Below is the text of the speech delivered at the Solidarity for Palestine Rally in Chattanooga, Tennessee, May 23, 2021.

In April of 1948, my grandparents were told that if they didn’t flee their home in Haifa, Palestine, they would likely be killed.  My Teta told me the story: how armed gunmen of a Jewish militia group roamed the streets in the weeks leading up to the nakba, the catastrophe for Palestinians that was the creation of Israel.  She told me how, late at night, she could hear the tat-tat-tat of gunfire as she lay in bed with her new husband; they were married a few months earlier, after a courtship that took place through the local Anglican church, a denomination that identified my ancestors for generations before my grandparents. 

It was fear that motivated my grandparents to flee that day in April: fear that had been fomented by the British colonialists and the immigrant Jewish militias, fear that if they stayed, they would struggle even to survive.  And so they fled, with one suitcase, all of my grandmother’s jewelry packed into her purse, and my own mother – a four-month-old fetus tucked inside my Teta’s womb: cradled in the fear that had settled in in the spaces alongside of her.

People often look at me and all they see is my white Irish skin and my white Anglican collar.  And they wonder why I care so much about Palestine.  They wonder why I speak or post or write about longing for the freedom of the Palestinian people that have suffered for so long under occupation in open-air prisons and apartheid conditions.  And then they find out about my mother and grandmother and they say: oh, it’s because you’re Palestinian. 

And yes, I am a proud Palestinian-American.    الحمد لالله  Yes, I am Palestinian.  But that is not the only reason why I care.  That is not the only reason why I post and I speak and I write and I fight for the freedom of Palestine. 

I care because we must all care.  Because, in 2021, we white folk can no longer afford the naiveté of our forebears.  We can no longer hide behind the excuses of our ignorance.  Now, we know better.  Now, we demand that those with great power use it to create justice for all.  Now, we expect those with much privilege to take on the mantle of responsibility that goes with it. 

And the government in Israel refuses to do that.  Instead of creating justice, they have continued to foment fear.  Instead of taking on the responsibilities of mercy and compassion, they have pushed forward a relentless campaign of terror on the Palestinians whose land and lives they have stolen.  And we all know where fear leads us, inexorably: always to hatred and to violence and to more and more fear. 

Where does it stop?  When does it end?

In my own faith tradition, today is a special day, a holy day, the day of Pentecost when Christians remember a great sign that happened long ago, a moment when, we believe, God showed clearly that there is no partiality in the shedding abroad of God’s justice and God’s grace.  Today, Christians celebrate the fact that God will not be bound by our narrow, limited categories – the way we always divide ourselves one from another based on arbitrary definitions of nation or ethnicity, color or creed. 

But you don’t have to be Christian to know that every human being deserves dignity, justice and respect.  We all know it deep down: that it is wrong to target another because they are different from you, to beat down others who are powerless before you, to stand on the neck of a whole people in the hopes that you will snuff out their life. 

I am Palestinian.  But that is not why I stand here and speak to you today.  I stand with Palestine because I stand for all those who suffer injustice and oppression.  I stand with Palestine because I stand for all those who demand their dignity in the face of an empire that desires their destruction.  I stand with Palestine because Palestinian lives matter, too.  I stand with Palestine because it is the right thing to do.  And I pray and I trust that you will stand with us, too.  Thank you.