Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with my friend Kathy Kelly. This podcast is a
project of www .beatitudecenter .org, where you
can find many other wonderful podcasts and regular
Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and
practicing nonviolence and working for a more
just, more nonviolent world. So I like to always
begin with a little prayer. So I invite everyone,
wherever you are, to just take a deep breath
and just relax and notice how you're feeling
and center yourself again. And together, let's
all enter into the presence of the God of peace
who loves you infinitely and personally and everyone.
And let's welcome the risen nonviolent Jesus
here with us. Just take a moment to ask for whatever
grace you need to follow Jesus ever more faithfully
and do God's will of peace. God of peace, thank
you for all the blessings of life, love, and
peace that you give us. Be with us now as we
reflect together. on your call to be peacemakers,
to follow the nonviolent Jesus, and work for
a more nonviolent, more just world. Bless us,
inspire us, disarm us, strengthen us, and send
us out to do your will, that we might do our
part to help end war. and poverty, racism, greed,
and all injustice, environment, violence, nuclear
weapons, and fascism, environmental destruction,
that we might be your holy beatitude people,
that we might fulfill our vocations to be your
holy peacemakers, and welcome your reign of universal
love, nonviolence, and peace on earth. In Jesus'
name, amen. It's a great pleasure to welcome
today my friend Kathy Kelly, longtime peace activist,
author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. As we
record this, Kathy is participating in and helping
to coordinate a 40 -day fast for an end to the
U .S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza, which
her fast began on May 28th. Kathy Kelly has traveled
the world to the places bombed and attacked by
our country. the United States, over the last
three and four decades in an effort to make peace
and love enemies, more than any other person
I know. With voices in the wilderness, friends,
from 1996 to 2003, she traveled 27 times to Iraq,
defying the economic sanctions. I asked Kathy
to lead our 1999 Fellowship of Reconciliation
delegation to Iraq with several Nobel Peace Prize
winners, one of the greatest experiences of our
lives. She was in Iraq throughout the 2003 shock
and awe bombing and initial weeks of the U .S.
invasion. She has joined subsequent delegations
to the West Bank's Jenin camp in Palestine in
2002, during and after those Israeli attacks,
was in Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between
Israel and Hezbollah, and to Gaza in 2009 during
Operation Cast Lead, and following the 2013 Operation
Pillar of Defense. She made over two dozen trips
to Afghanistan. from 2010 to 2019, living with
young Afghan peace volunteers in a working -class
neighborhood in Kabul. Kathy Kelly is board president
of World Beyond War and in the last few years
co -coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes
Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan,
she has co -coordinated an international network
to assist young Afghans forced to flee their
country. It's a great pleasure. and a blessing
for me to welcome my friend Kathy Kelly. Kathy,
thank you for joining me on this podcast. Well,
thank you, John. I'm so glad that your podcasts
are reaching many people and that your commitment
to being a practitioner of nonviolence following
the nonviolent Jesus still reaches me. Thank
you. Thank you, Kathy. Well, we're going to dive
right into it. So let's start. Everybody take
a deep breath. We're going to start with the
horrific U .S.-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza,
which has killed, you know, at least 56 ,000
people in Gaza since the horrific Hamas attack
on October 7, 2023 that killed 1 ,195 Israelis.
So, Kathy, you and our friends have been fasting
since May 28th, I think, and intend to fast.
Actually, May 22nd. May 22nd. since May 22nd,
and you hope to go through 40 days. But there
are some 750 people around the country and the
world doing shorter fasts in solidarity with
you and others. But about a dozen of you are
keeping vigil outside the United Nations and
marching in New York. It was organized by our
friends at Veterans for Peace, along with Friends
of Seville. So let me start by asking you in
your own words to tell us why you're fasting
and about the fast for peace. Well, you know,
John, a lot of times when you engage in a fast,
people turn for you. And then you have the chance
to say, oh, but what about? And I think that
what about question is so important right now
concerning Gaza, because, you know, I wake up
every morning and there's electricity and clean
water to drink. And I haven't worried about snipers
killing children that I might be caring for overnight.
I haven't had to worry about walking through
rubble or all of the contaminants of bomb residue.
You know, in short, we. When we try to limit
ourselves to something similar to the caloric
intake of people in Gaza right now, we don't
have even a tiny fraction of the other horrific
and I think deliberate attacks, especially being
waged against children. So we must call attention
to it. The destabilizing effort to relocate people.
and force them out of their land has continued
worsening every single day since we began this
fast. And you can see on the faces of people
that are staffers working at the United Nations,
they know. And there's, I think, a great sense
of conscience burdening them because there are
things people at the United Nations could do.
