From Bethlehem on Christmas Eve: A Call to Responsibility

Dear friend,

As we enter the fourth year of the aftermath of the October 7 attack on Israel, Palestinians are experiencing an ongoing Nakba, genocide in Gaza, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Israelis still don’t feel safe.

If you're exhausted, you're not alone. For many of us who have followed these events closely, the weight of this violence and the feeling of not being able to do anything to stop it, can be demoralizing. But exhaustion should not become indifference. 

What can we do?

Advocate for nonviolent alternatives. Some say nothing could have been different, or that Israel had no alternative. They are wrong. Five days after October 7, 2023, NVI published Mubarak Awad's seven steps for stopping the violence and injustice. Our nonviolent solutions will work.

Read Jonathan Kuttab's nonviolent alternatives in his book Beyond the Two-State Solution (free download on our website). He proposes that Palestinians & Israelis must center equality, human rights, nonviolence, and interdependence in some 1-state variation. Please share these resources widely.

Draw strength from Gaza. Read and watch the remarkable work coming out of Gaza. Gazan sumud (steadfastness) in the face of genocidal attacks and open-air-prison conditions is truly inspiring. Musicians, artists, historians, entrepreneurs, scientists, parents, builders, and farmers just keep going. We Are Not Numbers has an amazing book and website full of stories from Gaza, published in many different languages.

Support grassroots movements: become a monthly donor. We are blessed to sponsor some of the best projects and partners in the region. Please consider a monthly gift to one, several, or all of them:

1. We Are Not Numbers

2. Holy Land Trust

3. Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine

4. Center for Jewish Nonviolence

5. Mennonite Action

6. Women of the Sun

7. United for Dignity Alliance 

8. US Boat to Gaza (Freedom Flotilla)

9. Hebron International Resource Network

10. Villages Group

11. Prayers for Peace Alliance

12. From Here Forward

13. NVI itself, where Sami in Bethlehem, Bianca in Europe, and Michael in DC continue to organize for Palestinian equality.

Act: choose one or two.

• Boycott Israeli or at least Israeli settlement products, services, and companies.

• Divest from Israeli bonds and companies.

• Visit Palestine, as a tourist or a solidarity activist (HLT, CJNV, and Mennonite Action run tours).

• Block weapons shipments bound for Israel.

And rest. Sustaining this work means taking care of ourselves. Spend more time with people you love and recharge your energy. We need you for the long haul.

In solidarity,
The NVI Team

P.S. Join us on October 18, at 3pm ET / 10pm Jerusalem for Bombs Don't Build Themselves: Who's Arming Israel's Wars? A conversation examining the weapons industry and the systems that enable continued violence, and the mechanisms that exist to prevent this violence. Register here.

Dear friend, 

Over the years, many of us have explored the greatest calling of nonviolence, which is not just the strategy, but as a way of being in the world. We have wrestled with questions of fear, displacement, identity, trauma, justice, courage, healing, resistance, and what it means to remain human in times that continually pull us toward division and despair.

For me personally, this long journey has also led me deeper into the teachings of a man named Jesus (not as a religious figure) but into his teachings in the time of his life, living under the empire and occupation. In that, I discovered the Beatitudes not simply as religious ideas, but as an invitation to inner transformation and to a different way of living and seeing. That led me to write my book The Sacred Awakening: Reclaiming Christ Consciousness.

This October (10-21), I will be joined by other amazing people, including Palestinian Artivist Rawan Roshni, in guiding a 10-day journey in Palestine called The Sacred Awakening Pilgrimage. This is not a typical tour or traditional pilgrimage. It is an invitation into a deeper inner journey through the teachings of Jesus, the Beatitudes, contemplative practice, community encounters, solidarity, reflection, and the living reality of this land and its people.

The journey is rooted in many of the same questions that have shaped my own work for decades:

• How do we break cycles of fear and domination?
• What does transformation actually require of us?
• What does it mean to embody love, truth, courage, and nonviolence in a fractured world?
• How do we stand in resistance and resistance to empires from a different energy than what we receive from them?

Together we will move through Bethlehem, the desert, the Galilee, Jerusalem, and other spaces, not simply to visit historical sites, but to engage them as mirrors for our own lives, consciousness, and calling.


This experience is definitely open to you or maybe someone you know, to people from all backgrounds, whether religious, spiritual, questioning, active in resistance, or simply seeking a deeper way of living.

