israel and palestine

Josiah R. Daniels 11-28-2023

Picture of Azmera Hammouri-Davis. Graphic by Candace Sanders/Sojourners.

Honestly, I never thought much about Israel before college. Then, during my sophomore year, a prominent New Testament studies scholar had been invited to speak on campus; after it came to light that they were openly critical of the state of Israel, they were summarily disinvited. A few other students and I were still able to meet with the scholar, and we were shocked by the language they were using to describe the conditions in Israel for the Palestinians: “Second-class citizens,” “genocide,” and “apartheid” were the terms that struck me most.

“It can’t be as bad as what Black people have faced in the United States or what they faced in South Africa,” I remember saying to the scholar. “Go and see,” they admonished. And so, one year later, that’s exactly what I did.

Matthew Vega 6-14-2021

The first time that I visited Palestine was during my senior year at a Christian liberal arts college. It was one of those “Holy Land tours.” You know the type: visit the sacred sites, avoid political chatter, and return with photos of you or someone you know getting baptized in the Jordan River. Hashtag blessed.

A Palestinian woman takes pictures of her friend posing in front of the Israeli barrier with a mural depicting Iyad al-Halaq, an unarmed and autistic Palestinian who was shot dead by Israeli police, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank June 18, 2020. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma

The tangled web of some U.S. and international evangelical and Pentecostal leaders blessing Israel’s expansionist ambitions toward the West Bank and more has a long and complicated history. President Trump has wrapped his political arms around those religious allies today in a craven attempt to preserve his evangelical base. But other Christians – including many prominent evangelicals – have consistently refused to condone Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as a supposedly “biblically sanctioned” real estate plan.

Illustration by Michael George Haddad

IN JERUSALEM'S OLD CITY, prices are seldom posted. Negotiating is not only welcomed but necessary. It is customary for the merchant to initially ask for a price far in excess of what both parties know to be reasonable. When such an offer is made, it is perfectly valid for the customer to reject the offer; only then does the real negotiation begin. But if the merchant’s counteroffers get progressively higher, it is perfectly justifiable for the customer to question whether the vendor is genuinely interested in selling.

For the past 30 years, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has often resembled a dysfunctional bazaar transaction. With each round of negotiations, Palestinians have been asked to pay a higher and higher price. The Trump administration plan released in June, called “Peace to Prosperity,” is no exception. But why are its terms so unacceptable to Palestinians?

Palestinian political leadership has consistently expressed its aim to establish a sovereign state in which the Palestinian people can exercise national self-determination. As Israeli-Palestinian peace talks over the past quarter century have demonstrated, the issues of borders, Israeli settlements, and Jerusalem are all negotiable to some extent, but any plan that requires Palestinians to relinquish the fundamental aim of national sovereignty is setting the price too high.

Troy Jackson 12-04-2012
Photo: People waiting, © phototr  / Shutterstock.com

Photo: People waiting, © phototr / Shutterstock.com

As I write, I'm stuck in the Central Wisconsin Airport (near the bustling metropolis of Wausau, Wis., for those keeping score at home). And, you guessed it, I'm waiting. Fog in Minneapolis prevented our plane from landing there, and now I'm left sitting in a very small regional airport with no restaurant and no coffee and no concrete sense of what the rest of my day will look like as I make my way to California. All I can do is wait.

I do know, barring something entirely unexpected, that I'll eventually make it to San Francisco. Right now I'm living the axiom offered by Tom Petty decades ago: "The Waiting is the Hardest Part."

Advent, a season during which Christians honor and attempt to approximate the longing for a Messiah more than 2,000 years ago, is often described as a chance to exercise our patience muscles. Advent can serve as a season of anticipation and hope and longing, void of desperation. This is Advent for those who already have most of that for which they wait. But for countless people around the globe, every additional day of waiting comes with a heavy price.

Danny Duncan Collum 11-01-1988

The revealing nature of America's closest friends in the Arab world