Live From Bethlehem Webinar

as an organization thank you if I might just take a moment to introduce us as an organization um eyewitness Palestine has been around uh for 20 some years since 2001 and our name used to be Interfaith peace Builders but we changed our name um in I believe 2008 I apologize the dates are wonky but um uh what we do is we take people on immersive experiences to understand the Palestinian experience firsthand and become witnesses to the lives of Palestinians um and because after the events of October

7th it's been um not possible to get delegations in we have recently shifted towards increasing uh education to create motivation around action to call for a ceasefire in razza um as the beginning of a conversation that leads towards a free Palestine inshallah so today we are doing our live from Bethlehem Christmas is canceled in Palestine webinar um we have with us some a few guests this is being um sort of jointly hosted um by d k University um we have the president and founder of d k with us

today um who will be one of our speakers um and the donations will be split half between eyewitness Palestine and half with the university and so uh if you are compelled please do make a donation we will drop the link in the chat and if this is your first time with eyewitness Palestine we will also drop a link for you to sign up for our newsletter um but yes let me introduce um our executive director who will um introduce our speakers as well um our executive director is Nancy Monsour she joine

d the team recently and um she will be host or the facilitator of this meeting today Nancy if you're ready thank you Morin thank you so much my name is Nancy Mansour I am the executive director at iwitness Palestine uh I am really excited about the event today uh we have some really great um speakers uh as a Palestinian Christian uh this is a very important subject for me um as most of you have heard Christmas celebrations in Palestine are cancelled um as we witness the horrors that are happenin

g to our brothers and sisters uh in the in gzi um I did want to update some numbers today um to keep everybody up to date with what is happening it's really hard uh to keep up with uh the number of um deaths the number of injuries and so as of yesterday evening 74 days uh yesterday into the genocide of the Palestinian people the Ministry of Health in RI released the numbers 19,6 167 Palestinians have been marted killed by the occupation forces over 7,000 people are under the rubble still missing

and unable uh people are unable to reach them uh there's over 8,000 children that have been murdered uh 310 of those murdered are medical personnel uh 97 of those murdered are journalists 52586 have been injured 99 people Health Care uh healthc Care staff have been arrested um eight journalists are in DET attention and being held uh 1.8 million people in are currently displaced 1.8 million people in the Gaza Strip are currently displaced 126 government buildings have been destroyed 90 schools a

nd universities have been completely destroyed 112 mosques have been completely destroyed three churches have been targeted and destroyed by the occupation 52,600 housing units have been completely destroyed 23 hospitals have been disabled by the occupation 53 Health Centers have been disabled by the occupation and 140 Health institutions partially targeted by the occupation 102 ambulances have been completely destroyed by the occupation and it's it's crazy to me because I wish I could read ever

y single name of every single uh human being that has been murdered uh over the past couple of months I wish I could read the names of the uh thousands of human beings that have been murdered over the past 75 years but obviously we would be here for hours um but every single human life is sacred um and you know I I I just want to say I'm I'm giving you numbers to keep you up to date but for me it's also painful to just throw numbers out there as if their numbers um today we have uh three very sp

ecial speakers um and like we said 50% of the donations today will be going to DAR University in Bethlehem it's an art and cultures University founded by one of our speakers um I do urge people to please go in and donate um in the link that Moren will put into the chat you can it will say that the event has ended because it started already but at the bottom it can say make it says make a donation and you can make a donation right there whether it's $1 $5 or $100 it all makes a difference and we

do appreciate your support you can also um sign up to our mailing list on eyewitness palestine. we will put that into the chat as well we appreciate everybody being with us today our first speaker is the founder of Dar University in Bethlehem uh he's an author and editor of over 50 books his books and numerous articles have been translated so far into 13 languages he served as a senior pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from June 87 to May 2017 and as a president of the sinod o

f the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the holy land from 2011 to 2016 a social entrepreneur he has founded several NOS including the Christian academic forum for citizenship in the Arab world he is a founding and board member of the National Library of Palestine and a founding member of bright stars of Bethlehem he's an elected member to the Palestinian National Council as well as the Palestinian Central Council I'm very honored to introduce our first Speaker father MRI rahib abuna tha

nk you for this introduction and U good to be with all of you it's U it's a pleasure to be with Archbishop adalah Han a great friend and together we are in the kyus Palestine movement as well and it's great also to see many friends u i mean many names here that I can recognize uh thank you for joining us this evening uh you know we heard right now the numbers but uh as we heard also I mean behind every number there is a face there is a name um and dar K University actually is the only University

