'Prayers for Palestine' event highlights crisis in Gaza

Olivia Mccourry, The Norman Transcript, Okla.
·3 min read

Oct. 21—"Silence is violence," said Imad Enchassi of the Greater Islamic Society of Oklahoma City, during the Stories From Gaza and Prayers for Palestine: Uniting in Prayers for Peace and Justice event Friday evening.

The service, held at the Society's Mercy Mission building, 3840 N St. Clair in Oklahoma City, was put together to share "important stories that we have collected from friends and family living, perhaps most appropriately struggling, to live in Gaza right now," said Adam Soltani, the executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, during the meeting.

He continued to say that the stories heard that evening are not the ones being "recognized" by politicians and the media.

For example, he told the story of Heba Shatila, who had been a 2023 Community Engagement Exchange Fellow with CAIR and had left to go back to Gaza when her internship ended.

Soltani said Shatila had grown to love Oklahoma and the people in it, but was happy to be reunited with her family at the time.

"Despite the fact it wasn't the best life, it was her home," he added.

Now, from multiple back and forth conversations with Soltani she wishes she had never left, he said.

In her own words she had told him "I wish I was still in Oklahoma where it is safe, I wish I had never left and above all I wish for an end to the war and to the violence."

Shatila's family home has been destroyed in the violence and she was taken to a hospital after being pulled from the rubble. To Soltani she said "We feel every moment we are getting closer to death."

The evening also included speakers from Indigenous and Black American communities, like Reverend Chebon Kernell, an ordained Elder in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, and Masood Abdul-Haqq, a board member for CAIR.

"I was asked to speak on the Black American connection to Palestine and it runs deep," Abdul-Haqq said. The community recognizes similar struggles and oppressors on a "spiritual level."

Both the Black American and Palestinian communities have been "proverbial cell mates for the past 75 years," he said.

"I will continue to speak on our behalf, your behalf, on behalf of the Gazans and all of the people who are oppressed around the world. It is a condition of the heart, brothers and sisters," he added.

Kernell made similar remarks by saying "I stand here in solidarity for a ceasefire. I stand here in solidarity calling for an end to the occupation of Indigenous territories."

He compared the situation in Gaza to the Trail of Tears that removed Indigenous communities in Northern America from their homes to what is now Oklahoma.

"We were brought here under occupation," he said. "We fought the US government to maintain our homes and I will never say we lost."

Enchassi also made this comparison by saying "the people in Gaza are going through the Palestinian Trail of Tears because they tell them to go from this side to this side and you'll be safe. And on the way they hunt them down."

Once a Palestinian refugee himself in Lebanon, he condemned the ongoing back and forth violence, and hopes people will continue to raise their voice in protest.

"Tonight is a call to the humanity of each and every one of us," Soltani said. "Hopefully you can walk away from this evening with some encouragement, motivation and ideas on how you can advocate for an end to violence and to bring about peace."