Robert Azzi: Where were you when Gaza was going through a genocide?

“I know first-hand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed,” the late Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu — standing up for Palestinian rights — wrote in 2014.

Too few people listened.

Too few people distinguished between the State of Israel's borders and its Colonial-settler occupation and exploitation of Palestinian lands post 1967.

On June 23, 2024, during a discussion on an apartheid resolution at the most recent Episcopal Convention, Southeast Florida Bishop Peter Eaton objected to a proposed resolution, saying that "it has long been discredited in most academic circles to use the word 'apartheid' with respect to the government and people of Israel."

The Rev. Ed Little, an assisting bishop in Los Angeles, added: “It would be a grave error to apply the word apartheid to the State of Israel for several reasons. It would make us advocates of one side of the conflict over the other. And our Israeli and Jewish friends would see us as relentlessly hostile to them.”

Better, I suppose, to be hostile toward Christian and Muslim Palestinians — and I suppose that's even better than being called to bear witness to truth and justice.

I don't know in what academic circles the privileged Bishop Eaton and Rev. Little travel — what circles inform their world view — but it's neither my world view nor the view of most Episcopalians and Anglicans who know the Middle East well.

Nonetheless, their view prevailed in the House of Bishops.

Now, I'm not going to pretend to know whether Bishop Eaton and Rev. Little know more about apartheid in Israel than Bishop Tutu knew, but I'm certain they knows less about Israel than many Israelis, many of whom have spoken out against apartheid in Israel.

If Bishop Eaton and Rev. Little won't listen to Bishop Tutu maybe they'll listen to Israelis.

Maybe they'll listen to former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa Alon Liel who in 2013 said: “In the situation that exists today, until a Palestinian state is created, we are actually one state. This joint state ... is an apartheid state.”

Maybe he'll listen to rights organizations like Yesh Din — Israeli Volunteers for Human Rights; Btselem, another Israeli Human Rights organization, Amnesty International  and Human Rights Watch, all of whom have spoken out on Israeli apartheid.

The problem of apartheid in Israel and the occupied Palestinian lands is not just an Episcopal problem.

It's an American problem, a white problem, a problem of not recognizing the equal humanity of all peoples living in lands once believed holy.

A problem that is pervasive and invasive; a problem both local and international.

My own state governor, Chris Sununu, himself of Palestinian heritage (his father's parents were Palestinian emigres to Central America) said in response to pro-Palestinian activism on local university campuses: "One hundred percent, this is pure antisemitism. This is pure hatred. It is. And again, they have a right to express that. I'm disgusted by it, frankly.

"What is clear to me is that the vast majority of what's happening on college campuses is uneducated prejudice and hatred," Sununu said. "It's really shocking. I mean, who isn't shocked by the level of antisemitism we're seeing in this country right now? I mean, it's really sad."

Indeed, it's really sad — though not uncommon — to witness such high-ranking officials flaunt their ignorance in public.

While antisemitism exists across the political spectrum, this is not about antisemitism.

It's about justice and liberation, about recognizing the humanity of all peoples, about opposing the weaponization of genocide, ethnic cleansing and famine as instruments of war and oppression.

This month, incumbent U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri), a prominent member of the "Squad," was defeated in a Democratic primary in St. Louis, after AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — targeted the two-term representative because she was a critic of Israel’s response to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Bush called Israel's post-Oct. 7, retaliation (which continues to this day) an “ethnic cleansing campaign” and she posted on social media that Israel’s “collective punishment against Palestinians for Hamas’s actions is a war crime.”

Bush was right, just as U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D) from New York's 16th, who was recently defeated in his primary by an AIPAC-sponsored candidate who received $15 million from the pro-Israel PAC, was right in his opposition to Israel's ongoing campaign against the Palestinian peoples in the occupied territories.

Just as I will not vote for the reelection of Congressman Chris Pappas, who has fully capitulated to pro-Israeli lobbying interests.

The reality is that since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has — with western, mostly American support — acted in a carefully orchestrated way to deprive Palestinians and supporters of Palestinians, of their voices, of platforms, of their identity. 

The truth is that since 1967, not just since Oct. 7, Israel has systematically — with western, mostly American support — acted to illegally deprive Palestinians of their lands, rights, and humanity.

And now ...

... finally, as many of us have known for decades, it has been affirmed — despite the protests of bishops, politicians, pundits, and war-mongers — that Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank, are totally illegal.

Totally illegal.

Last month, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the world's highest court, ruled — in a advisory opinion made at the request of the UN's General Assembly — that: “the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem .. have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law."

The ICJ also ruled that Israel must not only undertake the “evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements” but that it must “provide full reparation for the damage caused by its internationally wrongful acts to all natural or legal persons concerned." 

This is a big deal.

The ICJ affirmed that violations of international law in the occupied territories are the concern of all states who have an “obligation not to recognize as legal the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, to work through the UN to bring an end of the occupation” and to “abstain from treaty relations, diplomatic relations, economic or trade dealings, or investment relations with Israel in all cases in which it purports to act on behalf of the OPT." 

That is the truth. 

Finally, If Bishop Eaton and Rev. Little won't listen to Bishop Tutu or to Israelis maybe they'll listen to Rev. Munther Isaac, academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College in Palestine, who wrote on Gaza:

"If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. ... Some have not called for a ceasefire ... I feel sorry for you. We will be OK. ... Despite the immense blow we have endured, we will recover. ... But again, for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this?

"Your charity, your words of shock after the genocide, won’t make a difference. Words of regret will not suffice for you. We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done, has been done. I want you to look at the mirror ... and ask: 'Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?'"

That is truth.

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