And it doesn't mean that those wouldn't be very
difficult things to do, but we think of the risks
that people like Dennis Halliday and Hans von
Sponek took when they were employed by the UN
in very prestigious jobs, both of them as undersecretary
generals of the UN with regard to Iraq. And when
they saw children starving in Iraq again and
again, when they recognized that, you know, in
Iraq, the... Pediatrics wards were like death
rows for infants. They resigned their posts one
after another. So what could the UN do now? There
is a resolution called Uniting for Peace. And
it's a very, very important resolution because
when it's invoked, then even if there has been...
a veto of a ceasefire issued within the Security
Council, the nations of the General Assembly
could bypass that veto, more or less overrule
it. And that's what we're really hoping for.
countries of Ireland and Pakistan and Spain and
Slovenia, immediately after the last U .S. veto
of a Security Council resolution, filed for a
debate. And in such a debate, it's possible that
the countries could say, you know, there is one
country that is preventing the achievement of
peace. And, you know, in our case, it would be
the United States partnering. partnering with
Israel in its war. Right now, a war UNICEF calls
a war against children. So there's a supposed
level of suspense, but there's also civil society
arising all around the world to protect people
in Gaza. And that's very impressive. Kathy, by
the time this airs at the end of June, I'm thinking
the fast may be done. And unfortunately, I'm
hoping it would be over, but I doubt it. So I
just want to ask you there about any thoughts
or suggestions to our thousands of listeners
about what folks can do. And I would think that
would begin with educating ourselves about Gaza
and the genocide and talking about it, educating
others. But maybe you have some more specific
things. Well, I certainly agree with you, John,
about education being so crucial. As we ask elected
officials or United Nations representatives to
take more of a risk, then, of course, we have
to consult with ourselves. Is there a greater
risk that I might be willing to take? And what
I've noticed is that in every city around the
country. Very strong grassroots efforts are happening.
In New York, people just today demonstrated in
front of the Maersk company, that's M -A -E -R
-S -K, and said, stop loading ships with weapons
that are taken to Israel. And I think people
can go in front of the corporations in this country
that manufacture these hideous weapons. You know,
we found that people were being lured to... get
food at hubs of food distribution that had been
set up by the United States and Israel through
this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And when they
got there, they were being shot at by the Israeli
Navy, by Israeli drones, and by tank -fired missiles.
Many of those weapons have been manufactured
here in the United States. And so if anyone listening
lives anywhere near a Raytheon or a Boeing or
Lockheed Martin or General Atomics factory, it's
crucial to go to those places, hold up signs,
talk to the workers and ask people to stop that
kind of production. And of course, to go to the
elected representatives and tell them that. you
will have a long remembrance of how they are
voting during this time of genocide and that
any elected representatives who favor killing
children, holding children accountable for what
is happening in Israel and Palestine and the
occupied Palestinian territories, that those
people ought not to be governing this country.
Kathy, as you know, one of the great voices that
we're hearing from Palestine is Reverend Munther
Isaac of Bethlehem, who gave the sermon, Christ
and the Rebel, that went... viral around the
world. And he now has a book out called Christ
and the Rebel, and I'm getting him to be on this
podcast. He's been calling all Christians in
the U .S. to speak out against the U .S. funding
for Israeli genocide. So I wanted to ask you
about that. In particular, what would your message
be to the churches, to Christians, like Munther,
about, hey, folks, how can we be following the
nonviolent Jesus and be silent? on what's happening
over there. And while I'm at it, just for the
record, your thoughts on where the nonviolent
Jesus and the God of peace are in all of this.
Well, I think about how Pope Francis truly was
a symbol of unity. Yes. Christians and others
all throughout the world. And I see Pope Leo
entering in that direction as well. But for instance,
here in New York, we've gone to the, every Sunday,
gone to St. Patrick's Cathedral, and you don't
hear the hierarchs in New York speaking out.
So it's really dependent on people in the pews
to say, look, we do follow the nonviolent Jesus,
and we will speak out, even if the... people
appointed to lead us are themselves perhaps not
so able to do that for whatever reasons of compromised
conscience they might have. So I think the line
that it's important to remember is that the means
you use determines the end you get. And if you
use means of silence or indifference or changing
the subject, then that's what you'll get in the
end, you know, indifference and silence. But
if we use means that are kindly, compassionate,
but very determined, then I think we can reach
an end similar to what happened with South Africa.
