New Delhi: Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi and celebrated author Ta-Nehisi Coates conversed about the history of Palestine, its resistance and the political realities of the United States in an event held in Jane’s Chapel in Manhattan on Wednesday, November 1, urging people watching to speak out against the war on Palestine. The free event, garnering about 3,000 viewers both in person and online, was organised by the Palestine Festival of Literature and titled ‘But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.’Yasmin El-Rifae addressed the audience as the producer of the Palestine Literary Festival, which has brought writers and artists from around the world to Palestine since 2008. “Some of the writers and activists in the West Bank whose homes PalFest visited just last May and in years prior are having their photographs and addresses circulated on chat groups among armed Israeli settlers calling for their murder.” El-Rifae said. “… In response to this disaster, we are holding this event as an urgent intervention by writers, scholars and poets who have worked at the unavoidable intersection of art and politics — who have thought deeply about land, segregation, colonisation, history and liberation.”Civil rights lawyer and author Michelle Alexander introduced the evening, acknowledging that in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was scheduled to give his speech condemning the Vietnam War in Jane’s Chapel as well. The speech was ultimately relocated to Riverside Church, but the parallels remained. Alexander quoted from King, “I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. A time comes when silence is betrayal.”King’s speech set the stage for the event’s theme of breaking silence for the aim of liberation.In a conversation moderated by Alexander, Khalidi, professor at Columbia University and Palestinian-American historian spoke of the importance of understanding the history of Palestine in order to understand its resistance.“This is part of a 100-years war on Palestine; it’s not a war in Palestine,” Khalidi said. “It’s a war to implant a settler-colonial presence at the expense of an indigenous people which is being pushed out slowly but surely.”Khalidi was joined in this conversation by American author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. Also read: A Prayer, Chant and Protest Song: Faith Communities Must Resist Their ExtremistsCoates reflected on his time visiting Palestine, where he said he felt tremendous shame for not knowing how segregated the land was.“I can think back to all of the articles I’ve read, all the things I’ve seen said about how complicated and complex the situation is and the occupation is,” Coates said. “‘It’s complex, it’s complicated.’ And it’s made to sound as if you need a degree in Middle Eastern studies or some such, a PhD, to really understand what’s happening. But I understood the first day.”For him, he said speaking up is personal and he has debts to pay.“I think about how gracious people were when I was over there,” Coates said. “I think about how they took me into their homes, I think about how they fed me, and I think about how their only request was: ‘When you go back, don’t lose your voice.’ That was all they asked.”Alexander shifted the conversation to the political realities in the United States and its unshakeable support for Israel, citing a speech delivered by Joe Biden in 1986 where he said, “If we look at the Middle East, I think it’s about time we stop apologising for our support for Israel. There’s no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion dollar investment we make.” She asked Khalidi and Coates what people needed to understand about Biden’s statement.Khalidi said that in addition to political strategy and imperial interests, it is important to understand that politicians are “bought and sold” and that like politicians, university administrations and the media kowtow to a single narrative because of money and power.“This is not a war on the Palestinians waged by the Zionist movement or Israel alone. It’s a war waged on the Palestinian people by Israel and the United States,” Khalidi said. “Those are our weapons. Those are American F-35s, American F-15s.”He continued, “We have to do something about our complicity in the killing so far of 9,000 people, almost 4,000 of them children.”Coates closed off the conversation speaking of his responsibility and moral conscience.“In the midst of bombs being dropped on children, you have to speak,” Coates said.The conversation was followed by a message from Rabbis Brant Rosen and Alissa Wise from the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, read by Jewish Voice for Peace member Morgan Bassichis.“As rabbis and Jewish leaders, we join you in your despair, your grief, your fear, your fear, your terror and your uncertainty,” the statement read. “We know all too well that in moments of intensified Israeli aggression, there are accelerated attempts by those who fear peace, by those who fear freedom to shut down voices who imagine a new world.”Reverend Raschaad Hoggard closed off the evening by circling back to Martin Luther King Jr’s Beyond Vietnam speech.From King’s speech, Hoggard read, “This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality, a call for all embracing and embracing an unconditional love for all mankind. This oft-misunderstood, this oft-misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the world as a weak and cowardly force has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.”The event also featured poetry readings by Pulitzer Prize-winning Mojave American poet Natalie Diaz and Palestinian poet, activist and journalist, Mohammed El-Kurd, as well as a speech about the urgency of the situation in Palestine by scholar and lawyer Noura Erakat.
