An American Evangelical Christian Man’s Awakening to Palestine [Book Review]
“This is all we ask. Go back and tell the truth.”
The author of this memoir, Rev. Don Wagner, is a longtime friend. Back in the day, Rev. Wagner was based in Chicago, Illinois and I was in Youngstown, Ohio. We both were engaged in the same struggle for Palestine. Subsequently, when I relocated to Palestine, I would speak to the various eyewitness delegations he led to the Holy Land, or what he prefers to call the “unholy land” — which, he writes, “serves as a place of injustice that awaits the arc of the moral universe bending to usher in justice, peace, and reconciliation.”
In the mid 1980’s, as a student and campus activist with the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) at Youngstown State University, I remember being thrilled when Rev. Don Wagner accepted our invitation to be a guest speaker on campus. He was one of the first non-Palestinians whose knowledge of Palestine increased my own. I was intrigued by this American who was not only impressively well-informed but who was also, and more importantly, courageous enough to speak out on Palestine before it was kosher to do so on US campuses. His informed advocacy and its impact on me helped motivate me to become better informed myself about Palestine’s struggle so that I could educate others effectively.
