“GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE ARE ALL OF HUMANITY”

No one in the world we live in can be indifferent to the daily and persistent death of Palestinian children. We painfully watch mutilated, orphaned, starving children on screen, looking at us and asking, “Why do we have to suffer like this?” And we can’t even mumble a sincere response, because we feel powerless in the face of such an atrocious reality. The countries that finance this genocide don’t stop and continue to exercise violence against this country, with no international organization able to do anything concrete. In recent days, presidents gathered at the UN have denounced Israel and the countries that finance it, like the United States. However, they persist in not recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to live in their land.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro bravely raised his voice to point out that fundamentalisms do not contribute to democratic coexistence, and that no people can claim divine superiority over another, since all humanity is the chosen and blessed people of God, and Palestine has the right to live in peace. He clearly identified those responsible for this injustice and called on all countries of the world to liberate Palestine and to initiate global action to end this people’s ordeal. The Palestinian people have expressed their profound gratitude for this gesture, in a letter addressed to him by the Palestinian poet Alaa Al Qatrawi, whose two sons were murdered: “Speak, Gustavo, because we thirst for rhetoric that reminds us that there is still a small place in this world for the truth,” because, by God, you have stood as proof against the silent ones, the traitors, the cowards, and the accomplices of our genocide. “Speak, because you are a brother to every oppressed soul in Gaza.”

For us as missionaries, the suffering of these people is a great challenge. All the words that are raised are profoundly Christian and prophetic, as Gretha Thunberg, who has embarked on the international fleet sailing toward Gaza, says: “I am not afraid of Israel. I am afraid of a world that has seemingly lost all sense of humanity. And what we do here is try to show that there is still some humanity left, that there are still people willing to step forward when all other means fail.”

In this context, and in that of so many of the communities we accompany, we need to continue joining the great causes wherever humanity is threatened, to give voice and visibility to the pain we know and that the mainstream media hides. As Dominican missionaries, we could also have embarked on the fleet sailing toward Gaza to show our brothers and sisters that we are with them. In any case, we stand in complete solidarity with them, because their pain is also ours.

We ask you, Lord of Life, so threatened and wounded, so fragile and vulnerable, to stop the violence against the Palestinian people. Protect those who raise their voices and those who sail to embrace them. All of humanity goes with them.

Jacqueline Sothers,

Kirigueti Community, Peru