A post about Palestine

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Twenty-eight-year-old Palestinian journalist and videographer Anas Al-Sharif was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday. His team died as well, when their media tent was struck outside the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed he was a member of Hamas, but have offered no proof as validation, which has been strongly denied by Al Jazeera Arabic, his employer. They counter that Israel is smearing him to justify this murder.

Today's devotion in God Calling begins like this:

Remember no prayer goes unanswered. Remember that the moment a thing seems wrong to you, or a person's actions to be not what you think they should be, at that moment begins your responsibility to pray for those wrongs to be righted, or that person to be different.

A few months ago another Gaza photojournalist, Fatima Hassouna, was killed in a manner similar when her family's home was struck by an Israeli missile. She was touted by the IDF as "a Hamas member involved in attacks against Israeli soldiers." This was refuted by Sepideh Farsi, the director of the documentary Put Your Hand on Your Soul and Walk in which Hassouna was interviewed. Many within Hassouna's family were also murdered in the strike, occurring on April 16th of this year in Gaza City.

The devotion, which I read prior to sitting at my computer, continues thusly: 

Face your responsibilities. What is wrong in your country, its statesmen, its laws, its people? Think out quietly, and make these matters your prayer matters. You will see lives you never touch altered, laws made at your request, evils banished.

I took comfort from that passage, in part that my efforts to repudiate the abysmal works of America's current administration seem ineffective. Yet I am being called to continue those prayers, and other efforts, despite feeling little has changed.

Then I sat where I am right now, in front of my monitor, preparing to read through my current novel. Yet before I opened the manuscript, I clicked on various tabs to check what I find vital, and this was how I learned about the murder of Anan Al-Sharif. Which led to retrieving the sign at the top of this entry, which I displayed at a protest right after Fatima Hassouna was assassinated. The name alongside hers, Josiah Lawson, is that of a Humboldt State student murdered on April 15th, 2017, in a racially motivated attack that was never prosecuted by Humboldt County authorities due to racism.

The devotion continues:

Yes!, live in a large sense. Live to serve and to save. You may never go beyond one room, and yet you may become one of the most powerful forces for good in your country, in the world.

At times I feel absolutely helpless to battle the seemingly insurmountable evils that plague our planet, from wars and genocide to climate change and corruption. Yet my Christian faith compels me to continue efforts visible to few, but meaningful nonetheless. I cannot predict the outcomes for any of these atrocities; equally I cannot be silent both in my missives to God and on this blog.

Those missives ended this morning like this:

You may never see the mighty work you do, but I see it, evil sees it.... Love with me, sharers of my life.

This morning I pray for the liberation of Palestine, for peace in this world, and for strength to continue my efforts to be a channel of peace. May you join me on this road, and may peace be with you as well.

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