“Let your peace rain upon us,” they sang.
Inside the University Center Theater, 150 people had gathered for an interfaith peace vigil. As the death toll in Gaza neared 10,000, they’d needed a space for grieving—and they found it here.
“Regardless of whether or not you identify with these spiritual traditions, or none at all, know that you are welcome here,” said Eric Huseth, executive director of Missioula’s Emmaus Campus Ministry.
Speakers shared poems, sermons and songs. Between each speaker, Huseth struck a singing bowl, and Rebekah Cochrane, a pastor at Missoula’s Immanuel Lutheran Church, led the audience in a song from Palestinian tradition: first in Arabic, then English.
Yarabba ssalami amter alayna ssalam,
Yarabba ssalami im la’ qulubana ssalam.
They sang it maybe a dozen times, the chorus growing louder with each refrain. Quiet sniffles were the only constants in this varied soundscape: the peaceful lull of Arabic, the weighted pauses of Christian sermon, and rhythmic Hebrew chanting. And then the song:
Let your peace rain upon us.
As Missoulians grapple with the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war, this peace vigil, held on Nov. 5, was one type of response—a “deep action of sacred ritual,” as Huseth called it.
Another is “engaging with intentional, peaceful, purposeful protest,” he said. Such protests are happening across the country and the world. Tens of thousands of people are gathering and marching to denounce Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza after the brutal initial attack on Israelis by Hamas militants.
Missoulians have also engaged in protest, to a different soundscape than the vigil’s: drums, call-and-response shouts, a small malfunctioning speaker, a wooden spoon clanging on a pot.
The group Montanans in Solidarity with Palestine has organized a march every weekend since the Israeli retaliation began. One of their demonstrations, on Oct. 21, was crashed by white supremacists who sought to co-opt and contort the pro-Palestinian protest’s message into one of shared antisemitism. The clash resulted in police arresting one of the white supremacists, a man from Washington, for disrupting a peaceful rally. Earlier the hate group had displayed their anti-Jewish and anti-refugee signs outside Missoula’s Har Shalom synagogue.
“We offer our unqualified solidarity with the Jewish and immigrant communities in Missoula against fascism and anti-Semitism,” Montanans in Solidarity with Palestine said in a statement after the confrontation. “Neo-Nazis tried to break our solidarity and they failed, as they always will.”
The group has also hosted two teach-ins about Palestine. Its first, in late October, was about the war’s historical context and misrepresentations in the media. A Nov. 11 teach-in at the Missoula Public Library was titled “Resisting Dehumanization.”
The October event was held at Free Cycles a few days after the white supremacists came to town, which is why it included a quick rundown on de-escalation strategies for a few volunteers. About 60 people attended. They sat in creaky folding chairs facing a panel at a table covered in black-and-white checkered keffiyehs, square scarves traditionally worn as headdresses.
Speakers included Brendan Work, a former West Bank journalist and local high school Arabic teacher; Carly Fuglei, who for the past 10 years has worked for the United Nations on gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights in Iraq and Lebanon; Paul Kim, a policy associate at the ACLU of Montana; and Kelcie Murphy, a local Jewish leader who’s worked with activists in the West Bank and on the Gaza border. She also helped organize the interfaith peace vigil.
The teach-in started with a nod to Missoula’s history of opposition to war. And then a poem: Noor Hindi’s “Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying.” In typical Free Cycles fashion, the presenters sipped craft beers while they clicked through a slideshow that ended with examples of how Montana ties into this distant war.
One way, Kim said, is that Montana exists on lands stolen by white colonialists who forcibly removed Indigenous peoples. That’s parallel to what’s happening in Palestine, Kim said.
Another way is via Montana’s congressional delegation.
In mid-October, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines introduced a bill that would bar people with passports issued by the Palestinian Authority from entering the U.S.
More recently, U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke proposed legislation that would take Daines’ bill a few steps further, not only barring the Department of Homeland Security from issuing visas and asylum and refugee status to Palestinians, but also giving the department power to revoke such status granted since Oct. 1.
Last week, the ACLU condemned Zinke’s bill as “an attempt to vilify and dehumanize Palestinians,” and an example of politicians stoking “racism and hate.” Monica Tranel, who’s running against Zinke next year, called it “a disgusting display of Islamophobia.”
Montanans in Solidarity with Palestine responded to Zinke and his bill on Instagram, saying: “We will work tirelessly against you to ensure this legislation goes straight into the garbage, where it belongs.”
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, meanwhile, was among the 35 Democrats in the Senate who issued a joint statement in mid-October asking for the “swift implementation of sustained access for humanitarian aid, including water and medical supplies, to save civilian lives in Gaza.” But Tester has stopped short of calling for a ceasefire, which is what Missoula’s pro-Palestinian demonstrators are demanding when they protest outside his office every week.
During the teach-in at Free Cycles, one attendee asked, essentially: How can I talk about this war with a friend who disagrees?
Kelcie Murphy took this one. Despite the difficulties of “navigating the waters as a Jewish person,” she said, “it’s very simple for me to disconnect the idea [that] ‘you’re not anti-Israel, you’re pro-human rights.’”
But, Murphy said, she—and all of us—have to meet people where they’re at.
The death toll in Gaza as of Nov. 13: at least 11,240.
