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Welcome to:

Sumud صمود

a Quaker Study of Palestinian Self-Determination

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Welcome to Sumud! While you enjoy the music, please post in the chat your name, location, and inspiration for joining this study group today.

The sun of love (شمس الهوى) by Rim Banna

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Welcome to Sumud! While you enjoy the music, please post in the chat your name, location, and inspiration for joining this study group today.

Rajieen (Returning راجعين)

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Format

Book
Quaker tradition
Facilitator (in personal capacity)
Teach-in & discussion throughout
Action Highlight

Hello all, my name is [name]. I’m really grateful to be with you today. Welcome to Sumud, our Quaker study in Palestinian self-determination. This seven-week study is based on Prof. Rashid Khalidi’s book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.
Our Sumud study is rooted in the Quaker tradition, which means we will have some silence for contemplation, prayer, or meditation at the start of each session. We will also reflect during each session on a Quaker Testimony — that is, a deeply held value or belief. And we will share during our discussion portion in the manner of Quakers — that is, with respect, with some space after someone else speaks, and without talking over one another, to the best of our ability. Of course, all are welcome in this space — Quaker and non-Quaker alike — and to friends from other faith backgrounds, I hope you find the Quaker aspect of this study warm and inviting.
I am a [job/experience]. As your facilitator, I am acting in my personal capacity. (If applicable) My employer does not sanction or endorse my personal or religious activities.
During this 2 hour session, we will have teach-in with discussion throughout.
We will highlight an action item before concluding with some silence.

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Some Silent Worship

Please hold in the Light all those who are suffering,

those who are mourning, who are hungry, who are dying.

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Why this topic? Why now?

Peace & Justice
U.S. complicity in violence
U.S. civic action
Mutual liberation

The Quaker Peace Testimony is not just about pacifism or non-violence. It’s about taking away the occasion for war. And the way we take away the occasion for war is by working for justice and creating a just society. Peace and Justice are two sides of the same coin. You may have heard the civil rights slogan: no justice, no peace. Without working for justice, calls for peace ring hollow and disingenuine..
The U.S. government is complicit in the violence & injustice in Israel/Palestine. As taxpayers in the U.S. our money is going to bombs dropped in Gaza and other parts of Palestine. So we have a special obligation to speak up on Israel/Palestine, concurrently with our work on other issues of peace and justice here at home and around the world.
American civic action is essential to realizing peace & justice in Israel/Palestine. Our influence is huge in Israel/Palestine — what we do here impacts the lives of people there immensely.
What happens over there is also very much tied with us here. This is called Mutual Liberation. It’s the idea that justice in Israel/Palestine is integral to justice everywhere, incl. the U.S. If Palestinians are not free, then we are not truly free. Nor are Israelis.

IMAGE CREDIT: Friend Avital Shtapura

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Sumud صمود

Determination, perseverance & steadfastness
Self-Determination denied
Yet Palestinians remain determined
Jews, Israelis & others are working for peace
Full humanity:

no perfect victims, total victims, monsters or superheroes

Terminology: Palestine

Arabic for determination, perseverance & steadfastness
The Israeli gov’t denies Palestinians their right to Self-Determination
Yet Palestinians remain determined
Many Jews, Israelis & others are working for peace
Full humanity: no perfect victims, total victims, monsters or superheroes Terminology: Palestine (a.k.a. all of historic Palestine; Israel/Palestine)
In this workshop, we will not essentialize any group of people.

Neither Jewish Israelis nor Palestinians are required to be perfect peace-loving victims in order to earn our sympathy.
Nor total victims whose permanently pathetic status earns them our pity, but denies them their agency.
Nor violent monsters whose animalistic barbarism deserves annihilation.
Nor idolized — even fetishized — superheroes who can only eventually disappoint us.