in the West Bank that has a satellite program in Gaza with a center and staff there so when I when I see these pictures um I think of all our staff and students in Gaza uh and let me share maybe with you a few names to start with just to give that some flesh because Christmas is actually uh the feast where we think of uh the Divine becoming human H sanctifying all human life H and um this is the human life in in Gaza the director of our Center there Runa a young um uh artist a sculpture sculptu

rist uh who direct our Center there um her house is in Gaza City in t Hawa she had to evacuate uh and now she is displaced in the South with the 1.9 million people together with her two kids and husband uh in this war we lost four of our staff and volunteers um creative artists that U were looking for the future with hope uh with dreams they really wanted to do something for their lives and for their people and for Palestine um Young artist U like uh halim who was helping us uh in the last war o

n Gaza two years ago um doing art therapy reaching out to the many kids who were traumatized in this war um who survived the war but were traumatized through ART and uh through culture uh or Muhammad Samy a Performing Artist uh in fact he was murdered in the attack on the a hospital he was gathering kids there to sing with them about peace and in fact that that uh song was captured by Al jazer just two days before he was murdered because he wanted to bring some calm uh some healing some peace to

these kids who were traumatized by all the war there and then the air strike that hit Hospital killed him and the children uh with him we have 300 students in Gaza we lost uh you know all the connections with them uh we are not sure if they are still alive or if they are on the streets without a place to stay um and uh this breaks our heart because it's very personal it's not only that it's genocide but it is it's a genocide to people that we know that we came to love love uh you know the first

time I went to Gaza after uh after 20 years being not able to go there uh and um I met three artist a young artist uh and I came back to Bethlehem and within two weeks over 200 young creative artist from Gaza added me on Facebook so Gaza is a Place full of creativ and people really loving life and now we see how they are really murdered um but also what many people do not know is that there is a Christian Community in Gaza as well um less than 1,000 uh in two churches right now in the Latin chu

rch and in the Greek Orthodox Church 3% of the Christian Community in Gaza were murdered in Israeli attacks uh first 24 were uh uh died because no access to medical facilities and just last Saturday an Israeli sniper actually killed two women uh within the Latin uh Church compound while they wanted to cross from one building to the other on the church uh compound um so I mean when you know these people when you have connection to them it becomes very personal and um what bothers me as as a as a

pastor and as as somebody who has been U actually working in dialogue for so long is to hear uh the genocidal language it's not only the genocide itself but also the genocidal language that we hear you know when uh Israeli defense minister call us Human animals uh when Netanyahu calls us amalik and quote 1 Samuel 153 where God is telling uh Saul to go in and to uh to to kill a whole Community man women children elderly even ox and sheep and this is again it's not only the language then that is w

hat we see um when I hear um you know an Israeli Minister um saying you know the only uh solution is to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza or when another uh another military person is saying we should have an epidemy in Gaza like what was done with the Native American in in in North America 400 years ago this genocidal language this hate speech is something that U you know it's very difficult uh really uh for us to hear but also to experience what this is done and then to see that many countries in th

e Western World keep supportting uh this genocide by sending ammunition sending additional funding and and standing uh with with Israel even when it does this genocide uh so uh but I will come uh to to the biblical message again to end with uh at least this section because uh you know the Christmas story that came out of Bethlehem is not about the reindeer and it's not about the white Christmas and it's not about the Jingle Bells actually it's about a child that was born to a family who was forc

ed to leave by an imperial order from the north from Nazareth to the South it's exactly what happened to the people in Gaza it's the story actually of a child that is born as a refugee it's the story of Mary the pregnant woman like the 50,000 pregnant women who are on the run and cannot find a place where to bring their child to life it's the story of Herod um the bloodthirsty King that in order to stay in power he ordered to kill the children in Bethlehem and over 8,000 kids actually are killed

in Gaza in this war and it is the story of the Angels who actually sang and proclaimed glory to God in the highest which means Glory belongs to the almighty not to the mighty Empire and the peace that the peace on Earth the peace that the uh that the Angels proclaimed was not the PX Romana the pie of the Empire the Roman Empire that was based on subjugating of other nations U and and um and oppressing them but on a different kind of peace that is built on human dignity on equality and on Justic

e and this is I think the message that you want to bring to the whole world hopefully you know Bethlehem gave Jesus to the world it is high time for the world to give peace to Bethlehem I will stop here thank you so much father M uh I want to invite up one of your students um who were excited to hear from since we told you that 50% of the donations that we'll be getting will'll be going to DAR University we have a student of the tourist program from um Islam who is speaking to us from refugee ca

