The largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States has voted overwhelmingly to recognize Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and to divest from Palantir Technologies and General Electric Aerospace over their ties to Israel’s military and intelligence services. A measure approved Tuesday by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) also calls on church members to boycott Israeli products and to lobby Congress for an arms embargo against Israel. This is the Rev. Dr. Fahed Abu Akel, a Palestinian American and former moderator of the Presbyterian Church who survived the 1948 “Nakba,” or mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s founding.

Rev. Fahed Abu Akel: “We have been silent on the destruction of most of the schools, universities, hospitals, mosques and churches — you know, one church was Orthodox, Catholic and also Baptist — all of which were done with our American-made weapons and dollars. Siblings in Christ, in the name of the living Christ, we cannot be silent on this matter any longer.”