As we recorded this episode, Kathy is participating in and coordinating a 40 day fast for an end to the US backed Israeli genocide in Israel, which began on May 22nd. When we spoke, she was placed on a 250 calories a day intake to keep her heart rate up.

"We need to stand up against US military funding for Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.” That’s what Kathy Kelly told me, what she insists upon. Unicef calls the genocide in Gaza "The War Against Children".

"The US backed Israeli genocide in Gaza needs to stop."

Long time peace activist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Kathy Kelly has traveled the war zones of the world, and stood with all those targeted for death by the United States more than anyone else I know, from Central America to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine.

Find out why I consider her the greatest living peacemaker in the United States, one of the great saints of our time.

She has travelled the world to the places bombed and attacked by our country over the last three decades in an effort to “make peace” and “love our enemies.” With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 - 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions.

She led my 1999 FOR delegation of Nobel Laureates to Iraq.

Kathy was in Iraq throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank's Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense.

Kathy Kelly is board president of “World Beyond War.” From 2022 to the present, she has co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul.

“Many of the Israeli weapons used in Gaza are of US origin,” she says. “It's crucial to go to weapons manufacturers and protest. It's important to raise the lament, and then to follow up with organizing.

We must keep trying to figure out how to organize and get a ceasefire. Love of our brothers and sisters in other countries makes so much sense right now. It's dependent on the people in the pews to speak out and follow the nonviolent Jesus.” She suggests we ask ourselves, “Is there a greater risk I might be willing to take?”

“Don’t be afraid,” Kathy tells us. “Seek ways to embrace the so-called enemy. Look for the people nearest to you who are practicing the works of mercy rather than the works of war, and align yourself with them.”

I hope you will listen in to Kathy’s plea for peace in Gaza, her living solidarity with the victims of war and hunger, and her ongoing work to promote a more nonviolent world, and be inspired. May the God of peace bless us all!