The following essay by Pax Christi USA Young Adult Caucus leader Jessica Sun was originally published on Brick by Brick, the Erie Benedictines’ Substack publication.
This past December, observed as the season of Advent in the Christian tradition, 17 peacemakers led by Catholic Workers across the country returned from Palestine-Israel hosted by Sabeel. Sabeel is the ecumenical, grassroots center for Palestinian liberation theology, rooted in the universal ethic of nonviolence. In English, “Sabeel” can roughly be translated to “The Way,” the name of Christianity in its earliest days. Friends of Sabeel North America, an interdenominational Christian organization seeking justice and peace in the Holy Land through education, advocacy, and nonviolent action, hosted us. This was my third solidarity delegation to Palestine-Israel, made possible by the prayer, treasure, and love of our friends and family, who walked with us in spirit.
Meeting with civil society peacemakers across faiths, institutions, and identities in Palestine and in Israel, the goals of the trip were to 1) be with and encourage the people who are under attack, 2) collaborate with Sabeel on ways that the unjust, complex realities of life in Palestine-Israel might be improved, and 3) expose human rights violations and prioritize human connection. This delegation was part of a wave of desperately needed international presence, answering the open invitation from Palestinian Christians to come and see, and go and tell. Palestinian Christians are the direct descendants of the first Christians and the Living Stones of the faith.
In the following paragraphs, I try to capture a part of what we experienced. We met with about 30 different groups. All members of our delegation are seeking to go and tell as much as we can of the hope and heartbreak we witnessed, and we welcome invites to report back. Thank you for journeying with us, with me.
I go to Palestine to learn at the feet of Christ
I go to Palestine to learn from the world’s masters of nonviolence, from Palestinians who demonstrate a commitment to The Way that has been sharpened and tested under unfathomable daily oppression. A type of testing I will never comprehend, a proof of their love of neighbor I will never show. After 100 years of modern settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide, Palestine remains the compass of the world. They are the Palestinian Muslim woman entrepreneur who not only refuses to leave, but decides to open an affordable flatbread shop in the Old City of Hebron at prices that her community, not just tourists, can afford. They are the children in Ramallah who are terrified, but make the dangerous trek to school anyway, every day. They are the couple in Bethlehem who returned to Palestine in 2008, walking away from elite professorships and six figure incomes, to donate their life savings and volunteer full-time to conserve the natural world. They are the Gazan teenagers who passed their high school matriculation exams on Day 767 of the 2023 genocide committed by Israel. They are our Palestinian guide, Omar, director of Sabeel, who preaches his practice of the necessity of internal liberation and transformation, speaking with clear eyes on the immortal truth of how “small people make big money from endless war, whether in the US, Emirates, Iran, Russia.”
They are the Palestinian farming communities from Bil’in to Masafer Yatta who stubbornly maintain their way of life, who refuse to die silently. In Umm Al-Kheir, it was the village women who went on hunger strike for 11 days so that the state of Israel would return the corpse they stole of beloved Awdah Hathaleen. Even after death, Palestinian bodies are taken as bargaining chips by Israel. Kindhearted, soft spoken, English teacher Awdah was murdered on July 28, 2025, at point blank range by Israeli settler Yinon Levi. We spoke with Awdah’s brother, Tariq, as we stood on the spot where Awdah was killed. What happens when Awdah’s son witnesses the murder of his own father at two years old? What happens in my heart when I look into the tender, frightened eyes of the two-year-old boy who no longer speaks? Yinon walks free to this day. What happens when you teach a young man that no consequences apply after he murders someone?
“If you’ve come here to help me, you’re wasting your time. But if you’ve come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. ― Australian Aboriginal Elder Lilla Watson
The New York Times published an article on Issa Amro in May 2024, calling him the Palestinian Gandhi. Gandhi himself wrote an essay in 1938 titled “Justice in Palestine,” decrying the Zionist project. All Israeli violence has the same aim: to dominate, to control Palestinians, and to destroy Palestinian identity.