Rather, these are beautiful, complex, wonderful, and flawed human beings. They are certainly caught up in systems of power, oppression, racism, and resistance. But please let us see their full humanity. If we trap people in preconceived notions, then when these notions eventually fall apart, we will become either hostile or perhaps just ambivalent toward the fate of the Other.
We need to see Jews, Israelis, Arabs, and Palestinians through a universalist lens that stresses the fundamental equality of all human beings, but it is also a lens that simultaneously reveals and embraces the particularity and richness of cultural difference.
To put this in Quaker spiritual terms, we see the divine Light of God in every person, but we also see how the Light reflects off the face of our neighbor in a unique way.
In humanist terms, we become united in our shared humanity, but also in the full diversity of humanity.
In moral terms, we hold our deep belief in Peace, but we also pave the bumpy path to Peace with stones of Justice that are unique to each of us and our communities.
For more on this, I encourage you to check out a book by Mohammed El-Kurd entitled “Perfect Victims” in which he describes the insistence from western media and organizations that he vow an oath to pacifism and against antisemitism, or else they would not cover the story of how Jewish settlers were trying to steal his family’s home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem as part of a racist campaign of ethnic cleansing: https://bookshop.org/p/books/perfect-victims-mohammed-el-kurd/21498541
RE: NAME OF PALESTINE: Generally in this study, we will use the indigenous name of the land, which is “Palestine.” We center indigenous voices. For clarity, note that this means all of “historic Palestine” or what is also called today “Israel and the Palestinian Territories.” There is a state called Israel. This is not a denial of the existence of the state. It is an indigenous land acknowledgment, similar to the land acknowledgments that many of us make today when referring to where we live. Because we are doing a historical study, however, we will use more specific terms relevant to the time period at hand. For example, at the turn of the twentieth century, this was the Ottoman Empire. During British colonial domination, it was Mandate Palestine. When we refer to the land ethnically cleansed in 1948, we are referring to the land that Israel declared statehood on. Etc.

IMAGE CREDIT: Friend Avital Shtapura

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Affirmations

Speak from personal experience
Listen with open mind
Create safe space
Speak up: “oops” or “ouch”
No attribution
Pause
Keep it short
Give others space to speak

Can we agree to these?

Any additions or changes we should make?

https://quakersumud.org/affirmations/

During discussion, I affirm that I will:

Speak from my own experience, aware of my own positionality and possible privilege, and cognizant that we all come to this discussion from a place of spiritual equality, which is what matters most, even if we have different backgrounds or levels of expertise
Listen with an open mind and open heart.
Create a safe space for all, even if I don’t always agree with what is said.
Speak up & recognize when I feel disrespected or a microaggression — can do so with a chat message or oral expression of “Oops” or “Ouch,” after something happens that is, or appears, hurtful. We’ll pause, breathe, and slow down to do any group processing needed. We welcome guidance from the person who was hurt by using and modeling the clerking tools. Such a circumstance becomes an opportunity to learn together about how to address a microaggression or instance of oppression in real time.
No attribution: What’s shared here stays here; what’s learned here leaves here.
Pause after another person speaks and before I speak.
Keep my reflections short.
If I’ve already spoken, I will give others an opportunity to speak.

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Logistics

Add pronouns & location under “people” > click on name > “rename”
“Show Captions” button in toolbar
Remain present
Camera on (to extent possible)
Raise hand during discussion or type in chat
Mute if not speaking

Any difficulty with finding the Zoom tools?

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THE SIXTH DECLARATION OF WAR:

Siege

THE SECOND INTIFADA & WARS ON GAZA: 2000-2023

NOT TO READ, RATHER JUST FOR REFERENCE OF THE FACILITATOR TO HAVE IN MIND AS PARTICIPANTS SHARE THEIR INSIGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S MATERIALS:

Immediately following the failure of the so-called “peace process,” another uprising broke out, the Second Intifada. Much more violent than the First Intifada of 1987, the Second Intifada of the early 2000s saw the killing of hundreds of Israelis by Palestinian armed groups and thousands of Palestinians by Israeli forces.
During this period, Hamas also gained prominence as a militant/political movement, winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. After the U.S. and Israel rejected a coalition Fatah-Hamas government and PA forces attempted military action against Hamas, Hamas staged a counter-coup and took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 — dividing the Palestinian Territories.
Israel immediately imposed a siege on Palestinians in Gaza, limiting food and fuel and the entry and exit of people. Poverty and unemployment spiked.
Violence also ensued, with Israeli wars on Palestinian life in the Strip in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021.
The siege and mass destruction of these Israeli wars on Gaza were at once an echo of the past (war on Lebanon in 1982) and preview of what was to come (the plausible genocide from October 2023 to present).

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Quaker Testimony of the Day

What does Stewardship

mean to you?

NOT TO READ, RATHER JUST FOR REFERENCE OF THE FACILITATOR TO HAVE IN MIND AS PARTICIPANTS SHARE THEIR INSIGHTS FROM THIS WEEK’S MATERIALS:

