The Presbyterian Church of the USA convened its General Assembly in Detroit last month and made history. The Church voted to divest more than $20 million from three U.S. corporations that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  The divestment recommendations came from the Church’s own official committee responsible for ensuring that all Church investments are comply with Christian values.

The Church’s very own Israel-Palestine Mission Network and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship sponsored the divestment resolution, along with several independent local and national grassroots organizations and dozens of activists. 

Independent national supporting groups included Jewish Voice for Peace; Friends of Sabeel-North America; U.S. Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation; American Muslims for Palestine; the US Palestinian Community Network; and American Friends Service Committee.  Local supporting groups included JVP-Detroit; Students for Justice in Palestine-U of M-Dearborn; FOSNA-Michigan and Detroit; U of M-Ann Arbor’s Students Allied for Freedom and Equality; AMP-Detroit; the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights; and the Grace Boggs Center. The Michigan Coalition for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel, which served as the umbrella organization for all interested groups, organized a silent vigil in support of divestment that stretched nearly the full length of Cobo Hall.

Palestinians– including several Nakba victims– and other Arab Americans actively participated in supporting the resolution and in the local coalition. Many of them spoke to the General Assembly, directly. All of us — Palestinian and Lebanese American student activists — spoke in support of the resolution to the Church’s Middle East Committee. This committee recommended the divestment proposal to the General Assembly by a strong majority vote.  

The divestment resolution passed by a slim margin — seven votes out of about 850 commissioners. There is no doubt that Palestinian and Arab American support was critical to the resolution’s ultimate success. The Arab community presence, however, was modest, and the majority of the organizing came from solidarity organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the US Campaign to End the Occupation. While we are, of course, grateful for the role that JVP and the US Campaign played, we also recognize that our community should have had a much stronger presence at the General Assembly. 

Arab Americans’ insufficient participation —Christian, Muslim, or secular — is a symptom of a larger problem: complacency within our community to issues that pertain directly to us. Although many of us feel very passionately about justice in Palestine, Iraq, Syria and the rest of our mother region, that passion rarely manifests itself into meaningful sustainable and institutional action. As Arab Americans, we are in a unique position to help our family and friends overseas by leveraging our privilege as US citizens, and our failure to do so is a problem that we can no longer afford to ignore.  

Many Arab-Americans do not share this sentiment, though. They are told: “Don’t talk about politics; just go to school and worry about your success and family.” But is it really good advice? In other words, do we really advance the talents of our students, intellectuals, and professionals by encouraging them to avoid political activism? No. In fact, we stunt our own development and effectively abandon our brothers and sisters overseas by remaining complacent. This is an unacceptable reality. 

There are many reasons that could be attributed to our individual inaction, but perhaps the foremost reason is fear—fear that being politically active will harm our prospects of landing a good job in the future, or fear that political activism will trigger the US government’s scrutiny and attention. Because of this underlying fear, we have found ourselves in a political situation that is shaped by systemic Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. One of the biggest ways such discrimination manifests itself is how the US government interacts with our countries of origin. America’s first response to crisis in the Arab world is to use violence. In order to stop this, our community needs to become more politically engaged, aware, and unafraid to speak truth to power. We must organize, work together and build sustainable community-based institutions that can adequately represent our diverse interests. While such a task may be difficult, our lives — and the lives of our loved ones — depend on it.  

When a mosque in Joplin, Missouri was burned down in 2012 because of unabashed Islamophobia, it was Joplin high-schooler Laela Zaidi’s courage to speak out that initiated a successful fundraiser to rebuild the mosque. Laela went beyond Twitter and Facebook and put a face to the destruction. She showed us what true courage looks like. 

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” preached Dr. Martin Luther King. Palestine’s fight is the fight of everyone who has experienced racism, oppression, humiliation; but also perseverance, pride and will. But for Arab Americans, the Palestinian struggle is a cause that tests our unity—a test that can only be passed by overlooking our differences and dedicating our loyalty to humanity, justice, and equality.

For more information on local organizing, you can contact the Michigan Coalition for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel (michcoalition@gmail.com).