mp based in hey everyone first I want to thank Dr Mitri for inviting me and I want to thank everyone especially you Nancy and it's a great opportunity to be heard because uh living in this uh place and trying to raise your voice it's a it's a it's quite challenging because of the the way they target everyone online in real life and um I want to start talking about the life before uh the ongoing genocide in the University uh the university it's being there it's warm It Feels Like Home everyone is

kind to each other uh especially the doctors um uh in specific I want to talk about uh teacher Rose uh in in this meantime we're taking courses with her and she helps us a lot like mentally like separates us from what's Happening and the laughs we uh we laugh with her it's it's helping a lot and um um since that day I wasn't able to enter bham since I live in a refugee camp it's between Hebron and Bethlehem and we are uh we are cut off from H the two cities that we seek life and quite Freedom t

here because in the refugee camp there's no senses of Freedom or life um it's just a bunch of crowded homes on top of each other and in front of that camp there's a military base with uh Advanced weapons and Technology we can't do anything about it and U we're just um surrendering and uh staying at home and in fact since uh the beginning of the ongoing genocide we weren't able to go outside and uh have our daily life they're completely blocking every single entrance to the camp and that applies

to every entrance in Palestine um they use a lot of ways to degrade and humiliate us while we go through the checkpoint um and it's quite scary like to think about going outside of the home and not being able to come back because they at at any point there are they can close that entrance um and for me um when I go to it's like a second home to me that's where I get some glimpse of Freedom there and uh the that is taken away from me now because since what happened until this day I was able to go

outside of my home or only for three times and I wasn't able to go to Bam either or see my University and uh it's it's scary like because when I try to go outside of my home I only go outside with my dad or my mom because going outside alone it's a challenge it's quite horrific because what they are able to do to any of us and I make sure to record uh whenever we pass through that checkpoint because you would never know what they are able to do or capable to do and um they made it hard to us li

ke for me to go outside of my home and pass pass through the checkpoint walking without any car or anything and going on a highway where people are not allowed to go there only to take a car and enter bam and that process used to be a bit easier before it took a um half an hour to reach the university now it takes two hours two hours and a half to get there and uh especially entering it's it's it's not as going outside of fa because they make sure people who are going out suffer a lot they keep

them for hours waiting to get out and they take their phones they humiliate them they hit them and um yeah that's what I have to say for now thank you everyone for listening thank you Habib We Appreciate You Islam please stay on I do want to to ask folks if you have questions you can put them into the chat and we will be asking the questions um uh after our next speaker uh our next speaker I'm excited to introduce uh will be speaking in his native tongue of Arabic um and will be translated simul

taneously by professional translator our brother Mustafa hashish born in the upper Galilee in ' 65 he began studying Greek in Jerusalem After High School and then went on to study theology in Greece he earned ma in theology from thessalonica University in 1991 returned to Jerusalem in the summer that year and received the rank of Bishop in Western Country uh W Western churches in 93 he became the spokesperson and director of the Patriots uh re uh Arab Department he also worked as a teacher in lo

cal schools lecturer in Christianity at the haer Arab Teachers College renowned for his media appearances in which he focuses on the Palestinian identity he was arrested by the occupation forces from his home in the old city of Jerusalem he had his Israeli passport confiscated and was pressured to refrain from political activities he was again briefly arrested and interrogated in 2002 and 2003 the next speaker is live from Jerusalem uh strongly spoken out against Israel's targeting of all compon

ents of Palestinian Society I am honored to introduce a Greek Orthodox Archbishop of sebastia Archbishop theodosis atalah Hanah Bishop thanks everyone for the invitation um and everyone who is participating and greets and thanks Reverend Rah Mitri as well as everyone who is attending today the message today is a Christmas message from bah this is the title of the Bishop's um message today um and it's a Christmas message to everyone who is celebrating Christmas Around the World the heads of all t

he churches in Jerusalem this year have decided to cancel Christmas celebrations and to limit all celebrations to the Celeb to the uh prayer services that are held inside the churches so that we can raise our voices in prayer inside the churches to pray for peace and to pray for an end of this war as swiftly as possible this message of canceling Christmas in Jerusalem and in Palestine carries many dimensions most importantly the dimension of the message that says that Christian Palestinians um a

