The Telos Channel

Last weekend, Israeli police raided Al-Aqsa mosque, injuring hundreds at Islam's third holiest site, and inflaming tensions during a tense moment in Israel/Palestine as Ramadan, Passover, and Easter converge.

Tensions have continued to rise, and we discuss our prediction for where things might go in the next few weeks, as well as how we can cut through the noise to promote a framework of human rights and mutual flourishing in the region.

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

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Resources shared:

• My Neighbourhood, by Just Vision

This week, we turn our eyes back to Israel/Palestine, where a spate of attacks which killed around a dozen Israelis have tensions heightened leading into the holidays.

We also discuss the recent gathering of nations who signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in the Negev, including a visit from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. What does the summit have to say about the Palestinian issue?

*Note: We recorded this show the afternoon before the attack in Dizengoff Square, near where Jack and Carly live in Jaffa. Carly shares an honest reflection on the event at the top of the show.

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

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If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

Leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify

Resources shared:

• Infamous photo from the Negev Peace Summit
• Negev Coexistence Forum
• Boy cartwheeling outside the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem

How can you enjoy for yourself what you deny for your neighbor?

This is the question that drove Todd Deatherage in co-founding Telos. It’s a question that compels him to a life of “neighbor love,” to not just passively accept that his neighbors need the same things that he does, but to actively work at providing these things for them. 

Todd shares how this neighbor love is at the core of Telos’ guiding principle of mutual flourishing, which imagines a future for Palestinians and Israelis where all people can enjoy dignity, freedom, and security in equal measure. He shares his story, journeying from Congressional politics to co-founding an American peacemaking movement, and why imagining a third way of mutual flourishing is necessary for building a better future—in Israel/Palestine, in the US, and beyond.

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

Subscribe to the Telos Newsletter for more news analysis and peacemaking resources: http://eepurl.com/cG1LGH

Follow Telos on Instagram @thetelosgroup

If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

With the war in Ukraine continuing, we called in our friend and former team member Marina Klimchuk to help us understand the human-toll of the war on Ukrainians both within the country and in the diaspora. 

Marina, who was born in Ukraine but now lives in Germany, shares stories from family members and friends fleeing the violence, and helps us navigate a difficult conversation on the efficacy of nonviolence in the midst of violent war. Is it applicable in all stances? Is nonviolence pacifism? What can we as Americans do to support Ukrainians nonviolently? We discuss these questions in an honest conversation that you won’t want to miss. 

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

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If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

Leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify

Resources

• Telos' shortlist of resources on Ukraine: 
• Marina’s Ukrainian Literature Recommendations: Orphanage: A Novel, by Serhiy Zhadan; In Isolation, by Stanislav Aseyev
• Pacifism, Violence, and Nonviolent Resistance in Ukraine, by Bryan Carey

In the face of ongoing injustice, does nonviolence actually work? 

Sulaiman Khatib spent 10 years in prison for being part of armed resistance against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. But during his time in prison, he experienced an unexpected transformation: he became an activist for nonviolence. 

He came to believe that more than vanquishing his enemy, his freedom was better secured by liberating them—that his liberation and the liberation of the very people imprisoning him are actually intertwined. Nonviolent resistance, he realized, was the only way to make a future of mutual liberation and mutual flourishing possible. After his release from prison, Sulaiman co-founded the joint Palestinian-Israeli organization Combatants for Peace, a group of former soldiers, ex-prisoners, and other activists in Israel/Palestine that reject the use of violence and fight for peace through nonviolent means. 

Nonviolence isn’t passive. It actually costs something. And Sulaiman teaches us how we can remain steadfast in nonviolent practice in the face of ongoing injustice. 

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Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

Subscribe to the Telos Newsletter for more news analysis and peacemaking resources: http://eepurl.com/cG1LGH

Follow Telos on Instagram @thetelosgroup

If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

Resources:

Learn more about Combatants for Peace 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces is upending the world. Already, more than 1 million refugees have fled into bordering nations, and analysts predict this will be the biggest war in Europe since WWII. 

