On April 16, 1963, Reverend Martin Luther King affirmed in a letter from Birmingham Jail in a prophetic voice, âinjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,â and âfreedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.â The letter was a call to action directed at clergy who, at the time, had not yet joined the civil rights movement and instead chose to express public opposition to MLKâs campaign in Alabama.
MLKâs letter is an instructive one for work related to Palestine. Beyond specifics, it challenges the clergy who remain silent in the face of oppression, while they are mighty critical of those acting to bring about an end to segregation and structural racism in America. Furthermore, by responding with a letter, MLK moved the civil rights debate from the confines of private, closed-door conversations among the powerful into a national discussion framed by a moral and ethical voice. Leading through moral clarity and a call to everyone to join the quest for freedom and justice.
MLKâs public letter is instructive and no less timely. At present, a national interfaith dialogue campaign is underway, focusing on American Muslims and attempting to manufacture silence in the face of continuous and massive Israeli genocide, war crimes, apartheid, and oppression. The dialogue strategy is not new and dates to the immediate aftermath of Israelâs invasion of Lebanon and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Facing increasing negative public opinion in the US and Europe, Israel developed a plan to reverse the damage done, which included the introduction of dialogue strategies focusing on Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.
Indeed, what we had then and now is an effort to ârehabâ both Israelâs image and standing in America with a strategy, once again, directed at mobilizing interfaith dialogue partners, public officials, and university leaders, and hosting closed or small meetings for this purpose. Religious leaders from across the spectrum, Muslim regional Shura Councils, local groups, and university chaplains are all being invited to private coffee and tea gatherings featuring the ADL, AJC, JCRC, Hillel on campus, and at times Israeli consulate staff and employees, so as to get the âfactsâ about the Gaza genocide and slaughter. The gatherings are an opportunity to âdialogueâ and listen to Israelâs perspective on the issue and to explain how it is anti-Semitic to single out the âJewish Stateâ for criticism while all kinds of atrocities are taking place in the region.
For sure, the local JCRC, ADL, AJC, and other credentialed Israel defenders, right or wrong, will handle the invites, background screening of participants, and the follow-up strategy since the campaign is intended to blame the Palestinians and rescue Israelâs shattered image that is connected to genocide. Thus, it is a pure public relations campaign pushed through at the national, regional, and university interfaith dialogue infrastructure, which essentially utilizes the moral voice of religious figures and institutions to defend Israeli crimes that were committed against Palestinians and, more importantly, to engender silence in the face of the genocide, ethnic cleansing, Occupation and continued settlement expansion.
This amounts to a strategy of âfaith-washingâ Israeli genocide, war crimes, apartheid and occupation. Furthermore, Zionist Jewish partners in this type of interfaith dialogue are essentially collapsing Jewishness into a single site of engagement, Israel, something that is both problematic and incorrect historically and epistemologically.
The organizations involved are welcome to defend Israel as they see fit, but this is not an interfaith dialogue or engagement; rather, it is mobilizing institutions for the support of a nation-state that is currently committing a genocide, occupying another people, and constantly unleashing unrestrained violence against them while stealing land at every turn to build settlements. The Zionist organizations participating never miss an opportunity to oppose social justice for the Palestinians, while continually fundraising to build settlements and defend settlers, as well as supporting Israelâs violence and war unleashed on Lebanon and Iran, while all along having the chutzpah to speak from an interfaith-based platform. When the next gala for the friends of the IDF is scheduled, please make sure to invite interfaith partners so God can be included in the next lobby effort!
Call it whatever you like, but interfaith dialogue and understanding are not what is taking place. The religious leadership in America is invited to such gatherings in order to shore up support for Israelâs settler colonial project in the middle of a live-streamed genocide at a time when Palestineâs freedom train of global political consciousness had already left the station.
Furthermore, the tea and coffee gatherings and closed-door meetings are not sufficient to wash away the blood stains covered streets, homes, schools, hospitals, soccer balls, toys, buses, and ambulances destroyed in Gaza. The current pro-Israel organizations are all in denial and refuse to accept the basic fact that the Zionist project has failed, and no amount of firepower, murdered Palestinians, destroyed buildings, or regional and international support will alter this basic conclusion.
I do not envy the task confronting pro-Israel Jewish organizations and groups in the US and Europe that have collectively opted to hitch their moral and ethical wagons to a settler colonial nationalist project that is set in a historically and continuously inhabited land by the indigenous Palestinians. The interfaith dialogue is intended to bring Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists into alignment with the pro-Israel settler colonial moral and ethical wagons at a time when a global consensus has formed rejecting this type of structure. Genocide is a bridge too long and deeply drenched in blood to be overcome by an interfaith gathering at a five-star resort hotel or a campus conference site. Also, blessings from Washington, London, Paris or any Arab-Muslim capital city will not wash away their complicity in the ongoing genocide.
