Flipping tables.
the impact of solidarity with Palestinians
First, a logistical note: Writers, leaders, advocates, journalists, and artists who are pro-Palestinian are being shadow banned or fully banned from social networks in a campaign against those who speak up about Palestine. I have been banned twice before on Instagram for "violating community guidelines", an unwritten meta law, I suspect, that you cannot support Palestine (I have no other reason to believe I was being a menace.) I have been talking about Palestine for years, and they closed two separate accounts without notice, effectively deleting the record and silencing my words and images as much as they could. When your accounts are permanently banned, there's nothing to be done except begin again and again. So while I'll continue to raise my voice on social media, if it's growing quiet, please know it's not because I've shut up or stopped demanding justice for Palestinians or practicing storytelling and artistic peacemaking which I still happen to believe can help heal the world.
Many, many accounts I follow are being banned or shadow banned (content disappears and becomes invisible in algorithmic feeds without warning.) Since it's happened to me before, I could be headed for the same. This newsletter platform is longer form so I can say more, give context, and offer some ways forward, so it's where I'm putting most of my energy and creative output. It's where I'm saying the important things I have to say right now. This moment is too critical for us to rely on sound bites and hot takes alone. This is worth digging in beyond the confines of social media.
I will not stop talking about Palestine. Please continue to join me here on Substack where free speech is honored and advocacy for the oppressed is not punished.
If you missed them, here are my two most recent posts:
When I was raising support for my 2019 volunteer trip to work with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, I was freely handed a mic at my church and given opportunities to talk about my peacemaking work and ask for support in front of the congregation. This is how I learned first-hand that the issue of Palestine is tricky for many Evangelical Christians, and that this was not a welcome or safe topic for me to talk about with even my church where I was a very involved, trusted ministry leader.
When I'd returned from the trip, I wasn’t sure how to begin unpacking and processing my experience, much less sharing it publicly. But I decided that sharing it with my church community felt like the next right thing because it was home.
I asked to give a talk at church because I needed them to know what I'd seen. I wanted them to see Palestinian refugees the way I’d gotten to see them: resilient, hopeful, friendly, strong, and determined. I wanted to tell them the stories of Palestinian hospitality and creativity. I wanted to tell them about hope. There are refugee-run organizations in the camps making changes for their communities to be better and stronger right now, I wanted to tell them. I wanted to share their unheard story. I wanted to tell my own. I wanted them to believe me when I said that we cannot be overwhelmed by the size of the problems. We can help.
I was cautiously given the mic again to share post-trip about my experience. Here’s the Q&A-style interview I gave from the stage on a Sunday morning to my fellow church-goers several years ago:
“Q: What do you want to share with us today?
A: I’ve been volunteering to serve Palestinians for a few years now. I took my first trip to Palestine and Israel in 2015 and was introduced to what the occupation of the Holy Land has meant for the Palestinian people and a great conviction to help and make change where I could given the boundaries and places the Lord put me in for those seasons. Since then, I have been on a journey of working with several organizations both in the Middle East and in the States that all ultimately point toward hope and justice for Palestinians. I got to travel this summer as a volunteer, one week in Jordan, two weeks in Lebanon visiting the camps. I went with camera in hand to capture and share refugee stories through photography and grow in my understanding of peacemaking the Middle East.
Q: So, why are there Palestinian refugees in Jordan & Lebanon?
A: Many Palestinians were displaced during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. This is called the Nakba, or Catastrophe. Since then, Israel has occupied the land of Palestine and refugees who fled to neighboring Arab states of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria or were internally displaced in what’s now known as the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza Strip and West Bank, were rendered stateless and unable to return home in the last 70+ years.
Q: What are the challenges for Palestinian refugees?
A: I visited Shatila Camp in Beirut, and Gaza Palestinian Refugee Camp in Jerash, Jordan. The challenges they face are:
No citizenship, and stateless, no travel to Palestine
Extremely poor health and living conditions
Barred from legal work in 70 professions
Continuing violence
Conditions are pretty bad and the challenges are great. The news surrounding Palestinians is dark. However, hope exists. It exists in young refugees laying down their lives to serve their communities. And that’s who I entered into the camps with and learn from in Jordan and Lebanon this summer.
