Governor Jim Pillen
1445 K Street
Lincoln, NE 68508
Governor Pillen,
Last week, you signed an executive order intended to create a system which will compile complaints and incidents of antisemitism in Nebraska public schools under the Department of Education. You also committed the Department of Education to providing materials on the Holocaust, and you said that state staff will receive anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training. You noted the rise in anti-semitism across the nation and within our state, a rise which concerns me as well. Working to fight religious persecution and reduce intolerance in its many forms is a laudable goal. As a Christian committed to justice and peace for all of God’s beloved children, I share that goal with you.
However, Governor, your own words during the signing of that executive order showed that you have much to learn about hatred, history, and the people of Palestine, who suffer unjust persecution and violence of their own which also must be brought to an end.
You said: “In Nebraska, we do not tolerate hate in any form.” Yet minutes later, you said, “those people [Palestinians] are born to kill Jews and Christians.” Governor, I cannot call those words anything but hatred for the people of Palestine, a dehumanizing dismissal of an entire people based in ignorance and fear.
You said, “The only way hatred can thrive is if history is forgotten.” Yet minutes later, you forgot the history of illegal land seizures in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. You forgot the families who are still refugees within Palestine generations after the creation of the state of Israel. You forgot the estimated 75,000 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli violence since the horrors of October 7, 2023, a slow genocide that continues today under a ‘cease fire’ in which Palestinian civilians continue to die.
Governor, you mentioned traveling to Israel, meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and visiting an Israeli village in which 400 people had been slaughtered. I believe you when you describe the horror experienced by that village. The attacks of October 7th were an atrocity, and the people who carried them out should be brought to justice. But your comments last week make it clear that you have not heard from the people of the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, who suffer a no less atrocious violation of their human rights. Allow me to tell you some of their story.
In January, I traveled to the West Bank as part of a delegation from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to celebrate the consecration of the new presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land. I was a guest of this small but active Palestinian church for nearly two weeks. I was at the Jaffa Gate preparing for a celebratory procession to the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection just down the street from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher when we received word that the bishop’s family had been detained, his mother threatened at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers even though all the necessary paperwork for entry into the Old City had been completed weeks in advance. I met with a farming family who has spent over $350,000 in legal fees over the last 40 years, fighting an unjust Israeli court system simply to continue farming land which has been legally owned and occupied by their family for generations. I walked through the Aida refugee settlement, where snipers have killed children and civilians without cause and without consequences. I have seen the hills where Israeli settlements are started without legal justification and Palestinians have been forced to relocate yet again without fair compensation. I have met the staff of Augusta Victoria Hospital, a Lutheran World Federation facility which treats Palestinian refugees when no one else will do so, and I have listened to them describe their attempts to provide pediatric cancer treatment within the Gaza Strip only to be denied by the Israeli military for security reasons. Palestinian children are dying of cancer when life-giving care is within reach - and it is not the hatred of Palestinians that prevents that care from reaching those in need.
Do you know what I never once heard, Governor? I never heard any Palestinian wish for harm to come to their persecutors. Not once. I heard anger at the perpetuation of injustice against the Palestinian people. I heard deep grief at the violence that has killed so many people on both sides of this seemingly unending conflict. I heard fierce pride in being Palestinian, and a steadfast determination to continue to work for justice and peace in the Holy Land. But not once did I hear anyone say, “That Netanyahu, he wants to kill every Palestinian person on the planet.” Not once did I hear any of our hosts say, “those Israelis are born to kill Palestinians.” Not. Once.
In no way do I mean to excuse or deny the actual violence that has been carried out by Palestinians and Israelis. Atrocities have been committed by both parties, and any hope for a peaceful resolution to the current conflict will require those responsible to bear the consequences of their actions. Continued overgeneralization of this complex conflict, however, will serve only to proliferate an unjust and biased narrative and prolong the suffering of millions as a consequence.
Governor, when you speak, your words reflect on the Nebraskans you serve. Your dismissive and dehumanizing words about the people of Palestine cast a pall of intolerance and ignorance on all of us. You supported an ill-informed and overly simplistic view of the conflict in the Holy Land. It would have been far better had you said nothing at all.
We deserve better than this from you. The people of Palestine deserve an apology, as do your fellow Nebraskans.
Yours in Christ,
The Rev. Scott Alan Johnson, Bishop
Nebraska Synod - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
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