The invites are coming from organizations and groups that are deaf and mute to the Apartheid Walls of oppression, the genocide, and dispossession constructed by Israel since its inception. Furthermore, the interfaith meetings with tea and coffee are symbolic and representative of a particular form of dialogue that is centered on power and the perception of access to the powerful; rather than an inclusive, social justice-based engagement.
Where are all the Muslim interfaith dialogues and clergy mobilizations for Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, and countless Blacks and Latinos who are included as numbers but erased from our collective consciousness? What coffee and tea invites do we choose to accept, and which ones end up in the recycling bin? Are we dialoging about Palestine, oppression at home and abroad, or more accurately negotiating a place on Americaâs power dining table despite constantly being on the menu!
What I call for and am ready to work on is a social justice, transnational, and inclusive interfaith agenda that is rooted in transformative and restorative human horizons. Interfaith dialogue focusing on theology, prayers, and understanding is important, but it is empty and innocuous if it does not confront local and global injustices and is not critical of our individual and collective roles in them. I am for theology and prayers that liberate and heal the wounds of genocide, occupation, dispossession, and racism; rather than a dialogue strategy rooted in rescuing the powerful and dispensing with the meek of the earth.
An interfaith social justice agenda that supports ending the genocide in Gaza and Sudan, says no more war, values every human life equally, and epistemologically and structurally commits to ending racism in all its forms, including toward immigrants. We are all diminished when we envision our exclusive religious group as powerful when its members are traversing the land on top of a tank, airplane, or celebrating bombings from hilltops. When we focus on worldly power and seek the company of the powerful, then religion and religious leaders are partaking in the advancement of a unique and destructive form of idolatry: worshiping material worldly power, not God.
All human life is sacred; black, brown, yellow, red, white, and all the in-between shades of radiant, colorful beauty that reflects Godâs creative power and spirit resting in all people. We require an interfaith engagement that mobilizes equally whenever a human life is taken and makes sure that justice, accountability, and mercy are at the forefront of religious leadership response.
While each religion constructs an exclusive group, an open and inclusive interfaith social justice agenda is needed to enable the development of global views of the problem and the challenges confronting humanity while continuing to work with others at the local and national levels.
By insisting that Israel be the sole site for Jewish interfaith engagement and constantly mobilizing efforts to defend its polices, we are risking reducing the totality of Judaism into a defense of a modern nation-state that is committing human-made genocide and war crimes against the Palestinians. The invites for tea and coffee are not an interfaith dialogue revolving around the role of religion in the world; rather, it is an effort to mount a defense of a nation-state in the middle of a most brutal genocide, occupation, and settlement build-up, Apartheid policies, and total siege.
A further outcome is the isolation of authentic social justice-based interfaith coalitions that are present across the US that have Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups working collectively to highlight the Palestinian plight as well as mobilize on the domestic front. For those involved in this effort, it is an insult to imply that Jews, Christian and Muslims are not working together or communicating because they have not come to accept invites to defend Israel by organizations that mobilize to protect Israel and Israel alone, and treat interfaith dialogue as part of the Hasbara network, ADL, AJC and AIPAC public relations strategies.
Similarly, the invites for university chaplains and faculty members to closed-door meetings are in essence attempts at mobilizing academic institutions as a backdoor strategy to counter the emerging student consciousness focusing on Israeli genocide and Apartheid. Almost every university president in the US with a cast from his/her administrative staff has partaken of a fully paid trip to Israel (JCRC, ADL, AJC, ZOA, and Shalom Hartman Institute provide funding) to cement their commitment to view the world through the lens of Zionism and begin to see their campus as a front line for countering/limiting/frustrating criticism directed at the âJewish Stateâ.
The university has an important role to play, but at present it is in the business of defending Israelâs genocide and helping it craft and remedy its image. Indeed, university presidents and administration protect Israel by limiting free speech and inquiry, prosecuting students and faculty who speak out for Palestinians, coordinate public relations efforts with Israeli consulates across the country, fire faculty members or refuse to grant tenure or renew contracts, and go the extra mile to develop joint programs with Israeli universities and institutions without asking any critical questions about Palestinian academic access or the role of these institutions in racism, genocide, Apartheid, occupation and injustice.