You know, eventually the nations of the world
were able to say to the South African apartheid
government, you can no longer participate in
the family of nations. And then Nelson Mandela
was released from prison. So we're hoping that
that sort of playbook would be reenacted, that
the countries of the world will, out of frustration
but also out of conscience, say to the United
States and Israel, if Israel keeps flouting international
law, the countries of the world can't afford.
to see the edifice of international law chipped
away at because a few countries refuse to abide
by it. Israel has thermonuclear weapons. That
in itself is in violation of international law
because they've never declared themselves to
be a nuclear power. And Israel's violations of...
International law happened every time they attack
civilians who've already been forcibly displaced.
And so we've got the International Criminal Court
stating that Israel's leaders are in violation
and ought to be brought before a court. But the
United States has said, well, then let's sanction.
the jurists in the International Criminal Court.
We've got the United Nations saying, we know
how to distribute this food. And the United States
says, well, let's sanction the United Nations
Food Distribution Group. It's called UNRWA, United
Nations Relief and Works Association. So I think
in order to give teeth to the resolutions which
have been made and to denunciations which are
continually being made. Israel and the United
States must be held accountable. Can people in
the pews of the churches accomplish that? I believe
that with constant education, with parishioners
saying, okay, we're going to have a Palestine
-focused group. We're going to read Pastor Munter
Isaac's Christ in the Rubble. There is a tremendous
accomplishment that is available to Catholics
throughout the United States. That's great. Thank
you, Kathy. I want to step back and ask you some
more general questions about this whole life
of peacemaking you've had, about solidarity,
loving the enemy, and grief. And I want to begin
with, I think I told you this, I never forgot
when you and I and our friends went to Baghdad
in 1999, and you had organized the whole trip.
And that first night, the welcome dinner with
some of the great leaders, I think it was the
great woman from Kerr who was later assassinated
during the 2003 war. One of the great saints.
And she began her welcome by saying, if you come
to stand in solidarity with us here in Iraq,
you will suffer because we are suffering. And
I thought that was amazing, even though it's
so obvious. Your whole life. as I look at you,
Kathy, has been one long attempt at living in
solidarity with the peoples being killed and
threatened by our country. And that is extended
to the people of Central America, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine, Yemen, and many other places. So I
wanted, because it's such at the heart of, I
think, being human, nonviolence, peacemaking.
the gospel, this kind of living solidarity beyond
borders. I wondered if you could reflect with
us about that for a moment. Well, I remember
Margaret Hassan trying so, yeah, she was from
Ireland and she married an Iraqi man. And she
tried so hard to get water to people, big, huge
bladders of water. And the idea that she would
be kidnapped and tortured and killed. It was
so astonishing to me. And yet her life was a
well -lived life, wasn't it? Yeah. And I think
about Dorothea Soella. Yeah. And she was a theologian
who said, yes, raise the lament. She thought
it was so important never to skip that stage
of raising the lament, but then follow it up
by organizing. I think about Phil Berrigan, who
used to say, don't get tired, don't give up.
How do we best raise the lament? It really changes
all the time. I remember as a teenager seeing
the photo of a young Vietnamese girl. And she
was running down the street naked, agonized because
napalm had been sprayed on her and her brother.
And these little children were literally running
away from the U .S. troops. And I think that
little girl's photo, that iconic photo, helped
to end a war. But lately, so many of us have
seen on our screens, on our phones, the pictures.
of razan children silhouetted in flames. I think
of a little girl named Varda al -Khalil. And
she and her family were in a school courtyard.
So they're forced into a courtyard living in
tents. And the tents were bombed, an aerial bombardment
by the Israeli defense forces. And this child
lost her mother and five of her siblings. Her
father was terribly injured. And she survived.
But ought not her picture at least start a resolution
toward a ceasefire in our time? So I guess, you
know, when we hear Dorothea Soales say, raise
the lament, we must do that. But we must also
keep trying to figure out how can we best organize
to make a difference. That's so helpful, the
great theologian. Dorothea Soleil. So following
up on that, it's a similar kind of question I
want to ask you about Jesus' teaching and commandment
in the Sermon on the Mount, love your enemies.
And you can tie that in with your global solidarity.
So the flip side is back home organizing and
speaking out here in the U .S. You know, Kathy,
I don't know if we ever talked about this, but
no one ever told me that I had to become an organizer.