Our Quaker Testimony for contemplation this week is Stewardship.
Stewardship is conceived as care for the Earth in a sacred trust that promotes environmental, economic, and social sustainability. It is also an exercise of social justice to work for equal access to resources.
As John Woolman said in 1770: “May we look upon our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.”
Spiritual motivation for the preservation and sharing of resources is often found in an accounting for blessings, which may be more than we think about on a daily basis. These blessings or gifts include our talents, possessions, and natural environment. As much as we tend to claim ownership and credit for these gifts, they are not ours alone.
A spirit of thanksgiving for the gifts of creation/the universe may be offered in prayer or moments of communion with nature. Such a spirt binds community, motivates responsible management of resources, and promotes right relations with indigenous peoples historically oppressed in the name of racial purity, and the Earth exploited in the name of capital. In this sense, Stewardship is part of a process of decolonization. It is moving from a position of arrogant dominion to humble partnership. Loving spirit helps dissolve difference — or at least create connection — between self and other, individual and community, humanity and creation/the universe.
In the case of Israel/Palestine, we are in the midst of ongoing settler-colonial domination and war in which the Israeli government has systematically decimated environmental resources for Palestinians. Described as an ecocide, this decimation includes bombing agricultural land in Gaza, torching olive groves in the West Bank, monopolizing water resources for Jewish settlements, and emitting war-related fossil pollution. Of course, the ecocide is aimed at ethnically cleansing indigenous Palestinian communities from the land.
What can we learn of Stewardship from the example set by Palestinians in their resilience and determination (sumud) to rebuild their lives, homes, orchards, and environment after each and every war on their existence? What does faithfulness to the Testimony of Stewardship require of us in the face of the Israeli government’s ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip (funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars), domination of natural resources, and destruction of Palestinian infrastructure necessary for human life?

IMAGE CREDIT: Friend Avital Shtapura

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Where we left off last time

1987 First Intifada
1991 Madrid
Settlements
PISGA Track (FAILED)
Oslo Track (SIGNED)

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Oslo II (1995)

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Palestine فلسطين

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“This is a unique colonialism that we’ve been subjected to where they have no use for us. The best Palestinian for them is either dead or gone. It’s not that they want to exploit us, or that they need to keep us there in the way of Algeria or South Africa as a subclass.”

Edward Said

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“Peace” brings Apartheid

Pre-1991: could travel throughout Israel-Palestine
Post-1991:

Permits
Checkpoints
The Wall
Settler-Only Roads

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Camp David – July 2000

No control of borders (Jordan Valley)
No control of airspace
No control of water
No contiguous territory (settlements remain)
No Jerusalem (sole Israeli sovereignty)
Yet U.S. blames failure on Palestinians

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Hamas

Acronym for Islamic resistance
Founded in December 1987
Permitted by Israel to divide & conquer
Suicide bombs
Tortured by PA security

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Why did Hamas’ popularity rise?

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Second Intifada – Sept. 2000

Sharon visits Temple Mount
Live ammunition
6,600 killed (17% Israeli)
Suicide bombings (26% by Fatah)
Reoccupation

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Any volunteer to read?

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In stark contrast to the first, the Second Intifada constituted a major setback for the Palestinian national movement. Its consequences for the Occupied Territories were severe and damaging. In 2002, with its heavy weapons causing widespread destruction, the Israeli army reoccupied the limited areas, mainly cities and towns, that had been evacuated as part of the Oslo Accords. That same year, Israeli troops imposed their siege on Yasser ‘Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters, where he fell mortally ill. […] Coming after the collapse of the Camp David summit, Israel’s reoccupation of the cities and towns of the West Bank and Gaza Strip shattered any remaining pretense that the Palestinians had or would acquire something approaching sovereignty or real authority over any part of their land. It exacerbated the political differences among Palestinians and underlined the absence of a viable alternative strategy, revealing the failure of both the PLO’s diplomatic course and the armed violence of Hamas and others.

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These events showed that Oslo had failed, that the use of guns and suicide bombings had failed, and that for all the casualties inflicted on Israeli civilians, the biggest losers in every way were the Palestinians. Another consequence was that the terrible violence of the Second Intifada erased the positive image of Palestinians that had evolved since 1982 and through the First Intifada and the peace negotiations. With horrifying scenes of recurrent suicide bombings transmitting globally (and with this coverage eclipsing that of the much greater violence perpetrated against the Palestinians), Israelis ceased to be seen as oppressors, reverting to the more familiar role of victims of irrational, fanatical tormentors. The potent negative impact of the Second Intifada for the Palestinians and the effect of suicide bombings on Israeli opinion and politics certainly bear out the trenchant critique of the Palestinians’ employment of violence expressed by Eqbal Ahmad back in the 1980s.

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In Small Groups:

Read Exercise #10, and discuss:

Clearly immoral and a war crime to target civilians. Let’s ask: How effective was Palestinian use of violence as a strategy of resistance during the Second Intifada?