University religious councils, chaplains, and grants directed at supporting this part of the university take on the responsibility of constructing an empty public relations-based dialogue between Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students and faculty on the one hand, and Zionist students and faculty, complete with a sprinkling of administrative cheerleading squads ready to offer rewards for participation. Just like the US State Department incentivizes Palestinian engagement in an open-ended âpeace processâ, the university leadership and administration follow suit and act as the unofficial sponsor of the campus âpeace processâ that protects Israel and Zionism at the expense of students, faculty, and community. In this context, just like Palestinians are cast in a negative light at the national level and in policy formation, the university treats and frames them in the same identical manner, but uses more sophisticated academic jargon in the name of âcivilityâ or the campus climate buzz words. The university has weaponized campus climate surveys and DEI programs to center Israel and Zionist claims directed at those opposing the genocide and demanding justice and freedom for the Palestinians.
The absurdity takes on completely different heights when the university becomes more embedded in Israelâs public relations efforts by supporting and encouraging participation in visits to Israel under flimsy academic pretexts. These are designed jointly with Zionist outfits committed to countering the increasing support for Palestinian-led BDS movements on college campuses and, for the most part, intended to create spokespeople from outside the Zionist Jewish community to defend and narrate Israelâs story at the time of genocide. The visits and sponsored tours are akin to a âDisneyland tourâ of Israel intended to impress upon the participants the uniqueness of this modern state that âmade the desert bloomâ but is threatened by the unwelcoming and âterroristâ Palestinians, the Arab and Muslim âhordesâ at the gates of civilization.
The game on campus is structured to mirror the national political landscape, and upward mobility involves either remaining silent on the issue or speaking in favor of Israel; otherwise, the doors to opportunity, promotion, and support for research initiatives are closed. One can see that the university is part of reproducing the system at both the macro and micro levels; thus, the challenge is both local and national in the US, with the university at the intersection of knowledge production and power. I use the term embedded intellectuals, which refers to the role of the university in reproducing the system, since funding and resources coming to academia have been intertwined with power for most of the 20th century, if not earlier, and the bulk of university budgets are increasingly imprinted with the military and corporate-industrial complex footprints.
Just as critical is the fact that the interfaith dialogue in America is shaped by Zionist-Christian ecumenical understandings that emerged after WWII, and central to it is a defense of Israel as the only refuge for Jews in the post Holocaust period, and silence or accepting crimes committed against the Palestinians is posited as a worthy price for this lofty project. In this sense, Western Christianity viewed this ecumenical arrangement and support for Israel as a form of atonement for the genocide committed against 6 million Jews due to their silence, and some would maintain Christian complicity in the Holocaust. Thus, Muslims who enter into the previously constructed dialogue space without knowing the existing historical framing are subject to all its constraints and epistemic boundaries.
The organizations sending the tea and coffee invites are all living in a state of denial and continue to operate from a public relations and crisis management approach from the Israeli and AIPAC manual. Indeed, the Zionist groups in America are in denial about the genocide, the occupation (calling it disputed territories), settlement (neighborhoods), torture (moderate physical pressure), war crimes (Palestiniansâ use of human shields), forced expulsion (left on their own), and the Apartheid Wall (security fence).
The invites are to explain the moral and ethical nature of Israelâs military in the face of global witness of a genocide. The effort once again intended to invite another group of religious leaders to visit the country to understand the security threats and fears faced by Israelis daily, which makes a genocide âjustifiableâ. I am sure the amount of cement used by Palestinians will be explained and criticized, the threats of âIslamic terrorismâ will be expounded upon and links between Hamas, Iran, Hizballah and ISIS will occupy the better part of these meetings while assuring the Muslims attending that they are the âgoodâ Muslims who understand the crisis of the radicals in the Muslim world. The interfaith dialogue becomes an Islamophobic festival with Israelâs worldview defining who is a âgoodâ or âbadâ Muslim, while discussion of the events in Gaza becomes secondary since the focus is on Israelâs security and interest, not the genocide, occupied or under siege Palestinians.
Israel has committed itself to settler colonialism, segregationist apartheid, racist and increasingly ultra-nationalist xenophobic trajectory; thus, no closed doors, organic tea and latte-filled rooms, breaking bread while observing halal or Kosher guidelines in an interfaith setting will challenge or reverse it. The moral voice for religion is realized when speaking truth to power.
MLK challenged Americaâs religious leadership to break their silence over structural racism, and the time is now for clergies of all backgrounds to break away from âfaith-washingâ Israeli genocide, war crimes, and speak with a prophetic voice calling for an immediate end to the siege, settlement activities, Apartheid policies, and racism. We need a prophetic voice to call for social justice-based interfaith action that, in words and deeds, demands and supports freedom, liberty, and dignity at home and for Palestinians abroad, for they are indivisible.
