This is a follow up invitation to join us at Sacred Mountain Sangha for a daily (weekdays only) 40-minute Dharma, chanting and meditation circle.

This is dedicated support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and hostilities in the Occupied Territories alongside the return of hostages to Israel and return of imprisoned Palestinians, particularly children, held without trial or due process.

Each session includes check-ins and support for extending our Dharma practice to Right Action, protecting all from harm, by calling on political reps and influential leaders to demand a ceasefire and swift transition to a fair and just political process.

We start Dec 4 to Jan 4 online @ 7–7.40am PT/
3-3.40pm GMT/ 4-40pm CET & CAT

Please register here.

Below are further reflections, leading on from my 10/20 article To Step Back from the Brink Takes Us All.

Since hostilities were launched in Gaza by the Israeli State in response to the horrific massacre by Hamas, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor to the UN estimates “17,144 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including 7,208 children, 3,716 women, and a total of 15,482 civilians. More than 33,830 Palestinians in Gaza have sustained various injuries. 

Hundreds of victims’ bodies are still missing under the rubble of buildings or among the corpses scattered in Gaza’s streets and border areas and impossible to locate or retrieve right now, said the human rights organization, which stated that the actual death toll likely exceeds 20,000.

Euro-Med Monitor also highlighted Israel has completely destroyed 56,450 housing units in the Gaza Strip, and has partially damaged 162,950 housing units. This means that more than 45% of the Strip’s total housing units are now unlivable, resulting in a million displaced Palestinians who are currently homeless.”

Right now, the people of Gaza are scrambling to survive the spread of disease, lack of sanitation, water, food, fuel, and medical resources. As said by Namzi Mwafi, We have been taken back to the Stone Age.” Mr Mwafi talks of waking up at 4 a.m., spending hours waiting for water at a crowded filling station. “Sometimes, he has to fight to keep his place in line and sometimes there is nothing left when his turn comes. When he is lucky, he pushes his heavy trolley home through the sand and the family rations the haul to about a glass a day each.”

Meanwhile, while all eyes are on Gaza, a documentary What it’s like to live in the Occupied West Back amid Gaza, tracks the upsurge of destruction of Palestinian life in the West Bank by IDF backed Settlers who are now fully armed by the Israeli government in an ongoing drive to annex the Occupied Territories. Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian attorney and joint fellow with the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, talks in the documentary about how she now feels exactly what her grandmother faced when displaced in the Nakba.

I now know, exactly, the feelings my grandmother had in 1948. The feeling of impending doom, the fear, the worry, the fear of not only your own life, but the destruction of your community, of you as a people, of your town, of your everything. I now feel that and understand that. I feel it with every fiber of my being.

The current ceasefire and mutual release of hostages is a welcome pause. However, the Israeli government has stated its intention of doubling down their attack on Gaza, which not only targets civilians but also the Press (NPR records nearly 60 Journalists have been killed), UN Aid Workers (over 100 killed so far) and the infrastructure that enables life in Gaza. Rather than extend the Ceasefire, which the majority world calls for, the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, has vowed to intensify Israel’s military operation in Gaza. Addressing the IDF he said, when we return to Gaza, we will apply the same force and more.

While the fear and disgust of the attack by Hamas is understandable, we can only interpret the Israeli government’s cataclysmic response as an intention to entirely remove all traces of Palestinian life in Gaza, the occupied territories and beyond. Failing that, there is clear intent to continue submitting Palestinians to ever more brutal forms of Apartheid intensifying the removal of their human rights, rights of movement and freedom of expression.

Author of The Holocausts We All Deny, Theo Horesh states in a facebook post,

Israel is breaking records for its cruelties while the whole world is watching. In a virtual blink of the eye, they have shattered generations of diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East, chewed through a web of fragile alliances, plunged their society into ghoulish cruelties with which they will forever be haunted.

