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August 24th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
Layan Nasir, a parishioner at St. Peter’s Anglican/Episcopal Church in Birzeit, Palestine, is a 21-year-old Nutrition and Dietetics student at Birzeit University. A remarkable young woman with a calm demeanor, tender spirit, and incredible potential, Layan was raised in a devout Anglican family to live her faith in the midst of the whatever challenges may come in life.
The story of Layan’s baptism as an infant embodies the Palestinian experience of faith under colonial domination. On the day of her baptism, Israeli forces blocked the road between Ramallah and Birzeit, a short 12 kilometers away. The Anglican priest in Ramallah, Fr. Samir Esaid, serving the community in Birzeit, was stopped at the checkpoint and denied passage. He explained the situation to the soldiers to no avail. So, Fr. Esaid called the Catholic priest in Birzeit, Fr. Eyad Twal. Layan and her brother were baptized in an Anglican church by a Catholic priest.
Layan’s baptism was the first of many experiences defined in part by the Israeli occupation. A month ago, a dozen military vehicles raided Layan’s home at 5:30 a.m. Lulu, her mother, woke up to seven Israeli soldiers inside her home. They had come for her daughter, Layan. Lulu demanded a written arrest order, but the soldiers did not present one. The soldiers said Layan would be taken to Ofer Incarceration Center for interrogation and could be picked up in two hours. Lulu woke Layan, who was dazed and terrified and needed to dress. Two female soldiers came into Layan’s bedroom while she dressed. Layan was arrested. The family later learned from an attorney she is detained until the military prosecutor presents the indictment list.
Layan and other students are accused of belonging to an “unlawful association” at Birzeit University. The “unlawful association” is a union of students acting per the rules of their university and the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education. The indictment list includes assisting new students in purchasing low-cost stationery and leading students in environmental activities.
On October 21, 2020, the Democratic Progressive Student Pole (DPSP) at Birzeit University was declared by the Israeli Defense Forces an “unlawful association.” According to Al-Haq, an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization, the Israeli military uses unjust regulations inherited from the British following their mandatory rule that ended in 1948.
Everything around Layan’s baptism and detention demonstrates the arbitrariness of the Israeli occupation. The charges against Layan follow the same distorted logic: Israel can declare any association, including a student union at a university an “unlawful association” and arrest its adherents.
Al Haq writes, “The Regulations have been constantly and systematically used to suppress and silence opposition to Israeli practices and policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including… the maintenance of an institutionalized regime of racial domination and oppression, amounting to apartheid.”
The word apartheid has only been recently discussed in mainstream U.S. media as applying to Israel’s treatment of its Arab citizens and Arabs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. A leading Jewish human rights organization in Israel, B’tselem, released a report early this year describing of the State of Israel’s policies and practices as apartheid. Human Rights Watch followed soon after making the same charge.
Al-Haq asserts, “The targeting of the DPSP and its designation as ‘terrorist’ represents an attack by Israel on the right of Palestinian youth to freedom of association, expression, and to form student unions.” Israel’s systematic attacks against Palestinian universities and students, Al Haq reports, “directly impedes on the [Palestinians’] right to education, as provided for in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR).”
Further, in Layan’s and other Palestinian Christian youths’ experience, Israel’s efforts to delegitimize, silence and attack student unions challenging the systemic oppression of the occupation is seen as an attack on the Christian Baptismal Covenant. Baptism initiates a journey of faith and discipleship. As initiation into a new life, baptism inspires a new consciousness of one’s role for ushering in the reign of God.
In their vows, the newly baptized promise to persevere in resisting evil, strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. For Christians in Palestine, this means resisting historical, political, economic and cultural structures that are at odds with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ – loving the enemy who is created in the image of God while, at the same time, resisting the enemy’s occupation.
Layan’s case is not an exception. She and seven other female students are imprisoned at Damon Military Prison. Her trial is set for August 24. In total, 74 Birzeit University students remain in Israeli prison for nonviolently expressing their opposition to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. A petition has been created calling for their release.
Today, Layan’s church, St. Peter’s Anglican/Episcopal in Birzeit, stands with her and with all prisoners unjustly incarcerated.
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