re offended and attacked by the attack on Gaza the attack on Gaza is an attack on all Palestinians including the Christian Palestinians thousands of Martyrs have fallen in gazah and thousand and many more are under the rubble they are not only statistics but every martyr and every uh killed individual is a human story who held their aspirations and their dreams that are now all buried under the rubble the message from the heads of churches in Palestine and from all the Christians in Palestine is

a call to the churches of the world to all the churches in the world today to pray for peace in Palestine and for peace in Gaza we would like to remind all Christians of the world and all non-christians but this is a Christmas message so in particular the Christians of the world that Palestine is the birthplace of Christianity the birth the birthplace of Jesus Christ um so remember Palestine and remember remember uh peace in Palestine during these days and pray for them we call on all the churc

hes of the world in addition to the prayer that we ask to raise your voices High to call for an end to this war an end to this war that has created so much D destruction and Spilled so much innocent blood that it must end our call on all people of the world is well you must take action you must raise your voices for in order to end this war quickly to end this war against Gazza pH we uh I conclude with a simple statement that we hear so much around so many around the world speak of Peace speak o

f two states for two people living side by side in peace but on the ground we see nothing but oppression and occupation we hope when we ask everyone who speaks of peace to emphasize the notion of Justice without Justice for the Palestinians there cannot be peace and the calls for peace will remain um Polo slogans that have no meaning on the ground thank you very much I will stop here to open the space for questions and answers sh ABA thank you so much Musta stay with us because we're gonna need

you um I will start with the first question um and we can start with Father Mitri answering and then if uh uh father atalah would like to answer as well uh what are your thoughts on the western churches and the lack of them speaking up against this many feel betrayed by Western churches um what are your feelings about this um as Christian Palestinians yes uh actually uh there are are a few churches that are speaking boldly and speaking truth to power including in the US if I'm thinking uh you kn

ow of of some of the mainline churches like the you know the Presbyterians um the United Church of Christ the disciples the Lutheran Etc H but our problems are with the Christian zionists uh who are anxious for armagedon uh who support this genocide because they read Joshua and they think this is what's happening is what God is asking them to do in Joshua um but also churches in Germany uh because of the guilt uh they keep silence uh in Austria same problem H and um I mean how can it be that hum

an rights organization speak truth to power while many churches cannot for me the heart of the Gospel is about Justice uh and this is really what we as churches should stand for I know it's costly but this is really what Jesus told us to H to do uh I mean you heard it from Islam it's not easy for her even to have a post on on on Facebook she can be detained for that when we speak up we are taking risk without taking risk actually I think we lose credibility and what I'm really fearful is that ma

ny churches already have lost their credibility for us exactly like their government with their double standard H and with backing such a genocide in the 21st century uh C for um as as Christians as believing Christians our culture is a culture of Peace we cannot accept uh war and violence and as Christians we must call very strongly and demand an end to the War uh in in Gaza you cannot be Christian and accept this kind of violence it is a religious issue it is a spiritual issue it is about fait

h every Christian on a based on morality and on faith must demand an end to this war hold on P on yeah so for for so the the question to uh the bishop was about the threats that they uh uh often receive for speaking up against the occupation and against the oppression uh and if these threats continue now and um the holy AR Bishop said that the yes there is lot of pressure there are threats and there have been multiple arrests uh because of our position against the war but our principled position

uh remains U steadfast we oppose the war we believe in the in the right to life and the right to dignity for every single human being for every human soul and our people in Gaza are human beings who deserve the to live and who deserve dignity we are not politically Affiliated uh we have no relation to any political uh formations or parties we are Christians we are Palestinians and we have a principled position uh for peace and against War thank you so much uh I'm going to keep the questions goi

ng because there's a lot of questions um this question is how do you teach towards a theological misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Old Testament that God chose this land for Israel um actually uh let me do a commercial here because this was exactly the topic of my last book that came out three months ago called de colonizing Palestine the land the people the Bible um and I have a whole chapter on that issue as well as on that the notion of chosen people um and U what I U what basical

ly i i u I try to say there is to connect uh settler colonialism with this kind of reading of the Bible um and um unfortunately ER you can find such settler Colonial ideology in the Bible if you want to find it uh I always say the Bible is U is often like you know like the the Bazar in the old city of of Jerusalem you can find everything there so if you are looking for uh for uh you know ideas that will support your settler Colonial ideology you can find them say in the Book of Joshua but if you

are looking for text of Liberation text of resistance text of life you go to the prophets uh in the Old Testament you go to Jesus and this is why for us Jesus so important as as the focus Point uh because he continued this prophetical aspect of the of the Old Testament thank you this is in a nutshell in a nutshell thank you and you can promote your books as much as you want they're good books to read we will be sending out the link to this Zoom to everybody afterwards it will also be on our You