But it's like a requirement today for every peace
activist, not just marching. You have to become
an organizer. But to frame it this way, Kathy,
if you can hang in here with me, I think at the
heart of the nonviolent Jesus' greatest campaign
speech, the Sermon on the Mount, is that commandment,
love your enemies. And that everybody gets it
wrong because we all think, oh, that means that.
Person across the street I don't like. It's nation
state language. It's your nation. It's the people
targeted by your nation for death. Jesus says
you go and love and stand with those people.
And that's what you have tried to do as you've
embodied the Sermon on the Mount. So I want to
ask you to reflect because we don't hear enough
about the central teaching of Jesus. To love
the enemies of the United States. And there's
a lot of them, unfortunately, including Iraq,
Afghanistan, Vietnam, Central America, but now
Palestine for all these years and the children
of Gaza. So we're talking about here a global,
universal, nonviolent love. Anything you want
to share with us about that? Well, John, isn't
it interesting that the people who would have
first heard Jesus' teachings really believed
that the end of the world was coming? And, I
mean, they were wrong. Here we are. But now we
stand in the face of three enormous threats to
human survival. Nuclear annihilation, the possibility
of more pandemics, and... Of course, ecological
catastrophe. And so, in a way, that should make
it easier, I think, for us to consider love of
enemy on the nation -state level. Because don't
we have more in common with the people in China
or in Russia or in North Korea or in Iran? Now
that we all have these common... problems we
face. Don't we need their scientists as much
as we need our own to all get all hands on deck
and find ways to get through ecological catastrophe?
Afghanistan has been declared this week likely
to be completely without water by 2030. We find
that any of the funds and scientific know -how
being directed into artificial intelligence to
control nuclear weaponry, it puts us all in peril.
So I think love of our friends, our brothers
and sisters in China, in Russia, in North Korea
makes so much sense right now. And if we have
any commitment to the children in our own country,
in our own lives. to the grandchildren, then
we really have no choice but to try and find
a way for a common homeland to be entrusted to
those children in the future. Wow, thank you,
Kathy. You remind me of what Dr. King said. He
was talking about Jesus and himself. He was being
challenged. Well, you're just impractical. This
kind of universal love is... impractical idealism.
And he said, no, it's the only practical realism
we have left. I was so pleased, John, to see
teenagers in Jordan when I was last there make
stickers for themselves saying that they wanted
to be compassionately maladjusted because they'd
really read Dr. King's work about how he never
intended to become adjusted. Isn't that amazing?
To white supremacy or to apartheid or to enemies
being scorned. It's amazing. To the listeners,
you know, I always joke, Kathy's our general.
And she called me once. I was in a parking lot
in Wyoming about to give a speech. And she says,
John, I need you to go to Afghanistan. To which
I said. When am I leaving? And, you know, I got
on a plane and left that week along with Shane
Claiborne and our friend, the Nobel laureate,
Maureen McGuire. And I get there and Kathy's
lined up these friends, the young, the Afghan
youth in Kabul. And Kathy, they were memorizing
Martin Luther King's speeches in Arabic. Yeah.
I've never recovered. It was so beautiful. And
they were desperate to hear us talk about Dr.
King and nonviolence. But now I want to go back
again to this question, which is very deep. And
you've already brought it up about lament. And
I want you to say a word intentionally about
it. So it's lament and grief and love. But then
don't forget you're saying, therefore, organize.
And so this was when Kathy and I were in Baghdad.
And, you know, to get there, you have to bring
your water. You drive in trucks 24 hours through
the desert to Baghdad. And we've been there and
now we're coming back. We've met thousands of
people. And it's that long drive through the
desert. And I quietly, I was sitting next to
you, you don't even remember. And I said, so
Kathy, you've been going like every two months
you go to Iraq. And she then went on to Afghanistan
and Gaza and Yemen. I said, okay. But how do
you do this? How do you keep entering into the
world of suffering and global solidarity with
the people our country has killed as a way of
life, like Thich Nhat Hanh did and he taught
us? To which you said, I've learned to take quiet
time each week to grieve for all the people I've
known who have died and all the people dying
from our wars. and our greed, and that grief,
you said, in effect, had become a spiritual practice
for me. I never heard anyone say that. And now
it's normal for me, and I've been teaching it.
I think it's required, as you say, because of
what we're doing to the environment and with
the nuclear threat. So I just wanted to ask you,
because I don't know that I ever have, to say
a word about grief as an intentional part or
aspect of our life. peacemakers? I don't know
that we can really find words for expression
of grief commensurate to the crimes being committed.