I got to watch some really neat movement toward helping refugee-run organizations get the support they need to flourish and be a beacon of hope and real life change in their communities. A library Beirut and Beyond funded and built last year called the Hopes For Women Library in Gaza Camp is expanding and hosting book clubs, paying a librarian salary, has become a safe place for women to discover new worlds and opportunities through books. It’s exciting to hear of women sparking a love of reading in their families and friends and watch how this library is meeting real needs.
In addition to a growing library, I got to see Palestinian refugee high school students celebrate their promotion from one grade to the next. These are students who were in recent years displaced from Syria during the civil war. Because of a program part of Joint Christian Committee, they are able to study for and travel to sit for their annual high school exam in Damascus in Syria in a familiar language and familiar curriculum, which isn't available to them in Lebanon as Palestinian refugees.
There’s no shortage of good and part of my job now is to testify of that good. It was hard, yes, it has a huge mental, emotional, and physical cost to be there even just for three weeks. But there’s so much good and hope alive in the camps, refugees working for wholeness and healing now.
Q: How can you see God moving?
A: A trip like this changes you. I’ll keep going back and it will be different every time, and I will be different every time and for having gone. A short trip like this doesn’t make change as much as it changes my own heart.
A trip like this reminds me of God’s heart for all humanity. I love the experience of hospitality of cultures so foreign to my own, which reminds me of Jesus. In this way, I’ve learned hope exists in the most unlikely of places.
As Christians we have the power and responsibility to rise up against darkness, the power to work for reconciliation now. We get to ask for what that can look like for our lives. We get to ask God where we can make peace, and we go.
I couldn’t dream up working with Palestinian refugees in Shatlia Camp in Beirut with my background and my experience and world I was born into apart from God, but I raised my hand, and I learned photography, and I leveraged my travel and cross-cultural skills, and I’d been equipped and given opportunity and the heart to go, so I do.
I go find the light.”
I handed my mic back to the A/V volunteer feeling grateful, unaware of the whispers and anger boiling in the audience. I took my seat next to my friend Carissa, who I'd ask to sit with me in my nerves and come down. I opened my Bible, ready to try to be in church the way I was before my trip flipped most of my world on its head.
It was later that week I discovered how hot a topic Palestinian refugees are in the church. All I had to say was why there were Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The mere mention of the Nakba and Israeli military occupation of Palestine and it fired up the anti-Palestinian hate I didn’t know I existed within my own church walls.
I disappointed and enraged some when I used that platform to talk about Palestinian refugee issues instead of converting Muslims into Christian believers on my trip (I was never on an evangelism mission, ever.) I disappointed people when I told the true history of the creation of the State of Israel at the expense of Palestinian life and livelihood. I disappointed people when I said Palestine is now occupied by the Israeli military who is enforcing the oppression and ongoing dispossession of Palestinians. I disappointed people when I spoke as if Palestinian refugees were valuable human beings worthy of dignity and not some obstacle to God's grand plan for the restoration of the land to its “rightful” owners to create an all-Jewish state.
I’d approached my moment with the mic that Sunday as if there were a Palestinian refugee in the room: would what they feel about what I was saying? I’m saying make her feel seen, loved, and cherished? Would they be encouraged or shut down? Would they feel seen or further marginalized? Would they agree what I was saying was true or would they feel like I was subverting their experience to appease a crowd of skeptics? Like I wasn’t some arrogant, ignorant tourist or White savior walking into the camps with my Sony to shoot a story only for me to take back to my church and the Christians who seemed to praise my bravery and resilience to “go to the unreached”, as if I’m the one who had to flee my homeland generations ago, lose my country, security, and livelihood to settlers?
I’d simply told the truth. I told the truth that Palestinians aren’t settling for just a story, or a narrative that objectifies or dehumanizes them into a people group that just tried to survive and thrive… and didn’t. What I said wasn't political but objective history and basic humanity.
Perhaps I didn't know what I'd gotten myself into.
Someone was offended by what I’d said. He showed up at one of our events and said he was going to “blow it up” and that I’d lied to the whole church. He pestered my colleagues and chose verbal violence instead of dialogue.
I told my pastors what happened and assumed they would handle the guy, since he was claiming they would back him up, and they, after all, are the ones who gave me the mic in the first place. I had assumed that at the very least he would be assured I was trustworthy and reliable. I mean, look at all I was leading around here (women's ministry, annual conference events, retreats, a peacemaking missional community…. the list goes on.)
But that’s not what happened.