Tube page and we will send out links to uh the websites and how to um get in contact uh with Father Mitri and Archbishop adah Han after this um I want to ask a question um I'll say in English and then um and then in Arabic for uh the Archbishop um there is a question of how can people reach the people that can make a difference in the churches uh there's somebody that says here I've gone to a handful of Catholic churches in LA in Los Angeles and they have not mentioned Palestine um who are the p

eople that they can call to pressure the churches to speak the truth so and also what they can do in their own communities um to to pressure their churches so America for am pH AB sorry um so everyone has a responsibility carries a responsibility to deliver the message and to raise their voice there may be an issue in the US especially where the messages don't reach where perhaps there is an attempt to uh to to uh to prevent messages from reaching uh and to um uh blur the the the reality perhaps

but we call on everyone to deliver their voices to knock on all doors possible uh to deliver the message um I doubt uh uh I doubt the bishop says I doubt there is any Christian who does not know that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem in Palestine Palestine is a well-known name we did not invent the name in 1948 or any other uh date the name has existed and Palestine has existed for centuries and for Millennia uh everyone uh everyone knows this this is the land of the Holy birth this everyone k

nows this and um our dear friend Father Mitri has his his w thingss his books address the uh the issues that are often uh thought about in the west uh and we call on everyone to cooperate with Father Mitri and to uh to read these books and seek the answers therein thank you Mustafa abun I'm GNA ask a couple of questions at a time we're going to try and we're going to be going over just a little bit so if people could stay with us um as long as they can um how has the war against azi impacted Pal

estinians throughout the occupied territories um and also uh there is um Paula here who says uh one of our board members hiola who says I have many friends uh who are Palestinian activists um but not Christians and they're asking how they can approach churches there to bring your message to them uh what suggestions do you have for them yeah uh I mean the situation in in the West Bank actually is is deteriorating uh uh in in a way that we never experienced uh first of all as Islam said every city

right now in in the West Bank every refugee camp H is basically besieged uh so uh there are lots of restriction on movement uh there are restrictions on uh on on on social media uh to give you an example one of our students for example Shams she had a post you know against the war in Gaza she is an Israeli citizen so she lives by AKO uh the the Israeli soldiers came and detained her while she was taking class on Zoom with our professor here in Bethlehem and uh uh uh so so uh so this is really t

he the the freedom of speech is is very very much limited right now unemployment is very high you know you have 130,000 Palestinians who have been working in Israel are unemployed Bethlehem lives on tourism 70% of our economy depends on tourism all hotels you can imagine are empty and maybe for one year there will be no tourist in Bethlehem and then you have people working in the government um they are not getting since many uh months now their salaries because Israel is blocking U actually all

the tax that that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians are holding this back uh so the the economic situation is is terrible but also depression I mean people are depressed when they see what's happening in Gaza you know when they watch these images um and um I mean lots of psychological problems as well I'm not talking about Gaza I'm just talking about the West Bank Gaza God helps them I'm not sure how they will be able to survive uh this this genocide um and maybe the last thing are t

he Israeli settlements that are growing in the West Bank mushrooming and Jewish settlers that now uh actually are uh uh U they have now they got guns uh and they are attacking Palestinian civilians on roads between cities Etc Villages uh so very difficult situation shukran abuna thank you so much also I want to say please go to Father mri's website it's MIT rahib Doc is that correct orgorg um and Order his book directly from him do not buy it from random people um we want to support uh we want t

o support directly um there is a question also um and then maybe you can answer it and then pass it to Abal uh people are asking right now the best ways um to send a message about what's happening in Palestine besides protesting and boycotting um you know that the Western media is calling language around Pro Palestinian activism uh you know anti-semitic they want to know how you feel about that and what can folks do to counter this or to to to um to resist uh what is happening with the freedom o

f speech um and again just overall what people can do to support Palestinians on the ground um and also if you can just add uh how safe it is right now in the occupied West Bank people are asking um yeah uh I think what um what we need right now is uh to call for three things with very clear message uh Archbishop atalah said it's very clear now very important to call for an immediate ceasefire enough killing second uh to call for an open and sustainable humanitarian Corridor so that we can get m

edicine water food and power to the besieged people in Gaza and thirdly we need to work towards a just peace uh uh in for Palestinians uh I mean 100 years uh we have been neglected H we went through so many genocide it's high time that Palestinians will receive their right and they deserve to have life and to have life in abundance so these should be right now I think our three asks now uh it's important actually uh to do several things one is to educate people around you awareness because you k

