups calling for planned communication with UU social justice groups around human rights in the UUA’s investment decisions. The resolution passed overwhelmingly. We supported the 2021 Responsive Resolution on investing and involvement of young adults in investment discussions that also called for divestment from banks as funders of fossil fuel extraction. This was endorsed by the votes of more than 80% of the GA delegates.

The UUA leadership has released statements listing concerns about the impact on income if the proposed divestment and reparations resolution passes. The resolution proposers and other supporters of the resolution have released statements responding to these concerns.

The schedule for the presentation and discussion of the resolution can be found in the UUA GA Program Book at GA 2023 Final Business Agenda. Two amendments by the proposers were accepted and have been incorporated. The amended text can be read at the UUA General Assembly Discussion site along with pro and concern comments. More background from the resolution authors is available in their Slideshow from the Presentation and their Annotated Statement in Response to the UUA Board Memorandum.

UUJME has confidence in the ongoing process of discernment and discussion and looks forward to seeing what creative and forward-thinking solutions are developed.

Historic Anti-Apartheid Initiative Launching June 6, 2023

American Friends Service Committee is holding a webinar launching the Apartheid-Free Communities initiative!

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

5 pm Pacific / 8 pm Eastern

Register

This date was chosen because it represents the beginning of Israel's military occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza in 1967.

Please join UUJME and allies (register here) for the Apartheid-Free Communities Public Launch Webinar (5 pm Pacific/8 p.m. Eastern) with special guests and signatory representatives:

• Jonathan Kuttab, an international human rights lawyer and Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America
• Rev. Wendell Griffen, a retired judge, local pastor and board member of the Alliance of Baptists
• Dov Baum, Director of the Economic Activism Program at American Friends Service Committee and activist in Boycott from Within, Israelis for BDS, and 
• Rabbi Brant Rosen, a rabbi and co-founder of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical council and the Jewish Fast for Gaza. 

Register here for the Apartheid-Free Communities Public Launch webinar.

Look for the launch on social media ahead of the webinar on June 6th with the hashtag #ApartheidFree at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 pm Eastern and help boost publicity!

UUJME is excited to anticipate sharing broadly the growing movement of Apartheid-Free Communities working together to end Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation!

The May 11 tour started with a trip to the Atarot Industrial Zone (IZ). On the way our guide Dawood explained the issue with Palestinian ghettoes in the area arounr Jerusalem. If a Palestinian wants build in Jerusalem the city authorities say there needs to be a city plan, but there isn’t one. To make a plan for one home it takes ten years and you must spend money planning an entire neighborhood. So this is why Palestinian neighborhoods are not well organized and do not not good infrastructure. This is part if a deliberate approach of raising cost of living and pressuring Palestinian families to move outside the closer parts of the city. Meanwhile the government is constantly planning and building settlements.

In 2005 when Sharon started the wall around Jerusalem and the West Bank there was a secondary plan as land exchange where some neighborhoods in East Jerusalem would be given to the Palestinian authority in exchange for recognition of annexing of East Jerusalem. They would expand settlements and build alternate roads and infrastructure that cross through Palestinian areas to ensure future land exchange was impossible and ensure encircling of the old city by Jewish settlements. On the Israeli side the wall is colorful to reduce psychological impact on settlers.

2/3 of what we will see is on one side of wall. In Beit Hanina most of the population has immigrated to the US so most have US passports.

On the right we saw high voltage barbed wire for confiscated land and a huge distribution station that provides electricity for Ramallah. This is the Adarot Indistrial Zone.

There are 22 isolated ghettoes in Jerusalem connected by tunnels and controlled by checkpoints, destroying economic viability. The World Bank proposed these industrial zones - they are the same as the IZs Mexico. People at one time were independent and with income now have to go through checkpoints to work for an industry in a zone. Taxes are lower for the owners here. It is mostly low tech and high pollution - cement, for example.

We could not stop to take photos inside as it is risky for questioning so we planned to stop outside.

Lands are open but are confiscated for more settlements.

Because of bombing in Gaza the authorities are sensitive. So we stopped to take photos on a side street. Even so we were approached by a plainclothes person who was explained away by one of our Israeli guides. On our way our we passed the former site of the Pillsbury factory, whose closure was a victory of the AFSC led coalition to get General Mills to stop producing in a settlement.

We passed Qalandiya refugee camp. Houses in the camps are about one meter apart while normal housing should be about 5 meters of separation. Crowded housing leads to more social problems. Part of Israeli plan to cause social problems.

(Har Homa mountain and empty lands near Bethlehem are also planned to be industrial zones like here.)

Jerusalem municipality border ends and Ramallah municipality starts. An Arak factory used to be here.

Foundations of buildings are less than standard. A house here ready made costs $150k while in J at least 500k. In Jerusalem they use aggressive urbanization to reduce density and get people to move to new areas.

We took a long road to show the area.

Jerusalem has one of the highest concentrations of drug addiction in the world. Drug dealers are protected by the police.

The wall creates 22 ghettoes of northwest Jerusalem instead of open villages that would require thousands of soldiers to control. Now they can just send one truck to staff a checkpoint and if the checkpoint is closed the ghetto is cut off from the world.

Villages usually grow toward cities but the wall isolates so growth is toward the opening away from the city and the other area becomes more like a ghost city.

