Part 1: Watering the seeds of peace
Non-violent actions to end the genocide in Gaza
Hello dear friends. I hope that wherever you are and whatever is happening that today in this moment you can water the seeds of happiness, peace, joy, playfulness, and compassion alongside whatever suffering you may be feeling.
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on how to water the seeds of peace within ourselves and the world. In Part 1, I’ll focus on direct non-violent actions that are specifically related to the genocide in Gaza. In Part 2, I’ll focus on how to cope with grief and rage and use it for good. In Part 3, I’ll discuss ways you can water the seeds of peace in yourself, your relationships, and the world more broadly—all of which has direct impacts on us all.
A friend from my elementary, middle, and high school days recently DM’d me with the following:
“I get your outrage with what is happening in the world. I hate hypocrisy more than I can ever express. But honestly, how can a positive change come about? Biden is flawed, American politics is flawed, obviously for years. At a no name level how can a positive change truly happen? I just want people to be able to be who they are live their lives with no fear. I really am asking what you are standing for because I get your message but don’t see a plan of action but I am good standing fully with something I believe in.” He followed up with “I just don’t know how to help.”
Once his messages came through, I sat down and scrawled copious notes on a plan that echoes and expands on my thoughts from my recent TEDx talk about the need for perfect love to suffer less.
Then I started to listen to Dr. Gabor Maté, a Holocaust survivor and expert in addiction, child development, and trauma as he discussed the possibility of healing between Palestine and Israel with his two sons. So, before you read more, please stop and listen to this conversation first. It provides some really helpful context in respect to generational trauma and systemic oppression, and it is precisely generational trauma and systemic oppression that need to be addressed to heal these ongoing cycles of suffering. And neither generational trauma nor systemic oppression can be HEALED (i.e., to become healthy) with violence. If violence could heal trauma and oppression, it would’ve happened by now because that is the only “salve” that’s been consistently applied to this traumatic and oppressive relationship between Israel and Palestine.
As the brilliant mind Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” We need a different approach. We need to water the seeds of peace, nonviolence, and love.
When things breakdown, author Elizabeth Lesser in her book Broken Open invites us to ask the following questions:
“I wonder what these times are trying to tell us? What is the soul of our country, of the human family? What do we really value? What do we stand for? And how does each one of us walk that talk, on our own and together?” (p. xviii)
I know some of you might read this and think, but I stand for peace, love, and justice. Or perhaps you think this genocide has nothing to do with you, and therefore there is nothing you can (or need to) do about it. But I am here to ask you to keep reading because a genocide in Gaza happening with the full complicity of our US president and US government with our US tax dollars and US made weapons of mass destruction. This has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH US. And this is our opportunity to take individual and collective action. We are all responsible for the persistence of violence. I will make this point more clear in Part 3.
Our US history and present events alone—if we are brave enough to learn and teach them in schools —shows us quite clearly that we have NEVER collectively created the conditions for nonviolence and peace in our own country. And when it comes to Palestine, we have claimed to be “Brokers of Peace,” but as scholar Stephen Zunes explained in his talk (see link below), we have only funded and supported one side, and that side has always been Israel.
Any collective and individual change does in fact require action. And action looks as vast and wide as you can imagine. Dr. Maté echoes my previous post in his aforementioned conversation, “If you want to move towards peace, you have to do it with what creates the conditions for peace, not what undermines it.”
While I am certainly no expert on the 120+ year history between Palestinians and Israelis, I have learned a lot in the past several months. My perspective on this genocide is rooted in my own expertise, both trained and lived, in Psychology, love, generational trauma, meditation/mindfulness, compassion, parenting, and systemic oppression. The action steps that I list here are coming directly from these viewpoints and from those that share nonviolent actions.
My first overall recommendation is this: Look, listen, feel, and then act. By bearing witness to the collective suffering of Palestinians, we will feel strong, painful feelings. Part of the reason genocide and any collective harm for that matter is enabled is because we want to avoid feeling! But then when we avoid feeling, we stay silent. I promise that if you feel, you will find it hard not to act. For me, the two biggest emotions are Grief and Rage. Both are painful, both have purpose, and both offer us something tremendous: Compassion and Action. So please don’t go numb or stay ignorant now—your action depends on you actually bearing witness to collective suffering, feeling it, and using it for good, not harm. This is the time to get into that “good trouble” that John Lewis spoke about.
So, how do we water the seeds of peace in Palestine right now from way over here? Here’s a plan of action that my old friend requested. Here’s how you can help.
Please note, several organizations have their own action tool kits, which are much more detailed and exhaustive, and I encourage you to take a look at each of them. Here’s the action tool kits from the US-based groups I follow: the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the Jewish Voices for Peace, and Code Pink.
Agitate in a non-violent way by calling your state representatives every single day and ask for the following changes. Most of the time you will be leaving a message. This app is easy to install and gives you direct numbers to each of your reps. Also, making a request for new behavior is a tool of nonviolent communication. We’re not insulting our representatives. We are firmly and warmly asking for change. Here’s what you can ask for:
A permanent (not temporary) ceasefire
Reinstate funding to the largest UN humanitarian organization, the UNRWA (note Biden cut funding through 2025—this is violent and goes against creating conditions for peace as Gazans are starving and need medical attention)
No more of our tax dollars to arm Israel in its genocidal campaign
No more weapons to arm Israel in its genocidal campaign
Liberation for the Palestinian people
Peacefully protest wherever you are to send a collective message to our US policymakers. You can find lists for protests here and here.