We invited Chris Seiple, PhD, President Emeritus of the Institute for Global Engagement to help explain unfolding events in Ukraine. We discuss what’s happened so far, the unrecognized religious dimensions of the conflict, and the ways we as peacemakers can respond to this crisis. This is an important conversation. Lean in, and stand up. 

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

Follow Telos on Instagram @thetelosgroup

If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

Leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify

Subscribe to the Telos newsletter

Resources mentioned: 

• Telos' shortlist of resources on Ukraine
• Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, Anne Applebaum
• Winter On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Independence

None of us can turn away from the news in Ukraine. We stand behind international law and decry the Russian invasion, just as we lament the loss of life and displacement this invasion will cause. In this moment, don't look away. We're developing and sourcing resources now to direct you on getting active for peace.

In the meantime, we want to share some good, and dare we say it, hopeful news: Telos travel is finally back after two years. We'd love to tell you all about it.

Commander Mike Horn, recently retired from the Tempe Police Department, joined David Gungor to discuss his recent Telos trip leading law enforcement across the US South to discover deeper truths about what it means to be a "peace officer." Mike shares about their powerful encounters with stories that have left them completely changed and ready to dive back into their work transformed.

We also hear from Jack as he shares about our first trip to Israel/Palestine since early 2020, and the joy of reuniting with our partners and friends on the ground.

In this moment, we're not asking you to tune out from the headlines—we're living in a potentially world-shifting moment. But those are often the exact moments when we need stories of hope and joy all the more.

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking
Follow Telos on Instagram @thetelosgroup
If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!
Leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify

Is violence the only effective form of resistance?

Fadi Quran grew up under Israeli occupation dreaming of ways to resist the tanks and soldiers he saw around him. But on a pilgrimage to India, tracing the steps of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr’s own journey there, he encountered the radical vision of nonviolence that has since changed his life.

Today, he is a nonviolent Palestinian activist who weds a deep commitment to truth with a deep care for humanity. His activism not only disrupts the status quo, but is rooted in a love that actually transforms his “enemies.” In a world that says violence is the only effective means to achieve our ends, Fadi demonstrates that there’s another way possible, a way that upholds the dignity of all.

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

Subscribe to the Telos Newsletter for more news analysis and peacemaking resources: http://eepurl.com/cG1LGH

Follow Telos on Instagram @thetelosgroup

If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

Resources:

Follow Fadi Quran on Twitter

This week, we discuss the reality of life for Bedouin communities in the West Bank, who struggle with profound inequities in access to resources, and what it looks like to effectively and ethically stand in solidarity with them and other vulnerable communities. 

We also discuss International Holocaust Remembrance Day, remembered last week, and why such remembrance is especially important in light of rising antisemitism across the world. 

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

Follow Telos on Instagram @thetelosgroup

If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

Leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify

Resources mentioned: 

The Check-in: MLK Jr’s Legacy, Emma Watson, and Antisemitism

Undaunted Season 2 | Ainka Jackson: Until All Are Free

Is justice possible without reconciliation?

Ainka Jackson was raised in Selma, Alabama around the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights movement. With the memory of Bloody Sunday behind them, these leaders taught Ainka the power of love and nonviolence to transform systems of oppression.

But today, Selma holds a complex legacy of both love and hate. The community continues to face serious obstacles to peace. Despite these immense challenges, Ainka sees an opportunity to build a new reality in her home, where reconciliation raises relationships to a level where justice prevails and persons obtain their full human potential. MLK Jr. calls this reality the Beloved Community, and Ainka is making it possible through her work at the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation. 

In this episode, Ainka shares her stories of growing up in Selma, and why she believes true justice is not possible until all are free—until together, we’ve built the Beloved Community.

Read and share the Principles and Practices of Peacemaking

Subscribe to the Telos Newsletter for more news analysis and peacemaking resources: http://eepurl.com/cG1LGH

Follow Telos on Instagram @thetelosgroup

If you’re enjoying the podcast, become a monthly donor to Telos!

Learn more about the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation