Just Peace Palestine-Israel Task Group, Living Skies Regional Council Report, winter and spring 2025
Our cluster got its start with the proposal passed, with widespread support, on the crisis in Palestine/Israel by Living Skies Regional Council in June 2024. Click here to read the proposal.
Our task group, with staff support from Julie Graham, formed to help Living Skies live out what we committed to in the proposal. (see below) We work with Mennonite, Muslim, and Catholic (Development and Peace) partners, as well as with Unitarians, Jewish individuals, secular organizations such as CJPME-Saskatoon (Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East), and all of good will seeking a just peace for Palestine/Israel.
Our working partnerships began with the Gaza Pilgrimage undertaken during Lent 2024. Josh Wallace, former staff with the Mennonite Church Saskatchewan, planned the logistics for walking/rolling, as able, the length of Gaza over 2 days. We opened and closed our pilgrimage with prayer in the parking lot of First Mennonite Church, Saskatoon. The call for a Gaza Pilgrimage originated with Australian Christians.
We continued to work together to plan an Olive Harvest Program for the month of October. As part of our faithful witness, solidarity, and gospel longing for justice and peace, we offered opportunities to understand the struggles faced by Palestinians, including the Christians of Palestine. Films, worship, biblical scholarship, speakers and conversation, in person and online, were offered. The full program and resources such as the Olive Oil Communion Service, developed for the Oct. 6 World-wide Communion Sunday, are available on the Living Skies website by clicking “older events”.
We are very grateful for support provided by Living Skies for three of us (Ursula, Vicki, and associate member Renee Nunan-Rappard) to attend the Palestinian Land Exercise (PLE) training event in Toronto at the end of October. We each received $500 to help cover travel, training, food, and accommodation costs. The PLE was originally developed by Mennonite colleagues and is modelled after the Kairos Blanket Exercise. It has been updated to include the genocide of Gaza and now the horrifying escalation of violence against Palestinian people in the West Bank.
In December 2024 we held a daylong planning retreat for our task group at Mayfair United Church, Saskatoon. We reflected on our work thus far and planned for Lent/ Spring. We expressed gratitude for the principles-based approach to guide our church’s justice work, approved by General Council (GC44) in 2023, and subsequently approved on Oct. 19, 2024 by GC44 for church actions in alignment with the seven justice principles of anti-oppression; truth-telling; holistic scope; respect for human dignity; full participation and decolonization; equity ,mutuality and reparations; and costly and prophetic solidarity.
The national and regional church now has the option to adopt the strategies of BDS and to join the apartheid-free communities movement in “recognizing and rejecting Israel’s apartheid system of laws and legal procedures towards the Palestinian people”, according to a motion passed at the meeting. (see Broadview March 2025, “New Principles-Based Approach Takes United Church ‘Much Further’ on Israel-Gaza Policy: decision-making model allows church to join BDS and other movements), pp.39 -41)
On Dec. 3rd we discussed advocacy activities such as boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), singling out specific companies complicit in or actively enabling the persecution of Palestinians, such as Hewlett Packard (HP), and Caterpillar (used for demolishing Palestinian homes). We agreed to look as BDS and at a 2-way arms embargo as actionable items in our Saskatchewan context. (A call to arms embargo action was posted on the LS website on Sept. 28, 2024, in “SK connection to the Gaza crisis asks for our help”, as article featuring orthopedic surgeon Dr. Deirdre).
We decided to focus on a pilot Palestine Land Exercise (PLE) on March 11, at Wildwood Mennonite Church, and then make the PLE available to our region’s faith communities upon request. We agreed it would take app. six months to have the PLE ready, and we are on track. We appreciate Julie Graham’s enthusiastic support and help with promoting this learning opportunity to better understand the root causes of the devastating situation in in Palestine-Israel.
Members: SunDo Hyun, Meadow Lake Pastoral Charge; Sandra Beardsall, VAM, Grace-Westminster United Church; Brenda Curtis, Minister, Grace-Westminster United Church; Vicki Obedkoff, VAM, Grosvenor Park United Church; Nobuko Iwai, Minister, GPUC; Ursula Wiig, VAM, GPUC; Laura Sundberg, Retired, Regina. Staff support: Julie Graham
Partners: Amanda Dodge, (Mennonite Central Committee) Dr. Ahmad Al-Dissi, (Islamic Association of Saskatchewan; Harry Harder (Mennonite Church Saskatchewan); Michael LeBlanc (Development and Peace – Diocese of Saskatoon)
Respectfully submitted,
Vicki Obedkoff and Ursula Wiig ( co-convenors)
ACTION ITEMS FROM PROPOSAL OF 2024
- HOW CAN LIVING SKIES REGIONAL COUNCIL RESPOND?
- Develop Resources for Education and Discussion
Assist Regional Council staff, members, and communities of faith in convening safe spaces for brave conversations and dialogue, by making available educational resources compiled by the newly formed “Just Peace Palestine/Israel Cluster” of the Living Skies Justice Team. Resources, from the United Church and other churches and Christian organizations, might include study guides, speakers, webinars, and/or films on the following topics:
- Explaining the context of Israel’s current war on Gaza and the role of Hamas; and the history of Zionism, the Nakba, and the settler occupation of Palestine.
- Clarifying terms, e.g. anti-Judaism, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, anti-Palestinianism, and Islamophobia, in order to help members constructively criticize the policy and actions of the government and state of Israel and of Palestinian governing bodies.
- Providing links to other cultural, religious, or activist organizations working in this area, e.g., Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME); Free Palestine; Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).
