Fundraising by Gea Silver

When I first set foot in Palestine with Operation Dove (Nonviolent Peace Corps of the Pope John XXIII Community) I was 21 years old.

Now almost ten have passed, and the Israeli occupation that was already gripping those communities is now trying to eliminate them for good.

But the Palestinians of Masafer Yatta continue to resist.
If you know me you know how much of my life I have dedicated to Palestine and to the project with Operation Dove.

You also know how much the Palestinians I have known who form not only the resistance but the life of the hills south of Hebron have changed me.

If you don't know me, I think you have heard about Palestine for at least the last two years, but maybe you haven't yet heard about the West Bank and the Palestinian communities that have been resisting ethnic cleansing and Israeli occupation for over seventy years.

The Palestinians of At-Tuwani, Tuba, Al Fakheet, Ar Rakeez-all places considered marginal in the world's geography and yet so crucial in our political and heart geographies-have taught me by their example the importance of community, care and dignity.

They also taught me to connect the dots between injustices, questioning whether what happens in Palestine can be detached from what happens in Italy or other parts of the world.
The importance of the work of the Operation Dove volunteers for me is also this: with their own bodies, their own time and their own hearts to stand by the Palestinian people witnessing the injustice they suffer, but also to challenge, by their own example, what we think about our role as Westerners, our relationship with power, with violence and with war.

Their engagement forces us to question how each of us participates-consciously or unconsciously-in the global dynamics that run through every sphere: from ecology to politics, from structures of supremacy to the ways in which we construct our identities.

An invitation to recognize our responsibility and the possibility of choosing different forms of presence and action in the world.

As Christmas approaches and with it the social pressure to express love in the form of a gift, I ask you instead to give us a collective gift and support the work that Operation Dove has been doing for over two decades in Palestine.

Thank you.