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Palestinian Elections

2004: ‘Arafat dies
2005: Mahmud ‘Abbas wins presidential elections

Israel unilaterally withdraws from Gaza

2006: Hamas wins parliamentary elections

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2007 Hamas-Fatah Split

Fatah-Hamas government rejected
Recognition of Israel demanded
U.S. cuts funding
PA forces botch coup attempt
Hamas counter-coup & Gaza takeover

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Israel’s Siege of Gaza

Minimum food & fuel allowed in
Ban on exports
Entry & exit rarely permitted
53% poverty
52% unemployment
Blackouts, water contamination

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Gaza Wars: 2008, 2012, 2014

43:1 casualties
Destruction
4,000 rockets fired
450k displaced
U.S. general: “absolutely disproportionate”

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“What happened in the Dahiya quarter [in Lebanon in 2006 war] will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. … We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. … This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.”

Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot,

Northern Command

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If a serial murderer ran into a school with 100 students, would it be proportionate to bomb the school to kill the serial murderer?

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U.S. Foreign Policy

2004: Pres. Bush backs settlements
2009: Pres. Obama appoints George Mitchell
2014:

U.S. weapons flow, despite legal concerns
U.S. allows UNSC 2334 to pass, condemning settlements

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First Trump Presidency

2017: Jerusalem recognition
2019: Golan Heights recognition
2020-21: Abraham Accords
“Peace” limited to economic incentives

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2018 Jewish Nation State Basic Law

Law with semi-constitutional status
Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people” (not Israeli people)
Self-determination for Jews alone
Jewish settlement as a “national value” to be promoted
Open to Jewish immigration

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2018 March of Return in Gaza

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In Small Groups:

Read Exercise #11, and discuss:

Khalidi suggests re-framing Palestinian liberation as a U.S. national interest. What interests might be at stake?

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Palestinian Liberation as a U.S. Nat’l Interest

Moral — living up to our supposed American values
Legal — avoiding domestic and international legal liability
Economic — increasing trade; decreasing economic risk; and re-allocating budgets
National Security — reducing the threats posed by armed groups to U.S. residents’ safety and well-being
Domestic Political — garnering support of a large base of voters in U.S. elections
Foreign Relations — promoting good relations with other countries; resolving conflicts
Immigration — reducing irregular migration flows; resettling refugees safely

Moral – living up to our supposed values as Americans (freedom from colonial oppression/self-determination), our supposed support for Human Rights – even if, as Khalidi says, the U.S. does not have any vital interest in the domestic final status issues
Legal — U.S. blind support to Israel is a legal liability under both domestic and international law. Domestically, U.S. law prohibits providing military aid to a country when that country is blocking humanitarian aid (Foreign Assistance Act), or when there is credible information linking its forces to gross human rights abuses (Leahy Law). Internationally, U.S. blind support for Israeli human rights abuses may constitute complicity in grave human rights violations (such as apartheid and genocide). Plus, it leads to double standards, for example, with the U.S. backing Ukrainians in their resistance to foreign Russian occupation (consistent with international law), but supporting the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. By contrast, U.S. support for Palestinian liberation would be consistent with U.S. and international law.
Economic – interesting proposals for increased trade including from Indian Subcontinent and the Gulf States through to a Gaza Port. Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have had a big impact on global trade. Billions in foreign weapons could go to domestic
National Security – proliferation of armed groups, directly or indirectly in response to Israeli Occupation (e.g., IRANIAN-ALIGNED like Houthis, Iraqi PMF, Lebanese Hezbollah, etc. and JIHADIST like al-Qa’eda, Islamic State, etc.)
Domestic Political – 46% of Americans & 60% of Democrats support sanctions on Israel for construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A majority of Americans oppose sending U.S. arms to Israel: https://theintercept.com/2024/09/10/polls-arms-embargo-israel-weapons-gaza/ Kamala Harris may have lost the 2024 presidential election because of Palestine: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/biden-voters-passed-kamala-harris-because-gaza-new-poll-shows Political support is growing for Palestinian liberation, particularly among the youth.
Foreign Relations – e.g., Iran nuclear deal. Also, the U.S. will not be under pressure to back dictator allies to repress their pro-Palestinian peoples (e.g., Egypt, Jordan).
Immigration – a just resolution to the Palestinian refugee crisis is in the interest of all countries, as well as in the interest of the refugees themselves.

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“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

- Nat’l Security Adviser Jake Sullivan,

days before October 7, 2023

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Whiteboard Closing Queries

What new insights do you have to talk with others about peace and justice in Israel-Palestine based on today’s study?
What does faithfulness to our testimony of stewardship require of us today in light of this history of Palestinians rebuilding their lives in the face of successive wars?

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Today’s Action Highlight:

Call & Write your Representative

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Thank you, Friends!

See you next time.