now I watch every day American news I'm not talking about Fox News I'm I'm talking about like almost CNN and so on what you see there is only right now only very small portion before even you didn't you he you heard only the Israeli narrative uh so it's very important to disseminate in alternative information and you can find them on so many uh websites there um uh you can uh follow uh um activists uh people on Twitter uh or Facebook Etc I mean I I try almost every day to post something uh that

people can you know just to make awareness U we need to bring people to Palestine in fact today we have um a South African delegation with few International that they came on solidarity visit to Palestine and we started encouraging actually groups to come not to do the the the normal tourism H to run where Jesus walked but to see where God is today what God is doing today God today is in Gaza there Jesus you can see him in Gaza uh and so I witness Palestine does such tours we encourage you to th

ink of coming with them on your next trip um and and the the the other thing try to uh uh because now no tourists are coming to uh to um support uh Palestinian products uh and through the product you can tell uh the story um and u in fact on on on the website of bright stars of Bethlehem you can see many of the stories of our students like Islam are there these these human stories are so important to humanize the Palestinian people in a context where we are being dehumanized every day you know I

hear every day on on on American TV a barbaric attack on on October 7th we know it was a terrible attack on October 7th but why do you use barbaric only for October 7 and you don't use it for the genocide that is taking place here this is dehumanizing Palestinian and we should speak up against [Music] that okay H Mustafa you might have to translate a little bit uh can you please explain f as to what you have gone through or witnessed living under oppression my mother does not speak English very

well and hearing it in Arabic and from an Archbishop will help her understand that this is not a religious War but a war on all Palestinians my mother and I have been praying for all Palestinians non-stop may God protect you as Christians we will pray and use our voices to push for peace and to stop the war uh yeah Al for um when we speak about our uh about our cause as a nation uh about our struggle as a nation we speak as equals Muslims and Christians in Palestine the uh the exercises the pra

ctices the policies of the occupation Target all of us uh not just uh one group of us the we we are particularly concerned with the current events in RZA but the uh but the uh but the attack on the holy sites uh in jerus J continue I speak to you from Jerusalem now um the the attacks the holy Muslim sites are being targeted as well as the Christian holy sites there is a an attempt to uh to um manipulate to change the identity of the city uh we we as Palestinians must be unified uh we must be awa

re we must be wise so our voices can reach the entire world we uh as a people must raise our voice everywhere deliver our message everywhere and this is the message of the kyos movement the kyos document the message of Father Mitri uh and uh and uh everyone as well that we try to deliver thank you so much Mustafa uh just really quickly I will add people are asking about the delegations of eyt Palestine you can go to our website which I just put in the chat eyewitness palestine. org and read more

about our delegations um we are hoping to resume as soon as possible there are uh interest forms that you can fill out and as soon as there is a delegation going uh you will receive an email uh regarding that uh as far as donations currently um the organizations uh on the ground in Ru uh there is not much Aid getting in uh and so I'm hesitant to say who to uh donate to we have uh done events and donated to Mecca the Middle East Children's Alliance and to pcrf I can speak that Palestinian childr

en's Relief Fund have been bringing children um that I'm in contact with to the United States um for emergency medical um surgeries and and help so I know that pcrf are doing work like that as far as Aid getting in I can't speak to that yet I think the situation is so dire um you know there's not enough getting in um and not enough being allowed in but as soon as we identify that we will email folks and let you know when we know um I do urge folks to donate to the link that Moren will kindly put

into the chat again um again 50% of that is going to DAR University in Bethlehem um who the founder is uh father Mitri um the you're seeing speak um and so the other question was to Father M there was some products people said uh you mentioned people can buy uh from certain websites or certain products is there a specific place people can go to help support Palestinians on the ground that uh in the West Bank or or Jerusalem um to support products from there at this time uh certainly I mean uh y

ou have U agricultural products like oil Etc you have Olivewood products especially now for Christmas um we we have a website where we are uh selling U what our students are producing in art pieces uh it's called palana I will put it also in the in the link there um yeah there are many many organization that you can actually support through that we will definitely add those let me just see I'm just going through there's so many questions we appreciate everybody uh that has been messaging us uh l

et me see it's another question uh um I'll ask it in English and then Mustafa will kindly translate but from the um do you do you not get worried about the threats um that are made when you speak out I think this question is for for both father Mitri and father atalah are there do you ever get worried for your families um you know do from the threats that you get for speaking out and will it ever waver or stop your uh your activism or speaking out for Palestinian Christians or Palestinians as a