Israel has opened up a breech in the collective unconscious of the western world, releasing demons that took centuries to lock away. We dreamed for a time of a world of free societies bound together in respect of human rights, and now that dream has transmogrified into a nightmare. …

This mass regression to barbarism … will undermine the moral legitimacy of liberalism and social democracy, weaken support for the alliance of democracies, bring everlasting shame on the political parties supporting it, and take an axe to generations of work on human rights and international law.

Is it still possible to wrestle these demons back into their box and force our leaders to abide by their own stated principles? The future of humanity may be determined in our efforts to save Ghaza.

This is also a defining moment for many in the global Jewish community, particularly those of more progressive leaning, many of whom face the collapse of the myths and narratives that lent unquestioned support of Zionism. It can be a shocking awakening have the veils ripped away that continually deflected from the true nature of one of the world’s most brutal forms of Apartheid.

Daily life euphemisms in Israel like “mowing the lawn” normalize the idea that the only option is perpetual war rather than a political settlement, while hiding the litany of unaccountable killings, forced removals, decimation of ancient olive groves, and the summary imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians, including children, without trial, fair representation or time limits.  

From Amanda Gelendar’s twitter post, almost every single Jewish person I know was indoctrinated into Zionism, myself included. We are Zionists until the weight of cognitive dissonance, deceit & propaganda comes crashing down & we realize we were lied to.

This statement led me to Amanda’s powerful blog post: Kaddish for the Soul of Judaism: Genocide in Palestine.  

As Dharma practitioners, we completely disavow violence, understanding it will never solve this truly heartbreaking, aching, festering wound. Hamas is Israel’s shadow. The harder Israel hits the stronger its shadow grows. Greek economist, author and political commentator, Yanis Varoufakis also points out,

What does it mean to eradicate Hamas today? Who counts as Hamas? Do you ‘eradicate’ the nurses employed by the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza? The teachers employed by the Hamas-run Education Ministry in Gaza? Are you forgetting that, unlike Al Qaida which was never integrated with the Afghan communities, Hamas is utterly interwoven with Gazan society?

For Netanyahu and his fellow supporters of genocide aim at the murder of as many Gazans as it takes to persuade the rest to move from Gaza to some arid desert in the Sinai or to any country that will have them. In short, anyone who believes in the physical elimination of anyone connected with Hamas is supporting genocide in Gaza (as a first step to genocide across the West Bank).

Increasingly, as we hurtle into a hotter, more divided, violent, authoritarian world, the powers that be, scrambling to control last resources, would have us believe brutal acts of oppression and violence are the only way forward. We must resist this lawless and pitiless destiny being imposed on humanity and instead call for Global Resolutions that shift to political, economic and social solutions as in Northern Ireland and South Africa.

As Citizens of the world, we have power. Let us join millions around the world, including 120 countries who just voted for a ceasefire, by engaging this effort to secure safety for the Palestinian people while wresting the soul of Israel from the grip of Netanyahu’s theocratic, fascistic government. Standing up for humane solutions, does indeed further the liberation of the soul of humanity from its inertia, frozenness, fear and complacency.

Please do join us at Sacred Mountain Sangha for a our daily Dharma based meetings dedicated to support a full ceasefire and a shift to fair political solutions.

We start on Monday, December 4^th at 7–7.40am Pacific/ 3-3.40pm GMT/ 4-4.40pm CET & CAT.
All are welcome.

Meanwhile, some important initiatives, statements, petitions, and ways to engage and share on.

JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace) Ceasefire Now – Call your representative & JVP ACT NOW

Change.org Sign on – Ceasefire Now, signed by many major international organizations.

Buddhist petition for IMS, Forest Refuge, can be adapted by other Dharma centers + Toolkit.

Sign on: American Buddhists Call on Biden for Ceasefire Now.

Phone Numbers for calling US Senators to demand a Ceasefire.

Jews for Racial & Economic Justice: Vent Diagrams, Holding Contradicting Truths About Palestine-Israel.

Buddhistdoor View: Israel and Palestine.

Buddhist Peace Fellowship Response to Gaza.