“Light in the Darkness: Pilgrimage for Just Peace” delegation in Jerusalem. Photo: Ken Butigan.

BEARING Witness for A JUST AND LASTING PEACE FOR ALL

Ken Butigan, Pace e Bene’s Strategy Consultant and Senior Professional Lecturer of Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, took part in the August 11-20, 2024 “Light in the Darkness: Pilgrimage for Just Peace,” a delegation organized by Christians for Ceasefire in collaboration with Sabeel, a long-time effort by Palestinian Christians struggling for a peace rooted in the power of active nonviolence. He returned to Chicago on Tuesday night, August 20. What follows is an adapted version of the delegation’s press release issued after the journey was completed. Butigan plans to post a series of reflections on this experience, building on the following overview. He joined this delegation hoping to support a just and lasting peace for all — longing for an end to all violence on all sides and the flourishing of nonviolent strategies and approaches moving forward. This is a mysterious hope, but he came away from this journey with the feeling that the people he met there are planting the seeds of this hope for a more nonviolent world, in spite of everything. You can see Butigan’s initial post about this journey here. Here also is a story about this delegation published by the National Catholic Reporter.

Demonstration at Gaza border crossing. Photo: Ken Butigan.

On Sunday, August 18th, U.S. Christians for Ceasefire engaged in a nonviolent protest in a military zone near a crossing into Gaza calling for a ceasefire as a key step to ending the war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The twelve U.S. and three Palestinian Christian leaders appealing for a “just peace” through prayer, song, scripture reading, and signs—including “Let Gaza Live,” “Arms Embargo Now,” and “Stop the Violence”—were confronted by Israeli authority at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza as trucks transporting military tanks came in and out of the area. Soldiers in jeeps drove into the area and around the group.

Before the demonstration, the delegation joined an Interfaith Prayer Service with Rabbis for Human Rights and a Muslim sheikh at the Ancient Maon Synagogue, 2428 Eshkol Regional Council near Gaza, one kilometer from Khan Younis. As they prayed with passion and tears, piercing bombs were heard, and an air siren went off. The participants lay flat on the ground before finishing their prayer after the “all clear” was given.

The Delegation

The August 11-20 delegation of pastors, professors, former U.S. military, and peacemakers from a range of Christian denominations hailing from across the United States was invited to undertake its pilgrimage of peace by Christian leaders in Palestine. It was joined by members of Sabeel, an Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center focused on justice, inclusivity, and nonviolence.

Interfaith service for a just and lasting peace for all, held near the Gaza border. Photo: Ken Butigan.

The delegation was mindful of the accelerating violence of the past year and its larger context. The horror of Hamas’ October 7 surprise attack that engulfed a series of Israeli communities along the Israel-Gaza border, leaving 1200 civilians dead and hundreds abducted. The relentless ground and air attack unleashed by Israel on Gaza, with the unconscionable suffering in its ongoing wake: 40,000 killed; a hundred thousand children, women and men injured; two million at risk of starvation and disease. The horrific prospect of a wider conflagration across the Middle East. The deep divides that have fueled a 75-year occupation of Palestine. And the role of the United States in this conflict, including the Biden administration’s plan announced this week to supply Israel with $20 billion in new weaponry.

House owned for decades by activist working against house demolitions in East Jerusalem was demolished by the government in February 2024. Photo: Ken Butigan.

The delegation, motivated by the longing to support nonviolent solutions to this intractable conflict, met with the organization supporting families of the Israeli hostages, Israeli organizers, key religious leaders, and families of Palestinian prisoners.

It also traveled this week to sites throughout the West Bank where settler violence is on the rise, with the goal of meeting with, listening to, and offering some basic forms of protective presence to those directly impacted by the growing violence being perpetrated against long-standing Palestinian communities.

Bearing Witness

On August 16th, for example, the Christian leaders visited Uum Jamal, a Bedouin community which decided to evacuate from the valley after facing sustained Israeli settler violence for the previous week. Even while trying to evacuate, the village still faced the settlers’ attacks. Children were frightened to the point of vomiting. The people were beaten physically, and women were sexually harassed. The settlers were young men bearing clubs, sticks, and other weapons who acted with impunity, given recent policy shifts in Israel granting settlers more control in the occupied territory. The Christian delegation stayed with the community for a period of time, experienced intimidation and harassment by Israeli soldiers, and then engaged in rapid advocacy with the U.S. State Department and U.S. Embassy to exert pressure on the Israeli government to stop the settler violence. The latest update is the settler violence at Uum Jamal subsided, though only enough that it has allowed them to be forced from their homes.

Delegation members walking to site in Umm Jamal where settlers had been intimidating and attacking a family that lived there for over 30 years. Photo: Ken Butigan.

Delegation in Nablus. Photo: Ken Butigan.

NONVIOLENCE

This is only one of several communities the delegation visited being intimidated and attacked in the West Bank. In each case, it was extraordinarily moving to hear and witness how these communities have rooted their resistance in the power and principles of active nonviolence, including at Tent of Nations near Bethlehem, the stalwart peacemakers in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City facing systematic efforts to pry them from the land they have occupied for hundreds of years, and the relentless persistence of nonviolent resister Issa Amro in Hebron.

House bombed in the Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus. Photo: Ken Butigan.

To a person, these change-makers have doubled-down on a simple but powerful insight, that they articulated in many ways: evil does not defeat evil; only good can do that.

Conclusion

On Monday, August 19th, members of the delegation held a vigil in front of the building in Jerusalem where Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken would meet that day to hammer out a response to the latest ceasefire proposal.

Committed to the dignity of all people, this Christians for Ceasefire delegation traveled to Israel and Palestine to support a just and lasting peace for everyone. This includes a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all political prisoners and hostages, an end to the Israeli occupation, and an end to U.S. weapons shipments.