Nakba Photo Exhibit
Posted in Uncategorized by gbcs on February 9th, 2009 Nakba Exhibit opening remarks February 3, 2009 Jim Winkler
The photo exhibit that brings us together tonight commemorates 60 years of the Nakba, or catastrophe, that has befallen the Palestinian people. The very notion of a ‘Nakba’ is disputed by some and, of course, there are those who continue to deny the reality of the Holocaust. There was and is a Nakba and there was a Holocaust. This exhibit reminds us of the reality of the Nakba. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were completely and deliberately destroyed by Israel and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lived in refugee camps lo these many years.
This exhibit does not negate the terrible suffering of the Jewish people over the ages. I would remind you that each and every exhibit need not be comprehensive and all encompassing. For example, an exhibit portraying the tragedy visited upon Native Americans by my people need not include a depiction of the centuries of autocratic rule in Europe experienced by my ancestors to be authentic or complete.
We also gather in the wake of a horrible invasion of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Force in which hundreds of Palestinians died and thousands were wounded and is in the midst of continuing violence.
Today’s New York Times reports:
Palestinian militants on Monday fired two mortar shells from southern Gaza at Israel and Israel carried out an air strike against what the military said were members of the launching squad as they tried to flee in a vehicle, further straining the tenuous two-week-old Gaza truce. At least one militant was killed and three others were wounded in the strike, according to news reports from Gaza. The mortars directed at Israeli territory fell in an open area, causing no casualties. After the rocket attacks, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel signaled the Israeli bombing raid with a warning of a “sharp” and “disproportionate” response. The United Methodist Church desires a safe and secure Israel. The only way to accomplish that is for there to be a safe, secure, viable, and contiguous Palestine next to it. The Occupation must end, the settlements must be dismantled, the right of return must be addressed, Jerusalem must be a shared city. Occupation never works anywhere, anytime. It never promotes peace, harmony, and understanding, only bitterness and hatred. We are friends of Israel and of Palestine, but we are not uncritical friends. Uncritical friends are not true friends.
I have been invited to pray a ‘Christian prayer’ tonight. Please join me in prayer.
O God, grant us peace. Strengthen us as we stand for peace and justice. We come today, O God, amid the clamor of our nation’s capital, noise to which we have grown accustomed, to see a new vision, one that moves beyond killing fields and tanks, one that recalls feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked and liberating the prisoners. A vision that embraces the least and last, a vision of generosity and open hearts. In these moments of silence and dedication, O God, help us not only to catch the vision but to forsake the ways of argument and anger, the ways of divisiveness and backbiting, of slander and arbitrariness. Bring us back to the vision of Jesus of Nazareth. Make us peacemakers and cheek-turners who possess enough humility and enough courage to stand for truth. We pray in the name of all that is Holy. Amen.
