Justin Amash’s Family in Gaza

Reprinted from Justin Amash’s Substack.

As some of you know, I have relatives in Gaza. They are my dad’s first cousins. Tragically, several of them were killed in October when an Israeli airstrike destroyed part of the complex at Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church where they had been sheltering.

The past few months have been extremely difficult for our cousins in Gaza and heartbreaking for our family in the United States. There’s no avenue to get them out, and our communication with them has been sporadic since November. Occasionally, I’ll receive a passed-along message about their well-being, which at least lets me know they’re still alive.

A lot of people were surprised to learn there are Christians living in Gaza, but this community has existed since the earliest days of Christianity. Followers of Christ have long called Gaza home.

The people known today as Palestinian Christians are the descendants of Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Israelites who resided in the region that comprises present-day Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Palestinian Christians can trace much of their ancestry back to Jews and Samaritans who lived in the Levant thousands of years ago and became early Christians.

The Christians of Gaza are descendants of both the ancient Gazan Christian community and other nearby ancient Christian communities. The Amash family, many of whom now reside in Gaza, descend from Christians who lived for centuries in and around the cities of Lydda (Lod) and Ramle (Ramla) before Israeli forces expelled them from their homes in 1948. Some, like my dad’s immediate family, were blessed to find refuge in the United States. Others made their way to the West Bank and Gaza – and they, their children, and their grandchildren remain there to this day.

Justin Amash served in Congress from Michigan’s 3rd District from 2011 to 2021.  A former Republican, Amash became the first Libertarian Party member of Congress in 2020.  He currently writes at Substack.

11 thoughts on “Justin Amash’s Family in Gaza”

  1. Very little about this has been reported in the Mainstream Media. Members of Justin Amash’s family were killed in the Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The Gazans have lived there for millenia and they have been slaughtered and ethnically cleansed since Israel’s founding in ’48.
    Members of Joe Lieberman’s family have been killed somewhere in Gaza or the West Bank years ago. They were settlers taking land away from people already living there before they were. They put themselves in that position. On CNN, Fox News and many other outlets, they show Israelis crying because members of their family were killed in the Occupied Territories. They don’t mention the fact that their family members were settlers stealing someone else’s land.

  2. Many, many blessings for you, your family and people. Justin.
    We are all working for peace, every second we can. I do know that in prophecy if we avert a Third World War, we will be able to move forward, together, which is essential, for ALL of HUMANITY. We must continue to work together to avoid potential cataclysms. PEACE is essential, for all of us and for our future.

  3. The following is a message to Israel and the US. Bloody well snap out of it. These are peoples lives we are dealing with, not some abstract thing. The future of the world is depending on you ALL. The time is NOW!

  4. Given how Zionist are controlling our Congress and both Democrat/Republican Parties, I hope Mr. Amash will run for office again. The only thing I ask, is that he backs all of his decisions with our Constitution. I was a Trump supporter, but I can NOT support him or any Republican and I refuse to vote for the Democrats. So Biden is out, Trump is out, Kennedy is out, so Mr. Amash you need to run as a Libertarian, so we have someone we can vote for.

    1. I like Jill Stein and Cornel West. Jill Stein is in the Green Party and Cornel West is running as an Independent. They want to end the war in Ukraine and end aid to Israel. They also want to shut down US Bases abroad and dissolve NATO.
      I’ll vote for West, he’ll get more votes than Stein. Biden is trying to get a court order to bar Independent and Third Party Candidates from running. He says they’ll stand in his way of a victory. If he wins the court case, he could lose the election to Trump, many people that would vote for the Independent and Third Party Candidates will not vote and some of them could vote for Trump.

      1. “Biden is trying to get a court order to bar Independent and Third Party Candidates from running.”

        Interesting. Where can I find out more about that? I follow such things pretty closely, and haven’t seen anything about it.

        1. There is a NYT article from October 11 saying Democrats are trying to keep Third Party and Independent Parties off the ballot. The Democrats trying to do that say the candidates don’t believe in democracy.

          1. OK, so before it was Biden and a court order to keep them from running, now it’s the Democratic Party opposing ballot access. that’s kind of two different things.

            For one thing, there’s no “the ballot.” There are 50 ballots, each with different rules for getting on, and both parties have a long history (going back to the 1880s, when government-printed ballots became a thing) of trying to keep third party and independent candidates off those ballots (or, in some cases, creating fake third parties and independent candidates to put ON those ballots).

            So far, the “No Labels” organization is on 13 state ballots.

            Last time I heard, RFK Jr. had just gotten on his first (Utah).

            The Libertarian Party is usually on 50 or close to it, but will probably not be on as many this year because its national committee and a number of state parties have been taken over by a Republican “infiltrate and neuter” operation.

            The Greens are usually on at least 25 or so ballots.

            I haven’t heard if Cornel West is on any ballots yet, but I doubt if he’ll be on many.

            There IS a place to keep track of all that. It’s called Ballot Access News, and would be right on top of any Biden action to suppress third parties nationwide.

          2. I watched “Secular Talk” by Kyle Kulinski. He said that’s what Biden is trying to do.

  5. Civilians of all backgrounds are being indiscriminately killed by Israel. Or more accurately, intentionally killed. My sympathy is with all of them, not rationed out by religion.

    What is Mr Amash’s stance on this ongoing genocide? It doesn’t appear in this essay as best as I can tell.

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