We also met with Budour Hasan, a Palestinian writer and legal researcher based in Jerusalem, works for Amnesty International. Today, her focus is on the genocide in Gaza. Previously, she had been researching and documenting home demolitions in East Jerusalem and in Masafar Yatta. Budour also happens to be blind. Not once did she even mention her disability to our group of US Americans. Maybe it felt irrelevant, unimportant for her to include in the broader context of the suffering of her people. Budour recalled the experience of documenting a 9-year-old child in Gaza who was carrying the flesh of his dad on his back. She said, “Palestinians are a traumatized society. We’ve been torn asunder. We don’t know when this will end.” There are so many people who have become irreversibly damaged and disabled.
Budour explained to us how the Zionist project is predicated on the erasure of Palestinians, and that it is ahistorical to treat genocide as if it is one moment in time. Because the genocide of the Palestinians did not start in 2023, just as the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda did not start in 1994. She poignantly remarked, “I think about the Irish famine of 1847-1849. It took the third generation in Ireland to begin talking about what had happened because of the shame.” In Gaza, you are not only being deprived of food, but of dignity. From food stall cooks to professors, you endure the shame of being forced to do nothing else but search for food. It is just a part of the “epidemic of violence that Israel unleashes on Palestinians.”
As a fellow journalist, Budour pointed to the work of Israeli author Gideon Levy. In Auschwitz, a Jewish boy trying to stave off death by dehydration was sucking on ice. In his suffering, he asked the Nazi soldier why. The Nazi soldier replied to him, simply, that there is no why. Budour continued, “It is so infuriating to me that we do not challenge and do not learn from history … Israel is so shamefully using memories of genocide to commit a genocide.”
All this destruction has been made possible by decades of US taxpayer military “security” assistance, university censorship, and the silence and complicity of Western churches. Where do we start? The blood of the innocent is not forgotten. Maybe, If Americans Knew. Founded by Alison Weir in 2001, she found that the US press portrayal was significantly at odds with information being reported by media throughout the rest of the world. Today, I’m encouraged by the work of A New Policy, who are seeking volunteers to door knock and lobby their legislators. A New Policy is led by State Department director Josh Paul and Department of Education appointee Tariq Habash, two US Americans who courageously resigned from government over the Biden administration’s disgraceful policy toward Gaza.
And Gaza deserves to be celebrated. Palestine deserves to be celebrated. It is dehumanizing and insulting to think of Gaza, of Palestine, only as a place of death and destruction. Morgan Cooper, one of the only outspoken foreign national spouses in Palestine, spoke to us in Taybeh (biblical Ephraim) about how she wishes that Palestinian life was celebrated outside of the context of their oppression and the violence that is imposed on their lives. Nobody talks about how Palestine is the cradle of civilization, how all our ancestors migrated out of Africa through Palestine.
Morgan first lived in Palestine in 2004, teaching at Birzeit University. She hates being on Instagram, especially as an introvert, [but started posting to an account, linked with her name above,] the day after October 7 to vent about her personal experience. She had decided to take over their personal garden account — named “Mashjar” for a place of trees, and “Juthour” for roots, tree’s roots, cultural roots — to try to begin to raise awareness about her family’s plight.
Her 15-second reel began with “To all of you US American taxpaying Christians… As a kid, I used to have a bracelet that said ‘what would Jesus do.’ You cannot have a Christianity that supports this occupation. If your Jesus says, ‘I would bomb them,’ you have lost your way.” In a few days, the reel reached several million views. Despite the social media-induced nervous breakdowns, Morgan feels obligated to keep going, especially because 80 percent of the views come from accounts that do not follow her. She emphasized to us that no conversation can start about Palestine except with the word “boycott. “There were only two things that terrified Netanyahu. Student encampments, and boycott.”