One of Sharon’s conditions was that Israeli housing is above and Palestinian housing is below. Rand Corp proposed a long tunnel for Palestinians from Hebron to Gaza following that rule.

People in Jerusalem ghettoes do not have to pay taxes to the Jerusalem municipality.

Our guide D volunteered with Stop the Wall. He went to every village where the wall would be built and documented before, during and after. In 2009 the Israelis invaded the office and confiscated all the CDs and there was no backup.

We passed part of the wall that shows the single entry point blocked by cement panels. For Palestinians with houses on this side of the wall no cars are allowed. If they come by taxi with purchases they have to walk.

In Qalandia on the settler side they covered the wall with 7 meters of sand and plantings.

The above [pictures to be added later when back in the US and with computer access] from inside old Beit Hanina shows a settler road and colorful wall. Many in Beit Hanina have US citizenship but had to sell lands to have money to leave. It used to be 5-10 min walk for 2 km across the village and now is about 2 hrs by car to meet relatives.

Here is a closed checkpoint with a small door used by people to enter their side but now it is completely closed.

An AFSC study found 2,009 factories and workshops in the West Bank IZs mostly producing chemicals and cement or low tech industries like bakeries and chicken processing. For low tech it is profitable and there are no labor laws to protect Palestinian workers.

We entered Qalandia, which is outside the Jerusalem municipality, where there was a Palestinian airport. The Airport main building is still there. We accessed the land of a ruined nice house with remains of a swimming pool so that we could see the airport building. At the end of the road also was a metal door the army uses to come and arrest someone.

The Airport was used by Israeli military during 2000 intifada. Now it is abandoned.

Qalandia checkpoint till 2007 was run by the Israeli army. Later they contracted private sec companies and also deployed military police so it is a bit less bad for Palestinians. Here there was a Palestinian airport. Airport bldg still there. Ruined nice house with swimming pool. Also metal door the army uses to come and arrest someone. 

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We made our way to Ramallah at about 11:15 trying to make it to lunch at noon.

We saw two militant martyrs’ faces likenesses spray painted on walls. There are posters for others. These were Fatah militants.

Ramallah is a majority Christian town founded hundreds of years ago by five Palestinian families. In Old City Ramallah most shops are owned by Christians.

El Bireh is right next to Ramallah where Jesus came with his parents but they discovered he was not with them. Mary went to Jerusalem to find him. A church was built here.

Activists managed to stop Palestinian Security vetting being done by the World Bank. To apply to any security company you need clearance. Instead of an Israeli security company doing the background check, now a Palestinian security company called PalSec can do the verification. This allows people to work in IZs.

We stopped to observe the tomb of Yasser Arafat.

Then we had lunch at an excellent Palestinian restaurant before making our way to the Ritaj Center for afternoon presentations.

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Coming soon: presentation from the Boycott National Committee and AFSC staff in Gaza. 

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Our evening dinner was at a Palestinian owned private facility. The food was again amazing, and included what many say is the Palestinian national dish, musakhan, which is baked chicken and special bread smothered in sauteed onions, pine nuts, and a lemony spice called sumaq. 

Shawan Jabarin, ED of Al Haq, spoke to us. He was Amnesty International’s first Palestinian prisoner of conscience as he was spending a total of nine years in administrative detention in the Naqab prison. His first child was born while he was in prison. Jimmy Carter came to give an award to Al Haq and took a picture for the press with his wife and new baby. The International Red Crescent would bring newspapers to the prisoners and when he saw the article that was his first time to see his new child. Al-Haq is a Palestinian human rights group challenging unjust laws. They opened a case against Israel with the International Criminal Court. Then Israel announced it was declaring six Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations. A few months after that they raided the offices of these groups confiscating all equipment and documents. They placed a steel plate across the door of Al-Haq to prevent entry. Al Haq staff returned the next day and used a crowbar to remove the plate. They are still in their office and the steel plate was on display in Ramallah at the Qattan Foundation building. Al Haq is asking local artists to propose ideas for creative ideas for the metal plate.

He said their attitude is to say thanks to the minister that declared them a terrorist group and closed the offices because it created great publicity and support for their organization. They are gearing up to have Al Haq Europe and Al Haq Americas divisions. Shuwan’s demeanor was inspiringly positive. 

They are also preparing to publish a report about a chemical facility in an IZ whose waste byproducts are the same as what was released in the East Palestine Ohio train wreck. The parts per million amount allowed by the US EPA is 1000 ppm and the air around the train wreck tested at 700 ppm. The air tests around this Israeli Industrial Zone facility were at 5000 ppm.

Also with us was a staff person for Al Haq and Eyad Burnat, the leader of the nonviolent protests against the wall from the village of Bil’in and his young son. He is the brother of the Emad Burnat who filmed Five Broken Cameras which was nominated for an Oscar, documenting the nonviolent protests against the occupation wall that was proposed to encroach upon agricultural land in the West Bank village. One of Eyad’s sons was shot by an Israeli sniper and seriously injured several years ago. Two sons of Eyad’s brother Emad are in administrative detention for 24 and 25 months each. This is a holdover practice from the British administration, where people in the Occupied population can be arrested and held in jail and definitely without any charges or trial. Israel does not subject Jews to such a condition. One third of Palestinian males have been jailed at some point. Read ratings of the movie and then watch it.