“You can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the number of apples in a seed.” -Proverb
It was with these words that the annual “Jesus, Justice and the Palestinian Struggle” conference opened May 26 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Ga. June 2016, the Presbyterian Church USA voted 429 – 129 to pass a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel, while calling on Israel to leave the disputed territories. During this conference, the church continued that important work by hosting several speakers to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Nakba including Reverend Naim Ateek, a Palestinian priest and author of the seminal liberation theology book Justice and Only Justice, A Palestinian Theology of Liberation. 1948 is referred to as “Al-Nakba” which translates to “the catastrophe” as it was the year in which between seven-hundred fifty thousand and one million Palestinians were forced from their homes by the Zionist settler colonialists, turning them into refugees in their own homeland. Today the Palestinian diaspora numbers over 7 million, all of whom deserve the right to return home.
In his most recent book A Palestinian Theology of Liberation Ateek writes, “Liberation theology is a lived theology. It is a way of understanding suffering and injustice, and responding to it…Liberation theology challenges our practical and moral theology to go beyond the individual and consider the sins of unjust systems and power structures.” Ateek encourages people to filter all scripture through an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-discrimination lens as a method for determining which texts are valuable and which ones should be ignored.
Ateek founded the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem in 1991. Sabeel is an Arabic word meaning “the way,” but can also signify a spring or channel of living water. Sabeel is an important voice in the struggle against Israeli apartheid. In their literature they state, “Israel is responsible for grave human rights violations against the Palestinian people. Zionism is white supremacy; challenging Zionism is challenging systems that also subjugate people of color herein the US. The US and Israel share resources, police trainings, and other technologies that oppress people from the US to Palestine. The US gives Israel over $3 billion a year in taxpayer money so we have a direct role to play. Our Bibles call on us to act!”
At the conference Ateek said, “The political conflict of Palestine has to do with your theology of land.” He explained that the Bible tells him that God intended the land in Palestine to be for all the ancestral people who had lived there to share and as such, the only way for there to be justice in Palestine is for all Palestinian refugees to receive the same right of return that all Jewish people currently have. All progressive people should support this demand, understanding that a return to their ancestral homes for all displaced Palestinians in the diaspora is the only first step towards peace and justice in the region.
Sabeel’s message of calling out and opposing the collaboration between the IDF and U.S. police departments rings particularly true here in Georgia as our state’s police officers participate in the GILEE program (Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange), which is a program that sends Georgia law enforcement departments to Israel for training from Israeli police forces. We stand with Sabeel and our Palestinian brothers and sisters in knowing that the exchange of tactics between racist, capitalist police forces has deadly consequences for oppressed people in the U.S. and in Palestine. Thus, we demand the GILEE program be immediately disbanded.
Ateek also spoke about UN Resolution 194. Sabeel are strong supporters of the full implementation of UN Resolution 194. Resolution 194 states: “Resolves that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property, which, under principles of international law or inequity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.” Revolutionary socialists of course recognize the inviolable right of all oppressed nations to self-determination with regard to their means of gaining and maintaining their liberation. The theology of land Ateek advocates is directly inl ine with self-determination as well as the action advocated by the resolution.
Ateek closed with a powerful message of personal integrity and rigorous study, and evaluation of one’s methods and ideas. “When we act as humans, it’s not because of what the Bible has said. We also need to use the brains that God has given us. That is why it is important to emphasize the use of a hermeneutic. You need to have a standard, a criterion you can use to evaluate what is said in the Bible. Tribal life was founded on three pillars, first, every tribe had an area, secondly, every tribe had its own people, thirdly, every tribe has its own god or gods. On these three foundations, tribes were built. This is a tribal understanding. These texts, if they reflect a tribal god, we must recognize them as inauthentic. Nowadays we can learn, we just need to be open to learning, to study, to interact. This is what liberation theology is.”
Revolutionary socialists should seek to build broad coalitions in solidarity with oppressed people around the world. When coalitions are willing to name Zionism as white supremacist settler colonialism, there is much common ground for Liberation Theologists and Marxists to organize upon together. To quote the great Palestinian revolutionary Leila Khaled, “The supreme objective of the Palestinian liberation movement is the total liberation of Palestine, the dismantlement of the Zionist state apparatus, and the construction of a socialist society in which both Arabs and Jews can live in peace and harmony.” From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
