To the editor:

Your story, “VTS hosts controversial ‘Solidarity with Palestine’ forum” that appeared in the Oct. 31 edition of the Alexandria Times, on Julie Gunlock’s stunned reaction to the presentation by Rev. Sari Ateek, D.Min. on Oct. 24 at the Virginia Theological Seminary reflects how thoroughly the concepts underlying settler colonialism are ingrained in the average American’s psyche.

Long before Indigenous resistance to settler colonialism came to be called “terrorism,” the U.S. Declaration of Independence dismissed Indigenous Peoples attempts to protect from colonist encroachment between the Appalachians and Mississippi; King George III’s Proclamation of 1774 had reserved these lands for them as “merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare is an undistinguished Destruction of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.” Settler colonialism, however, views differently the Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Baghdad bombings, which plausibly meet this criterion.

The Episcopal Church’s Jerusalem diocese has 7,000 parishioners, 35 service institutions, 29 parishes, 1,500 employees, 200 hospital beds and 6,000 students. Because the Episcopal Church has parishes and functions all over the world, seminarians need to become acquainted with not just the settler-colonial view, but Indigenous or settled peoples’ viewpoints too, which Ateek’s presentation amplified by applying it to a current topic prominently in the news.

The Alexandria Times, by reporting on the presentation and the reaction to it, helps inform the local readership of the divergence between settler-colonial and Indigenous or settled peoples’ viewpoints. Ateek’s presentation was a bucket of ice water thrown on some of its attendees, awakening them to how differently indigenous or settled peoples view resistance to settler colonialism.

-Dino Drudi, Alexandria