A queer prayer for nonviolence in Israel/Palestine
In this critical moment, our voices — one a lesbian rabbi raised in suburban New Jersey, and the other, a gay professor raised in Ramallah — draw upon the legacies of Jewish and Palestinian peace activists who have come before us, to call for a new path forward rooted in nonviolence.
We reject the binary choices presented by so many in each of our communities — the struggle for Israel/Palestine is not a sports game in which only one side can win and that requires the other to lose.
There is no way forward in which the other is dehumanized. Our commitment to nonviolence means that language and actions both must be nonviolent and infused with the commitment to see the humanity in each other.
As the great American pacifist Rev. AJ Muste said, “there is no way to peace, peace is the way.” And peace is not sustainable without justice and equality.