Provide money to organizations and/or people that are trying to heal the humanitarian catastrophe we enabled and supported in Gaza. Palestinian writer and producer Jenan Matari has created an incredible spreadsheet to support Gazan Families. I highly encourage you to check it out. Also esteemed professor Khaled Beydoun has a fundraiser that is specifically going to support starving, injured, and orphaned children in Gaza.You can donate directly to the UNRWA. Any amount helps.
Knowledge is Power: Get educated and learn more about the history and present experience of Palestinians and share with others; Jewish Voices for Peace (in their toolkit shared above) has links for Palestinian folks to follow and elevate on social media; If you want to learn more about the history, you can get a huge list of books for all ages to read here. If you like listening to talks like I do, I have a list of talks at the bottom of the page that have been so helpful and eye-opening for me as I process and learn. I highly recommend them all.
Boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS). During the Apartheid in South Africa, BDS was used as a nonviolent tool to divest in businesses and corporations that supported apartheid. There is a call for BDS now to boycott businesses that profit off of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine land and/or support the ongoing genocide. So yeah, no more MCDonalds or Starbucks. Sorry/not sorry. See the complete list here. It is more extensive than I realized, and it required me to make some changes.
Uplift and share content in person and on social media that speaks about the genocide in Gaza (I recommend Al Jazeera News and the Intercept) and centers Palestinian voices (see JVP’s social media accounts in action tool kit). Many people feel ill-equipped to share or have conversations with others about this. I get it. I did too. Once you get more educated, it will be difficult not to have conversations about this genocide.
Get creative! Make art! Art and creativity are joyful and nonviolent resistance practices, and they have always been part of any justice, antiwar movements. Use art as a mode to educate and inform others about the genocide and as a way to foster community with your neighbors, reduce your own stress, channel your grief and rage for good, and to have fun. Dance, make music, paint, make public art, make shirts—the sky is the limit with art!
Embrace community and nourish it! Reach out to local organizations and others who are doing liberation work and join them. Our justice issues are interrelated. There is so much to be said here, and I’ll say more in Part 3.
Take your expertise and apply it to this genocide. As a developmental psychologist who specializes in child/adolescent development, I’ve been active with my professional organizations and others in my field to discuss our collective role in stopping this genocide. Sadly many of my professional organizations don’t want to issue statements of ceasefire out of fear. While this has been disappointing (to say the least), I have met new friends and developed stronger relationships with folks who want to speak up for children’s rights and lives, especially those most vulnerable. The more of us that speak up—whether you are a doctor, a grocer, a mechanic, an artist, a yoga teacher—the better. Hence my next point.
Speak up; Don’t stay silent. Our voices and our silence have tremendous implications for people’s actual lives. When more of us speak up, tipping points happen! Biden and his administration are influenced by our collective voices and protests. The US has a powerful impact on the world, and we are all apart of this country, so use your voice for collective good. Also when more of us speak up, it creates more safety for speaking out.
Water your good seeds after each of these actions; for me that means getting into nature, talking to a friend; laughing with my kiddos, exercising; eating well; drinking tea; drinking water; and dancing. AGAIN, we must water the seeds of joy and happiness if we are going to create peaceful loving conditions. Bearing witness is hard; so double-down on your self-care as necessary to sustain yourself in any kind of justice movement or when suffering alongside others. Rest is resistance. Self-care is resistance. Joy is resistance. And all of these are non-violent practices that sustain us and uplift us, often giving us more time, space, and energy to imagine the life we want to collectively create.
So, for my old friend and for you, I hope you see some inroads here for you in this plan of action. This is my invitation to you now. If you haven’t taken action for Palestine, it’s not too late. Every day we do something, we water the seeds of peace. Every day we do nothing, we sadly water the seeds of violence. I know that probably feels painful or irritating to read. But it’s true. If I know a child in my family is being abused, and I don’t speak up, I can be sure that child will continue to be abused. So my silence perpetuates violence. There are children in Palestine, and especially Gaza going through far more than abuse. They are being brutally killed, starved, injured, and orphaned at unfathomable rates. The number of children killed in 7.5 months is 4x that of any “conflict” in the last 4 years worldwide and combined. Over 13,000 kids have been killed in 7.5 months. And that is just the children. That number doesn’t account for their families member that have been killed or those missing and presumed dead.
The children need us to speak up and say “no” to this horrific violence. It is truly the very least we can do to stop violence and water the seeds of peace.
If this feels overwhelming, take some slow deep breaths. Water your seeds of joy and happiness, and then act.
Every voice and every action waters the seeds of peace. Whether you are new to action or have been in it since day 1, we need your sustained action to peacemaking now. We can create a more peaceful and loving society, together.
Talks I highly recommend:
Gaza Besieged, Jews Divided, & a World in Pain: Gabor, Aaron, & Daniel Maté in Conversation