As the genocidal intent of Israel’s settler colonial project has become inescapably clear, strategies informed by the liberal Zionist desire to rescue or reform the Zionist project have been replaced by a focus on ending the genocide and to challenging the very foundations of the Zionist project. The re-election of Donald Trump portends an escalation of Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing and colonization. The ceasefire agreement for Gaza is crashing on the rocks of the realization that this “agreement” is simply a further step in putting an end to Palestinian national aspirations. Severely increased violence in the West Bank, both structural and overt, provides further evidence of the duplicity of any talk of Palestinian statehood or sovereignty. Indeed, we may be approaching the end of what Rashid Khalidi has termed the “One Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”

What does this mean for our movement? Is it the time for a reset? In this forum we will take stock of the movement for Palestine in the United States and globally. What are the achievements that can be built on and what are the challenges of the present moment? Ample time will be given to sharing and discussion, which will set the stage for Part 2 (Saturday, May 17), which will consider the key roles played by the ascendancy of Christian nationalism and the weaponization of antisemitism.  Register now for this April 19 Zoom forum.

Dr. Mark Braverman is Jewish American with deep family roots in the Holy Land. Raised in a traditional Jewish family, he was schooled in the potent combination of rabbinic Judaism and political Zionism that continues to dominate contemporary Jewish identity, an identity that for Mark was transformed by his encounter with the Palestinian people. He is the Executive Director of Kairos USA, a member organization of the Kairos for Justice Coalition, a global network formed in response to the Palestinian call. Mark has lectured and trained internationally and is the author of two books, Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land and A Wall in Jerusalem: Hope, Healing, and the Struggle for Peace and articles and book chapters, including the 2022 “Theology in the Shadow of the Holocaust: Revisiting Bonhoeffer and the Jews.”