whole I should say should we start with uh for G um uh so the B Bishop was saying if we were the type of people to be afraid uh then we would not have accepted your invitation to uh to attend this uh event today I think that accepting the invitation the fact that we are here now speaking is uh is proof that we are not afraid to say the truth um we we are not making up stories we're not creating false accusations against anyone we are speaking up for justice we are speaking up for Truth uh this i

s what we are calling for this is what we are speaking about um uh and in fact in a few moments after after speaking to you I will be the bishop is saying I will be on TV speaking again about of course the same topic the most important thing now at this moment to call for is the need to end the war that is the number one priority right now to end the war and to allow for all the uh assistance for all the relief uh assistance to reach our sisters and brothers in Gaza uh maybe I can add to that yo

u know um I studied in Germany and U one of the great Theologian that I came to to respect and love he was already diseased I mean he was killed actually is boner uh boner one was one of few theologians who during Nazi Germany had the guts and the courage uh to speak truth to power he paid with his life uh but now uh many Germans are saying we didn't know uh and those who knew uh regretted that they did not speak up without comparing what's happening here with the Holocaust I think every human b

eing is asked during his lifetime to stand up for things he believe in without that actually life loses its taste um so yes it's a costly discipleship as Bon Herer called it but what is life without uh you know being to to to woke up in the morning and to look in the mirror and to say did I miss something um and uh did I miss doing something I could have done did I uh not say something I could have said um could I have contributed a bit in at least you know allowing less people to be killed in G

aza I think this is this is a question that I have to deal with uh whenever I need to look in the mirror every day thank you so much uh two questions maybe you can take one or abuna um uh Archbishop adalah one is somebody asked and it is and I didn't really want to ask it but some but a lot of people are saying this this new narrative now that oh it's not a genocide how is it a genocide when there was 2.2 2.4 million people there um and so they somebody asked is it just Palestinians like what ot

her nations see this as a genocide is it just Palestinians I mean I could answer that but I'm going to let you answer it um and then also uh without Justice there can be no peace can we elaborate a little bit about that what that means especially um in the context of Palestine ter um yeah I mean um for sure uh I think U everyone agrees that um um it is War uh war against Crime Against Humanity so there are there are three steps in in in the human rights chter there is war crimes uh which is defi

nitely happening almost on every day when you target schools when you target hospitals when you target churches uh when you target mosques when all of this infrastructure when you don't allow food to come in these are all war crimes if you have many war crimes it's called crime against humanity um and the third step is genocide and actually many human rights organizations uh started already months ago talking about intent to genocide but now actually uh because it's not only remember it's not on

ly the 100,000 people that have been murdered or injured so far think about all those who will be killed because of diseases uh because of polluted water polluted air all the chemicals that are in the air Etc the war is not over yet uh and um and U and and the the the destruction of I mean 300 ,000 homes destroyed do you think there are so many Hass people 300,000 people so why destroy 300,000 homes the whole infrastructure 60% of the infrastructure has been destroyed human rights organization u

h um are saying it is genocide and I'm not the expert I refer on what they are saying thank you so much um Archbishop would you like to add anything for for um for anyone who follows the statements of Israeli officials especially in this uh uh extremist uh right-wing government they boast they take pride in the destruction caused by this war um one one of them said that there are no civilians in Gaza in other words saying it's all fair game you can you can Target all the lives in Gazza um there

are racist very clear racist positions in this current Israeli government one of them said I celebrate um when the when the innocent people are killed uh I believe that this is uh not just a uh the the a war as we see it but it's an attempt at ethnic cleansing at the forc displacement of the Palestinians in order to eliminate to to the Palestinian cause and and end this attempt by the Palestinian people for Independence thank you so much uh I'm going to ask this last question and then we will cl

ose it out since we've gone over half an hour and we thank everybody that has stayed with us because this has been very powerful um there is a question here and it is important I've seen this a lot how do you combat organizations like CFI which is Christians United for Israel they tend to spread a lot of misinformation and also have a very large following and there are some of these mega churches that have millions of followers um and so how do we combat uh those kinds of organizations ASM yeah