There is so much beautiful heritage, religion, art, ceramics, clothing, food, sculptures, olive wood, soap, and way of life that the people of Palestine give everything to protect. Palestine is a place bursting with history and beauty that desperately needs international presence right now. Palestine is at imminent risk of extinction. In Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Taybeh, there are many places to visit that are safe for international tourists. Sabeel and its Palestinian-owned partners offer a wide range of ethical tourism options, from a fun, sight-seeing experience and pilgrimage to fact-finding efforts for those who want to see for themselves, to a deeper emphasis on protective presence and educated solidarity. Budour had closed her talk to us with a powerful message, “We will never have Israel’s military might, but we can build a movement. We don’t have to spend millions of dollars to whitewash our image. People who believe in justice come here with open hearts, willing to learn. There is hope. I say that without feeling that there is a need to produce a silver lining.”
Some of the ways US Americans can help
Issa Amro encouraged us to come up with some creative stubbornness, also known as nonviolence, in letting arms manufacturers in the US know that they are not welcome in our communities. Congratulations to Raleigh, who pushed Elbit, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, out of their community on January 6, 2026! punishgenocide.org by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and the Institute for Middle East Understanding offers a great way to contact your Congresspeople. Support the ridiculously brave-in-love work of Nonviolence International’s Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine Project. If you identify as Christian, consider joining the beautiful, inclusive, and intersectional liberatory movement over at Christians for a Free Palestine, and tell Congress to not let Israel colonize Bethlehem. Join in the effort to Boycott Chevron. For Lent, consider making a spiritual practice of studying the Kairos 2 document with your community.
As Budour reminded us, “We should always resist normalizing it. It’s not normal to film the video of your own murder, as Awdeh did. … As Palestinians, [it is part of our work] not to be submerged by hate. It is really hard for me to say this. But I want the generation to come, to have it better than I did. … Until justice comes, the willingness to retaliate will always be there.” We are humans. I am trying to stay human. I am often not as successful as Budour.
Many people ask where the Martin Luther King’s of today’s world are especially during his birthday weekend in the US that we commemorate every year. I say they are in Palestine. The first time I read this MLK quote was in the office of the Bisan Center for Research and Development in November 2022: “On some positions cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
It remains a privilege and great honor for me to stand with Palestinians, who have been facing billions of dollars of propaganda and lies to whitewash their destruction funded by my US taxpayer dollars.
The same week we were there, 1,000 US Christian Zionist pastors were given fully funded trips to Palestine-Israel by Friends of Zion. (Learn more about Christian Zionism. It is an affront to the Christian faith, and is a theology itself rooted in deep anti-Jewish hatred). During their entire trip, these US pastors did not meet with a single Palestinian Christian. Palestinian Christians are the direct descendants of the first followers of Jesus. On January 1, Kairos Palestine, the Palestinian Christian initiative, released a statement rebuking “sectarian advocacy” – e.g. only advocating for Palestinian Christians. An excerpt in English reads: Every once in a while, a group of Christians emerges that claims to fear for the Christian presence, claims to defend Christians, and demands what is called “protection” from the Israeli occupation state. Today, we are approached by a group calling itself the “Israeli Christian Voice”, which is in contact with the Israeli occupation authorities and the US American Embassy.
To these we say clearly and responsibly: the situation in Palestine is difficult and harsh for all Palestinians, and not restricted to Christians alone. What our people are suffering from is not addressed with narrow sectarian logic, but needs comprehensive, fair treatment that the Palestinian person is equal to human, irrespective of his religion or caste. A Christian is first a human being, he is the son of this land, and his land is called Palestine. And a Christian, according to his faith, does not lock himself, but hears the commandment of Christ: “Love the Lord your God… Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jessica Sun (she/they) is a second generation Chinese US American zillennial from northern Virginia. A Catholic convert after 10 years of identifying with varying philosophies as an agnostic, she finds a dear sense of belonging in spaces of zealous, Gospel-led advocacy and action for just peace and nonviolence. Christians for a Free Palestine, Pax Christi USA, and the Pax Christi Young Adult Caucus are her organizing homes. A graduate of the Virginia Tech College of Engineering, she had worked as a software engineer by day, local leftist volunteer by life. She is now in the application process to consecrated religious life, and is a friend of the Erie Benedictines.