They took sides, but it wasn’t mine. This conversation had become a disruption for others and ultimately major frustration for me as I fought long for justice and a voice on this work in particular (meanwhile, I was still given all the space imaginable to talk about our womens ministry and my personal faith testimony as those better served the church than my inconvenient work with Palestinian refugees.) It became clear my views on Palestinians were the problem.
I was the one given the talking to. I was the one asked to speak to the outlier in the room, to use more inclusive language, to consider other points of view. As if I hadn’t just walked out of a Palestinian refugee camp literally no one in the room knew the name of until I spoke it aloud. As if I haven’t been personally, deeply affected by the trauma and violence in Palestine and Israel, and beyond, experiencing what it’s like up close and in the flesh. As if I haven’t myself been profiled by the Israel government for my support of Palestinians and potentially banned from returning. As if the guy threatening me wasn't an older White man with, presumably, the most power in any room.
The reality is, I couldn’t have said less. I couldn’t pretend like they’re accidental refugees from who knows where, no one knows why!? The problem was that I’d spoken about the millions of Palestinian refugees in the world today in exile, which is a major threat to the Israel creation story and legitimacy of the nation, and I’d personally made people feel uncomfortable by this reality. I’d said occupation three times. It’s a thousand too few to call Israel by her real name. Three times in the three years I’d lead publicly and faithfully at this church.
It was too much for some.
While some of the details and language of my talk above would be different today, I am publishing it in full and am telling you this story for two reasons.
The first is to acknowledge that supporting Palestinians can come at a cost. It may cost belonging, job opportunities, and relationships. You will be misunderstood and criticized. You will possibly be called naive, pollyanna, ignorant, undiscerning, delusional, and a liar, as I have been. But it will cost you far less to speak up than it has already cost Palestinians to suffer what they have. They have been screaming these truths for decades and people are dying of genocide. It's time we believe them and join them, despite the consequences. Pretend they're in the room where you're leading.
For me, it’s a privilege to write and tell important stories in this space, and I want to add value to the conversation. I want to use my privilege to actually say something meaningful and generous without alienating people who might not agree or understand where I’m coming from. I want to connect instead of allowing more conflict. I do not come to this conversation to just consume. For me, I’m asking how am I offering up services and hope as a writer and artist? How are you offering up a beacon of light as YOU?
The second reason I tell this story is to tell you what happened after my “talking to”. It was Communion Sunday and we’d just finished sharing a meal and taking the sacramental bread and juice, saying “amen” after “do this in remembrance of me.” It was after clean up when those of us in leadership had the after-meeting meetings.
My pastor bent down like he was going to tell me a secret. “I don’t say everything I’m thinking or believe. It’s called discernment, and sometimes I don’t like it either but that’s our responsibility.”
I will not forget the sinking feeling of this moment. He doesn’t mean everything he says. He holds me to that unspoken rule too.
I was visibly bothered by his decision to tell me that I shouldn't have said what I did, his unwillingness to back me up after the church had already supported me up to this point when they knew what I was going to be doing. He wasn’t at church this week, but I knew better than to assume the guy who’d flipped out had been asked to cool it. He'd be back, I figured. He'd be back to intimidate me, as they'd allowed it. Violence now seemed welcome here.
It’s fascinating to have this kind of conversation and power dynamic in church: where we’re supposed to be radical peacemakers. Where we’re supposed to tell the truth and set people free. Where we’re supposed to follow a Jesus who flipped tables inside the temple. I still think a pro-Palestinian position is as sincere a position a Bible believing, Jesus-following Christian could have. Jesus was all about power reversals and dismantling corruption and healing the marginalized. Love your enemies and love your neighbors is what Jesus said.
It’s really not possible to support the Israeli government and be anti-war, anti-apartheid, anti-occupation, anti-religious state. It’s really not possible to justify how Israel was created if you look at the refugee problem created over the last 75 years. Views on Palestine and Israel within and without the church are a litmus for peacekeeping versus peacemaking, for liberation versus liberal agenda.
Believing and saying this cost me the privilege and belonging at church. I was expected to be quieter, sweeter, more neutral, less radical. I was supposed to use my voice differently. I was supposed to keep the status quo. I was supposed to be a different kind of Christian woman - the kind who decorated tables at women’s conferences instead of flipping them to disrupt injustice.
