Quaker Update: Palestinians in Gaza

From: Witness Coordinating Committee Co-Clerks: L. Harper, N. Hoover, C. Zelasko

Photo Credit: Quakers for peace – credit to: Ranran Ju Big Day of Action MFW 

This week we heard the concern of many Friends over the dire situation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. On Monday, July 28th, eight Quaker organizations from around the world released a joint statement naming their belief that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide. 

 

“The statement reads in part: ‘After deep communal and prayerful discernment, informed by our direct witness in Palestine/Israel and our readings of the positions of international human rights organizations, international and Israeli genocide scholars, and experts on the UN Genocide Convention (1948), we are exercising our religious conviction to speak the truth as we see it. We believe with moral clarity, and in line with the definition of the crime of genocide, that the current actions in Gaza perpetrated by the Israeli government, constitute genocide.’

 

“The statement calls for:

 

1. An immediate, permanent ceasefire and full humanitarian access;

2. The application of robust, targeted, and timebound sanctions, including a comprehensive arms embargo, aimed at ending Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the related system of apartheid;

3. Respect for international law and accountability;

4. Protection of free speech and the right to protest;

5. Dismantling of oppression and establishing a just and permanent peace.

 

“Signatories include American Friends Service Committee, Canadian Friends Service Committee, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends World Committee for Consultation, Quakers in Britain/ Quaker Peace and Social Witness, Quaker Council on European Affairs, Quaker Service Norway, and the Quaker United Nations Office. They are now inviting Quaker Meetings to discuss, discern, and endorse the statement.

 

“A pdf of the full statement is available here.”

 

Witness Coordinating Committee will be forwarding the statement to monthly and regional/quarterly meetings, as well as sending it out in the Weekly Update, for Friends’ discernment. We invite Friends here tonight to share the statement with their meetings.  We ask Meetings to let the clerks of WCC know the results of their discernment by emailing us at [email protected].