Kairos Palestine and the Stop the Wall Campaign have launched their joint mobilizing and advocacy initiative ‘Praying is Resistance’ on Sunday Sep 20th . The initiative is a joint response to Israel's acceleration of the construction of the Apartheid Wall, settlement expansion and displacement of Palestinian communities from Area C, which comprises over 60% of the West Bank.
These joint activities have started with one days of action in Bir Owneh of the Cremisan Valley in Beit Jala , where Israel has recently resumed theconstruction of the Wall. Kairos Palestine and Stop the Wall have come together with local communities and local popular groups in order to protest against these Israeli measures and to defend the land and people’slivelihoods from the destruction and dispossession caused by the Wall.
‘Praying is Resistance’ calls upon people across the globe that this is a moment of Kairos – the time to act. The time to invest in a world without walls and to divest from Israeli occupation and apartheid.
In 2002, Israel started to build an over 800 km long and up to 8 -12 meters high Wall within the West Bank. Today, this Wall, together with the settlements and military zones, fragments the West Bank into isolated enclaves. With three quarters of the Wall already completed or under construction, Israel is destroying daily more communities. Its policies are appallingly similar to the policy of Bantustans, racially segregated enclaves to which South Africa’s apartheid regime wanted to confine the black population: Israel at ever growing speed forcibly expels Palestinian communities from their lands outside the boundaries of the Wall and has started building ‘relocation zones’, to where those new refugees are to be transferred. 89 communities outside the boundaries of the Wall are currently under immediate threat of expulsion, over 13 thousand Palestinian structures are facing pending demolition orders.
This gigantic infrastructure project is to create in the West Bank similar conditions of closure and isolation than those experienced by the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and to control much of the Palestinian fertile lands and water resources. In 2004 the International Court of Justice of the United Nations confirmed the Wall illegal, underlined Israel’s obligation to tear it down and to repair damages as well as the duty of the international community not to aid the construction of the Wall or recognize the situation created by it and to take effective action to halt Israel’s construction of the Wall.
The launch of the 'Praying is Resistance' initiative is part of the World Week for Peace in Palestine/Israel, called for by the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum of the World Council of Churches and held from September 20 -26 under the theme “God has broken down the dividing Walls”. However, this Week of prayer, education and action is necessarily only one step within our long path towards justice and peace. Therefore, ‘Praying is Resistance’ will continue.
We will carry on organizing across the West Bank, together with the most threatened communities. We will be collectively defend our olive harvest in ongoing mobilization and we will prepare for Stop the Wall’s annual week against the Apartheid Wall (November 9-16). With these joint initiatives we aim to support the spirit of steadfastness of the communities and to strengthen their determination to continue to strive for peace and justice. We want to give a message that our joint efforts around the globe will bring about change as long as we don’t surrender to acceptance of ongoing injustice.
'Praying is Resistance' will maintain the official hashtag of the World Week for Peace The #WallwillFall as it embodies our commitment to continue struggling for justice, equality and freedom; our faith that together with global solidarity we will be stronger than Israel’s walls and we will ensure that Israel’s impunity as well as international connivance and complicity ends and peace prevails over occupation and apartheid; our conviction that, just as the Wall on Palestinian land, all other walls of discrimination, exploitation, repression, segregation and silence can be overcome.
In order to join in 'Praying is Resistance', you can:
- use and follow the hashtag The #WallwillFall
- use the resources of Kairos Palestine at: https://www.kairospalestine.ps/
- use the resources of the Stop the Wall Campaign at: https://stopthewall.org, https://www.stopthebantustans.org
- use the resources and ideas of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum: https://pief.oikoumene.org/en/world-week-for-peace
