Dear APOPA members and supporters
We are sending you this last newsletter of 2023 with heavy hearts, but with deep gratitude to all of you who have stood with us at AFOPA. Your steadfast support has given us strength and hope during this most difficult of times. Words will never be able to express how grateful we are for your solidarity.
Since the cataclysmic events of October, we have been overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity. Thank you for your emails, phone calls, orders, visits to the Palestine Centre for Peace, donations and offers of volunteer and professional services. On some days when we were running on empty, you kept us going.
Thank you to the members who have renewed your membership and those who have joined us as members and subscribers. With the help of our wonderful volunteers, online orders have finally been able to be fulfilled. We still haven’t managed to answer all the thousands of emails and offers of assistance received. We will, and hope you understand.
We have been inspired by the mobilisation of so many people at rallies, and the activation of a multitude of initiatives from the grassroots. Palestinian, Muslim and Arab groups, human rights organisations, unionists, doctors, nurses, university and high school students and ordinary Australians from all walks of life, have mobilised and organised in an enormous show of support for the people of Gaza. We will continue to build on this extraordinary momentum.
While the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza continues to wreak death and destruction on the Palestinian people, Australia's leaders continue to lack the moral courage to reassess Australia’s relationship with the apartheid state of Israel. This is shameful and intolerable.
In solidarity with the people of Gaza, Palestinian leaders of Christian denominations came together in Bethlehem and made a unanimous decision to cancel public Christmas celebrations. The Church of the Nativity, famous for its grotto marking the location where Christians believe Jesus was born, normally bustling with thousands of people, is empty. A short walk away, the Evangelical Lutheran Church has placed the baby Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh in the centre of broken cement to symbolise children being pulled from the rubble.
Many of us are not feeling the Christmas or holiday spirit this year. Many of you have told us that your Christmas will be muted and that your thoughts will be with the people of Gaza. Please take care of yourselves and your loved ones. And never lose hope.
As millions of people who are taking to the streets around the world are demonstrating, it is we, the People, who will force change. In this we remain tireless and resolute. Together, we will amplify the voices of Palestinians for justice and a free Palestine.
Christa Christaki
Chairperson
December 2023