What I Hope To Witness in Israel/Palestine

On Oct. 13, I left the U.S. with a delegation of Christian clergy and faith leaders to spend time in Israel/Palestine. I will return Oct. 23.

The only other time I’ve been to Israel/Palestine was in 2012 when I attended the Christ at the Checkpoint conference in Bethlehem. This upcoming trip will be hosted by Sabeel, a Palestinian liberation theology collective committed to following Jesus’ example of standing with the occupied, working for justice, and engaging in nonviolent direct action.

As many friends, family, and coworkers have reminded me, I’m not heading to a safe place. It’s been just over a year since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,100 Israelis and took an additional 250 people as hostages; the state of Israel has used that attack to justify deadly military operations in the West Bank and continuous, indiscriminate bombing along the Gaza Strip, killing more than 41,000 Palestinians; on Sept. 27, Israel launched missiles into southern Beirut and killed a high-ranking official from the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Iran has since responded by launching missiles into Israel. I know what you may be thinking: “Aren’t you worried that this conflict might only get worse and that you might get caught in the middle of it?”

I’d be a fool to not at least be aware of that scenario. But I’m also imagining a scenario where I’ll be a witness to change and return with stories that will convince those who’ve given up on change to shift their opinions.

As an opinion journalist who is also a Christian, I believe my primary responsibility is to provide a myriad of perspectives that challenge or — when necessary — correct readers’ opinions, all in the hope that through reading Sojourners’ opinion section they might realize that Christ is inviting them to make the world a more just place.

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Sojourners’ editor in chief, Betsy Shirley, recently articulated how this hope applies to every nook and cranny of what Sojourners publishes, explaining that we exist “to articulate the biblical call to social justice — not in the abstract, but through real stories and ideas rooted in the complexities of our present moment.” In response to that I say, with the late Rich Mullins, Alrightokuhhuhamen!

Betsy’s essay also reminded me of how transparency and self-awareness help us keep our justice work in perspective. We need to be blatant about how we still participate in unjust systems. We need to be honest about how we sometimes wonder if the stories we tell are actually making a difference.

Losing perspective is a great temptation. It’s tempting to frame this trip as a sacrifice or an experience that will allow me to claim solidarity with a people who have been under siege for 76 years. But to what extent can I realistically say, as an American tourist and taxpayer, that I am making a sacrifice or standing in solidarity with Palestinians when I know this is a short-term trip and that my government provides $8.7 billion in military aid to Israel?

I don’t think it’s right to frame this trip as a “sacrifice” or as an experience that will allow me to claim “solidarity” with the oppressed. Instead of the self-aggrandizing terminology of sacrifice and solidarity, I think it’s better to use the framing of “witness.” But as Sojourners’ senior editor Rose Marie Berger pointed out in her piece about visiting Kyiv, Ukraine in 2022, making such a trip isn’t just about witnessing people’s suffering but also witnessing their creative determination, and then figuring out how do these stories justice when telling them.

Honestly, the hardest thing about being a witness to suffering, a witness to the creative determination of those who hunger and thirst for justice, is wrestling with how to report on it afterwards and wondering if reporting on it will make any discernible difference.

In February, I reported on Riverton Park United Methodist Church in Tukwila, Wash., which for more than a year had been acting as an impromptu shelter for hundreds of South American and African refugees. The church, the refugees, and community activists were all hoping that those sheltering at the church would be granted asylum status and be moved into more permanent housing. When I drive by the church, I still see people bivouacking on the lawn and in the parking lot. Rev. Jan Bolerjack, the lead pastor at the church and one of the sources I spoke to for the February story, recently confirmed that refugees at the church are still waiting to be granted asylum and secure housing. Ultimately, it’s hard to discern whether my reporting on that story made any impact at all.

But maybe someone somewhere read that story and maybe — just maybe — that person heard Christ calling them to act justly — not in the abstract, not thanks to my words, but thanks to the brave and messy choices made by the church, refugees, and community activists who are all struggling to make their community more just. Maybe that reader then decided to organize with refugees in their own community. I want to believe that the arc of a story is long but its outcome — whether individual or systemic, visible or invisible — always bends toward justice.

It’s likely that I will go to Israel/Palestine, come back, write a story about my time in occupied territory that a couple thousand people read, and then continue to wrestle with the question of whether stories really do make a difference. But even that outcome would be worth it if I could challenge a reader to change their opinion or remind them that although justice is the smallest of all seeds, it grows like a mustard plant once sown.

I understand the concern for my safety. I understand if you’re reading this and still thinking, “What if you get caught in the middle of this thing?”

So, let me give you one final reason why, as both a journalist and a Christian, I have to go: What if I go and get caught in the middle of a peace process? What if I get to witness the apartheid wall come down with my own two eyes? Not only would that be the gift of a lifetime, but it would make for an incredible story.