I mean it's not easy but um my my latest book again tried to shed light on this and to actually uh what I tried there is to reframe um uh what Christian Zionism is actually as the H lobby as the Christian Lobby for for Israeli settler colonialism um and this is a very dangerous uh it's not only dangerous by the way for us Palestinians if you uh read their uh um writings carefully they are at the heart antisemite because they want to bring all Jews to Palestine so that twoth third will be killed

in the war and the last third will convert to Christianity so they are calling for the anihilation of the Jewish people uh and but Netanyahu has no problem to share bed with them not out of love but to fulfill selfish desires and this is how it's it's really a political game and they are using H American Christian nationalism and blend that uh with settler colonialism it's a very dangerous ideology if you read my book that might help at least now for now let me maybe just add something because i

t is important for us as Christian theologians Bishops um we are not against the Jewish people or or people of Jewish faith H Palestine has been throughout history a pluralistic society where Christians Muslims and Jews were living together most of the time under foreign rule and Empire uh and so there are many Jews in Israel who are against what's happening in Gaza uh but nobody listens to them because they are not white they are not coming from Poland or from Ukraine like most of the establish

ment right now the the troa that you hear about every day and we are glad that and we are in solidarity with the many Jewish groups in the us who really stand for Palestinian rights not only because they love us but because they want to make sure that as Jews they want to live their faith and their values and their human values and so for us our ultimate goal is for a pluralistic Palestine where the two peoples and the three faith can share Palestine on equal footing not as oppressor and oppress

ed so I wanted just to make sure and this is actually against everything that the Christian Zionist wants because the Christian zionists they don't want to see Harmony and cohesion but they want to see War because they are anxious for armagedon and they want to hasten the second coming of Christ and they have no problem to violate human rights in the name of divine rights and this is against everything we believe in thank B uh uh for see for uh um these Zionist Christian groups that claim commit

ment to Christianity are adopting a a misguided interpretation or wrong interpretation of the Bible and of the Old Testament I recall um an incident with the late pope schuda of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt during a visit to the United States in the ' 80s when uh I I I think it was president who asked popea uh your Holiness do you not think that the establishment of the state of Israel is the Fulfillment of the pro promise of God and that you should support uh this state and Pope Pope's r

esponse was I think you are confusing the promise of God with the promise of balur uh this God's promise is is not fulfilled through occupation and oppression uh so uh uh Bishop atalah continues we believe in peace and we believe in coexistence um the the we believe in the peaceful coexistence and the essential similarity between the three monotheistic religions uh we respect and cherish many Jewish people uh who practice their faith especially Jewish people who have uh in in these past weeks pr

otested against the war um the all of human was United during this last these recent times in demanding an end to this war this war offends all of human values and all of human uh principles we uh re reject these uh Zionist Christians uh calls that offend Christianity Jesus Christ was uh uh called for solidarity among people called for empathizing empathizing with the op ressed with the destitute called for love uh and that is the true message of uh Christianity thank you so much um I want to me

ntion um Paula said here that South Africa is officially bringing War crime charges against Israel before the IC the international criminal court calling it a genocide uh also the pope has called for a ceasefire and I'm going to ask everybody if you haven't called your representatives yet to call them and we're not just asking for a ceas fire I mean imagine you're having a dream of someone trying to kill you and then you wake and then you wake up and then you go right back into that dream again

so we don't want a ceasefire we want a ceasefire for good and we want an end to the occupation it is a privilege that we're on this Zoom right now it's a privilege that we have Internet it's a privilege that we get to hug our children at night it is a privilege that we're speaking to each other and so I ask everybody if you have not spoken up yet this is the time to speak out it's already it's already late we should have been speaking out if we haven't um our voices are everything the reason tha

t people that we're on this Zoom the reason that people are hearing about Palestine and the tide is changing dramatically is because we have resources available to us to get the information out and so you can use that don't be scared of your that you know if you're on the right side of History they're the ones that are going to have to live with what what when when they realize where they stood in a time like this um and so I urge everybody to please not be silent silence is complicity speak out

because you could be saving thousands of lives um I want to thank everybody that's been on this Zoom if people are interested in going to Philistine please follow us go to our website fill out an interest form and you can meet with um our leaders such as Reverend Mitri and the Archbishop adalah among many others in Palestine um I want to thank Islam for being with us somebody sent a beautiful message to Islam and said thank you so much for sharing your story um they appreciate you and they hope

that you stay safe um and to all our brothers and sisters in all the refugee camps in all the cities throughout festine which includes 48 the occupied West Bank and uh uh the occupy well the under military uh Siege GDA strip um love to everybody and uh this recording will be available online and we will send it out to everybody that was on here today or who that signed up so thank you so much and thank you to all of our speakers thank you Nancy and I witness Palestine all the best and keep up t

he good work thank you so much mam ending in three 2