The Israel-Palestine Advocacy Team was initially convened in 2022 as the Israel-Palestine Study Group. In its earliest meetings the group focused on the history of Palestine-Israel and the roots of the conflict in the region.
More recently, the group has focused its efforts on advocating for a just peace that will benefit all people in Israel-Palestine.
The Advocacy Team hosts an ongoing series of guest speakers knowledgeable on the history of and current events in Palestine-Israel. Speakers included Jews and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis (including two Palestinian Israelis).
In May of 2024, the Advocacy Team organized a community demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. You can read an article written about the demonstration here.
In the latter part of 2024, The Israel-Palestine Advocacy Team invited First Christian Church to consider two documents produced by General Church settings of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ):
- A resolution passed by our General Assembly in 2023 called “Compelled to Witness: Answering the Cry of Our Palestinian Siblings.”
- And a 2024 letter from church leaders called “A Pastoral Letter For a Time of Crisis and Suffering.”
The Israel-Palestine Advocacy Team continues to pay close attention to current events of relevance to the region including:
- Various proposals seeking peace and just governance for the residents of Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank.
- Research and reports by human rights groups at the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, which allege human rights violations and have been given as background in The International Court of Justice (ICJ) as that court adjudicates South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing crimes of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
- Conversations surrounding the ICJ’s advisory opinion of July 19th, 2024, which finds that Israel’s practices of occupation and settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories amount to a breach of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, specifically Article Three’s prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid.
The Israel-Palestine Advocacy Team invites you to attend its ongoing programming and to consider some of the resources it has studied in the past, including the following:
Kairos Palestine website
Global Ministries of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ Israel-Palestine webpage
Roots of the conflict (from the Institute for Middle East Understanding)
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