“Are you okay?” My pastor was asking genuinely, but I wasn’t mistaking it for compassion. It sounded more like, do we still have a problem?
“I'm not. I hate conflict. I actually hate it,” I responded.
It was honest. I hate conflict and would enjoy to keep the peace and I worry how speaking out might be perceived. I don't like “creating” conflict and causing offense. I have spent years working to understand and articulate, and still my voice shakes and my words are not perfect, and I did not start here. I have said things in the past I learned were wrong or that I came to regret. I have spoken over people I should have been listening to. I have made mistakes and realized I favored my pride and ego over another’s dignity and respect. I have had to learn to hold impossible tension to tell objective history through my own subjective experiences. I have had to examine my own privilege and combat racism and bias. There have many, many times I have felt out of my depth and uncomfortable. That's how I've learned and grown.
And you know what? It's not about me or my emotions. I get over it and still find a way to tell the truth because I’ve seen what the world’s silence has done to Palestinians. While not everyone is meant to be sharing all of their opinions all the time (which social media would allow us to do), Palestinians are putting everything on the line every day for liberation.
Even if we’ll be ignored or dismissed, it’s imperative that we declare our solidarity with Palestinians as loudly as possible. The moment is too critical to not act. Our silence protects no one. Until the siege of Gaza is lifted, the occupation of Palestine ends, refugees are allowed to return, and the apartheid systems are dismantled, violence will continue for Palestinians and Israelis. Our silence does not protect either. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t spend my days roaring against injustice and working to make peace as I watch genocide unfold. And still, how I feel matters very little but my voice matters a whole lot to this movement.
And so does yours.
We can amplify the voices that are being drowned out by ignorance, bias, racism, and propaganda. We can educate ourselves on the situation beyond quick Google searches or celeb hot takes or biased Western headlines that don’t portray Palestinians in humanizing ways. We can seek to understand and listen to become ready to speak up in meaningful, constructive ways, especially in spaces where it’s needed most.
My pastor chuckled and gave me a little air elbow bump. “Oh, if you hate conflict, you in the wrong field then,” he said as he turned on his heel and walked away from me.
I looked at the tables we'd just cleared off and I considered flipping one, just to illustrate my rage and channel some Raising Hell Jesus. Remind me again who we’re here to worship? Remind me of that “in remembrance of me” line again?
I didn't literally flip a table. I leaned into my own powerful discernment. I went for Blessed are the Peacemakers Jesus, that communion bread still stuck in my teeth, the juice still on my truth-telling tongue that I refuse to bite.
I refuse.
The church and I had conflicting ideas about how I should be serving people in need as a Christian. Church leaders supported my work more and more quietly and then eventually institutional support came to a halt when I wouldn't walk the line of saying so little as to not offend anyone. My work was no longer mentioned in official briefings about missional support. I was never invited to speak on it at my own church home again.
I’m just out here trying to remind and inspire us to stay in our humanity. I’m no prophet, but I’ve found over the years it’s incredibly hard to be the translator and interpreter of the situation and history when people aren’t willing to listen or act. And still, I do it anyway.
Peacemaking work is brave, I was reminded in this moment. I’d later lean into that same bravery when I eventually walked away from this church for good (for many reasons, but views on Palestinians among them.) Even if it costs me everything, I will support Palestinian rights and freedom. They, too, are beloved and worthy.
You do not have to enjoy/love/be able to handle/never be rocked by conflict to work for peace. I certainly don’t. But you do – at this very second – have an invitation to ask who else is deserving of love, identify your role1, and decide step all the way in. We just need more light.2
If an attempt hasn’t already been made, the world WILL try to shut you down.
And to this we say: this is exactly my lane.
Flip the damn tables,
P.S. Please contact your reps in Congress and ask them to support a ceasefire, stop arming Israel, and rush more humanitarian aid to Palestinians trapped in Gaza. You can take this action every day to help save lives and make your voice heard.
I like this The Slow Factory framework for collective liberation roles and callings. A beautiful reminder you do not have to be all things all the time. You could have more than one role or calling. I identify with Advocate, Artist, Communicator, Designer, and Writer. On my best days, I also see a little Luminary and Trouble Maker in my mix.
Which ones do you identify with? Let me know.
You are helping me to understand what is happening to the Palestine people in a way that is impossible to otherwise know. Thank you for sharing your beautiful and brave light. We definitely need more light.
Thank you sharing your experiences ♥️