But that's okay. Silence, I think, in the face
of the enormity of the crimes, knowing that we
really will never have the words in any language
commensurate to these crimes. is, I believe,
a form of prayer. And so if people are reduced
to silence and to their tears, let those tears
flow. You or I would be a rock if we didn't feel
that deep, deep emotion of grief and lament.
But it does require some time. And our days become
very, very busy. It's easy to feel connected
all over the world. But, you know, if you need
to take a season out, a whole season, that's
okay. But I think probably for most of us, at
least some time during the day or during the
week, when we recognize just how hard we've made
life for others because of the comfort that we've
grown accustomed to without being overwhelmed
by guilt. But I do believe, I mean, one of the
graces of being part of a fest like this is to
be able to sit in silence for a stretch and then
get up and leaflet people or certainly welcome
people. But I've been very grateful for the silence
here in busy New York with all the construction.
To hold a sign that says, we cannot say we did
not know. Or another sign that says there's no
flag. Great enough, as Howard Zinn put it, to
cover the shame of killing innocent people. And
then to implore other people who are more powerful
to make a difference as they can and where they
can. Thank you, Kathy. You've demonstrated. throughout
your whole life, the power of someone to just
say, well, I'm going to do something. I can't
do everything, but I can do something. We all
have the power to do some public action and to
organize. You've always got something going on,
Kathy Kelly. And at the moment, you're the chair
of World Beyond War, and I want to ask you to
tell everybody about that project and anything
else you want to, other projects. And I put it
to you before that... I always think of, I mean,
the title of that group is amazing because half
of our work, to paraphrase Arundhati Roy, is
helping people reclaim the imagination, which
is, she says, one of the first casualties of
the culture of war. People can't even imagine
a world without war. You can't imagine a world
without the occupation of Palestinians or nuclear
weapons or racism or fossil fuels and poverty.
And you and I have to help people reimagine it
and work toward this new vision. So tell us a
little bit about that. So World Beyond War has
said we're against all wars. We're not going
to cherry pick and say, you know, this war is
OK, but that one wasn't so good. And I think
when Russia invaded Ukraine, actually, many people
in the peace movement said, well, we do have
to. approve war against Russia because of the
terrible violation of international law and of
norms. But World Beyond War said no, we aren't
going to get behind any resort to war, always
calling for diplomacy, believing that Albert
Camus was right when he said he'd make the terrible
gamble. that words are stronger than munitions.
So do we really believe that? I'm pleased to
work with World Beyond War because it's trying
to create chapters all around the world that
really do believe that. And the United States
government doesn't like to see international
organizing that tries to basically get people
everywhere in the world. on the same page saying
that the merchants of death, those who make the
weapons and sell the weapons, are actually in
violation of any kind of international law. And
yet that's precisely the vision of the nonviolent
Jesus and all the peacemakers in history, that
war doesn't work, and to be human is to welcome
a new world of peace where everyone has food,
housing, health care, shelter, jobs, dignity,
education, and that all of this is doable. And
yet we get so bought up in this country that,
oh, my God, as you say, we'll have to support
the country in any war, it says, or I'm going
to, well, this war really is necessary. But how
can people help? people learn that war is obsolete.
It doesn't work, and it now threatens the entire
planet. So you and I have kind of dedicated our
lives to just keep teaching peace. Any final
thoughts about encouraging others to go forward
and teach peace, even in the face of war? Well,
when Jesus was in the temple and he went to the
money changers who were supporting oppression
of ordinary Palestinians and particularly poor
Palestinians, he turned over that table. And
I think that we could turn over the tables if
we became more linked together. And that's not
so easy always, but we can find the kindred spirits
and say, all right, let's together. say we're
not going to allow that table to be upright and
find nonviolent ways to turn it over. And that
means that we find who we can link up with. And
I believe that Pax Christi International has
been great at doing that. Fellowship of Reconciliation
International, World Beyond War, and its effort
to be international, but to keep on looking for
those kindred spirits. And build those relationships,
believing that ours is to plant the seeds. And
it may be for another generation to reap the
harvest. But if people are thinking, well, where
do I find my kindred spirits? I would say go
to the place in your neighborhood where people
are rolling up their sleeves, cutting up vegetables,
making soup, getting ready to serve the neediest.
make room for shelters for those who have no
place to stay. Find that group, and from there,
you'll get linked up to the others who are dealing
with the world -changing environmental problems.
Well, thank you so much, Kathy Kelly, for speaking
with me today. And thank you, friends, for listening
to the Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can hear
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