Good Friday/Passover Direct Action at Lockheed Martin
As we continue to try to find ways to stand against the violence in Gaza and across the globe, we will be hosting a seder, prayer vigil, and day of direct action during Passover, on Good Friday, at Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons contractor.
Register Here:
Passover/Good Friday @ Lockheed Martin, Philadelphia Registration Form
Convened/Endorsed by: Red Letter Christians, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Prayers for Peace Alliance, Mennonite Action – Philadelphia, Rabbis for Ceasefire, Jewish Voice for Peace – Philadelphia, Freedom Road, Brandywine Peace Community
Our core convictions:
We oppose all forms of hatred, racism, and discrimination, including antisemitism, anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia, and homo and trans-phobia. We affirm the truth that all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, or nationality are created in the image of God. In the words of Emma Lazarus, “until we are all free, we are none of us free.”
We believe in and adhere to nonviolence in strategy, principle, and philosophy. As communicated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who got his inspiration who learned his techniques from Mohandas K. Gandhi:
Principle one: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil. It is aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally.
Principle two: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding. The result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation. The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
Principle three: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people. Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people. The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil, not people.
Principle four: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform. Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation. Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.
Principle five: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as the body. Nonviolent love is spontaneous, unmotivated, unselfish, and creative.
Principle six: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice. The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win. Nonviolence believes that God is a God of justice.”
Positions on issues affecting the world today:
We affirm the right to love whomever one chooses and be whatever gender identity one chooses.
The affirm right to control one’s body, whether from that be the termination of a pregnancy or transition from one gender to another.
We oppose initiatives to allow parents to opt their children out of public school experiences that teach children about diversities of families, religion, gender, sexuality, race, and creed.
As we express our solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against settler-colonialism, we are cognizant of and in solidarity with First Nation peoples. We seek the blessing and collaboration of the First Nations Peoples of the land on which we walk and recommit ourselves to the work of healing-justice for all indigenous people.
We call for the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and others being disappeared in retaliation for their advocacy for Palestinian liberation and in violation of their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and due process under the U.S. constitution and international law. These arrests and deportations are not just an attack on one individual, but part of a broader effort to instill fear among peace activists and dissenters, especially those in immigrant, refugee, and Arab communities.
We affirm the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, that migrants, regardless of their status, are entitled to the same human rights as everyone else, including the right to dignity, freedom from discrimination, and protection from arbitrary detention or deportation. No human being is illegal.
We engage in direction action an act of repentance and lamentation for our collective sins of omission by not taking action for Palestinian liberation and our collective sins of commission by allowing ourselves, our houses of worship, and our government to support and contribute to 75 years of oppression of Palestinians and a genocide occurring in real-time in front of our eyes.
We are painfully aware of how the holiday of Good Friday has historically been a time of incitement to hatred and violence against Jews, and we thoroughly reject the antisemitic trope that the Jews were then, and are eternally, collectively guilty of deicide.
We welcome our Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, and other allies. We affirm the interconnectedness of our different faiths as we seek together to eliminate the war, violence, and hatred that are abominations in the eyes of our collective God.
We affirm the teachings of Jesus that “whatever you do to the the least of these, you do to me” and declare from Ephesians 6:12 that “Our battle is not against flesh and blood” but against the Powers of domination, oppression, and violence.
We affirm the words of Mahmoud Khalil: “As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other.” In every generation the Jewish people are commanded to tell the story of Israelite exodus from Mitzrayim (the narrow place). Today the Palestinian people are in mitzrayim. Lockheed Martin, and other weapons manufactures, as well as the U.S. and Israeli governments are Pharaoh. We seek to cross over from Mitzrayim, but, in the words of Jewish Latina feminist Aurora Levins Morales teaches us: “We cannot cross until we carry each other.” We know that none of us are free, until all of us are free.