If this speaks to you, I invite you to learn more here and sign up for a Q&A taking place on June 6th, at 10AM ET, 5PM Palestine time.

With peace & gratitude,
Sami Awad
NVI Co-Director

P.S. NVI will also be participating in the upcoming Resistance Studies Conference at UMass Amherst on June 18-21. I will be speaking on Palestine alongside activists that will address other occupied territories around the world. If you’ll be attending, the NVI team would love to know and get to connect with you there.

Dear Friends,

From March 20 to 23, NVI Co-Directors, Michael Beer, Sami Awad, and board member Mohammed Abunimer, joined the Nuestra América Delegation to Cuba as part of a much larger international convoy of more than 600 people from around the world. We came as activists, artists, influencers, faith leaders, and community organizers, united by a simple conviction: the Cuban people should not be left alone under an embargo that continues to punish ordinary life.

The delegation was supported by CODEPINK, Progressive International, Global Health Partners, and Busboys and Poets, alongside a wider network that included The People’s Forum, Cuban Americans for Cuba, and Global Exchange.

It was our first time in Cuba! What we witnessed was not theoretical, was not news reports, was not propaganda. 

Havana looks like a movie set from the 1950s! The cars and buildings are stunning -- but so run down. During our time there, Cuba continued to experience major electrical outages, part of a broader energy crisis that has left entire neighborhoods in darkness and placed immense strain on daily life. The blackouts are tied to the suffocating impact of the U.S. embargo, including restrictions on oil and essential resources.

In Cuba, this is not an abstract policy debate. It means hospitals under pressure, food and medicine at risk, transportation disrupted, garbage piled in streets, markets shut, restaurants closed, and families forced to survive with less and less.

And yet what we encountered was not defeatism. It was resilience. Generosity. Dignity.

People gathered in the dark. They shared what they had. They played music and sang in the streets. We played spirited mixed-gender ultimate with them (with donated frisbees that Michael brought). That spirit stays with us.

For those of us Palestinians, this was deeply personal. We met with and were inspired by Cuban students and others from around the world including Palestinians. We know what it means to live under systems designed to isolate, weaken, and break a people. We know what it feels like when your suffering is discussed from a distance while you are still living inside it. In Cuba, we recognized something painfully familiar: a people being made to pay the price for refusing to submit.

That is why this trip was not only a solidarity visit with medical relief and aid but also an act of nonviolent defiance.

This said, the convoy defied the embargo and carried real material support. Around 20 tons of aid were delivered, including food, medicine, solar panels, and bicycles. The delegation we were part of brought thousands of pounds of medical supplies and over a hundred suitcases and boxes of humanitarian aid, all going directly to hospitals and health workers facing severe shortages.

After we returned, the delegation faced attacks and accusations meant to discredit the trip and turn solidarity into suspicion. We reject that. People can debate politics from afar, but we know what we saw. The US has no problem engaging and trading with the communist parties of Vietnam, China, Nepal, and Laos. We saw a country under enormous pressure. We saw communities enduring blackouts and shortages. We saw doctors, families, churches, and neighbors doing their best to hold life together. And we saw hundreds of people from across the world choosing not to look away.

The embargo is not just policy, it is collective punishment.

What we carried back from Cuba was more than memory, it was clarity.

The Palestine and Cuba siege are connected, and so must be our response.

What can you do?

• Learn. Stay informed. Support organizations like the ones mentioned above.
• Refuse the narratives that justify collective punishment and oppose US unilateral sanctions on Palestine, Cuba and many other countries.
• Use your voice—in your communities, your platforms, your spaces.
• And find ways—big or small—to stand in real solidarity, including joining future delegations. Visit CUBA!

With Nonviolent Defiance,
Mohammed Abunimer, Michael Beer & Sami Awad

P.S. Please remember to attend our round table Field Testing Israeli Occupation Tech: The Palestine Lab on Sunday, April 19, 2026 3pm ET and see films in advance. This Round Table centers the human impact of this experimentation, examining how Palestinian lives are used as testing grounds for weapons, AI platforms, and policing tactics later exported worldwide. Join the Q&A discussion with: Omar Zahzah, Jeff Halper, Antony Loewenstein, Hassan El-Tayyab

You must register to join the discussion & receive access to the films