Valedictory Address of IFPNP by Kathy Kelly, January 30, 2026

 

Kathy Kelly - President of  WORLD BEYOND WAR

Building Hope, Non-Violence, and Peace: What is Our Excuse Not to Do More?

Kathy Kelly

 

I am deeply privileged to be with all of you today. I want to say bon courage  to us all and acknowledge that many of you are in contexts where great courage is required because of the violence affecting your communities and countries. Yet, you persist in your desire to learn more about nonviolence; I am truly impressed and grateful.

On this day commemorating Mohandas Gandhi’s life and martyrdom, we have an opportunity to recognize the courage he found by constantly linking himself with those experiencing the brunt of violence. Toward the end of his life, he went from village to village, sitting with and listening to the people. In the midst of horrific violence, he tried to forge a way forward so that people could grapple with the question: 'How can we learn to live together without killing one another?' I believe that is the most serious ethical question we face: How can we learn to live together without killing one another?

"I believe I was entrusted with a very important question while in Lebanon in 2006. I would like to revisit what led me there and share that question with you. I was in Iraq in 2003 before the 'Shock and Awe' bombing began. My intention was to stay, but I received a phone call from the Sisters of St. Brigid in Kildare, Ireland. They said, 'Kathy, you’ll be coming to Ireland now, won’t you, for a retreat with us?' I replied, 'Oh no, Sister, I can’t leave. We are committed to staying.' She insisted, 'Kathy, you’re needed in Ireland. It will just be a brief weekend. ‘So, I travelled from Baghdad to Ireland and participated in a retreat much like the gathering you are having right now. People were desperate to know how they could stop the war; there was still a lingering belief that it might be prevented."

"I shared pictures of children who had been so innocent and beloved, but who died in hospitals that had become like death rows for infants. This was the result of the devastating economic warfare against Iraq; hundreds of thousands of children died from starvation and disease because the United States and the UK predominantly blocked relief supplies and equipment. Iraq was simply pounded.

I eventually returned to Baghdad, where I learned that five people from our retreat had engaged in a prayerful reflection. They then went to Shannon Airport and caused $2.5 million in damage to a U.S. Navy warplane—a C-40 transport aircraft -that was preparing to depart for Iraq. While I didn't tell them to do it, I certainly admired their courage. I became a witness at their trial, which lasted for over three years. It was a complex process; believe it or not, several judges had to rescue themselves due to discussions about things they had said.

"Ultimately, the judge who heard the evidence decided that only one defence witness would be allowed: me. I thought, 'Oh no, I’ll be like an albatross for this group.' She also ruled that no faith-based testimony would be permitted in her courtroom, stating, 'I will not allow you to say one word about your faith.'

This was a significant challenge because the five activists had acted specifically to invoke their faith, drawing from the teachings of Mohandas Gandhi and the time-honoured biblical prophecy that people should 'beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks,' and that 'nation shall not lift up sword against nation.'

The judge wasn't having any of that. However, the five were represented by some of the best barristers in Ireland. One in particular was a truly great orator, Mr. Brendan Nix. Under Irish legal procedure, during the closing arguments, a barrister can speak freely; the judge cannot interrupt to say, 'You can't say this,' or 'You can't say that.'"

The barrister can say whatever he chooses. Mr. Nix faced off with the judge who had banned faith-based testimony and declared, 'The greatest pacifist of all time was Jesus of Nazareth, and the greatest pacifist document ever written was the Sermon on the Mount. I am about to read it to you right now.'

Gandhi himself was a profound believer in the Sermon on the Mount and read it frequently. That sermon says, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' and 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness'—or justice.

Mr. Nix then argued that these five didn't practice their religion as if they were at a delicatessen, saying, 'I’ll have a little of that, but I don’t want that.' He insisted they believed their faith must be truly practiced. He then began to tell a story about a beautiful day in a London park where he sat on a bench, watching geese chase children up a hill and children chase the geese back down; it was such a lovely day.

He remarked that the most beautiful sound in any language must be the sound of children at play. Then, his expression darkened, and he shouted at us, 'They are bombing children in a swimming hole in Lebanon! Children are dying in pools of their own blood.'

I had been so consumed by the trial that I hadn't been following the news. I pulled over a copy of The Irish Times and read the headline: Israel was at war with Lebanon. Children playing in a park, where their parents had taken them for a cool dip, had been hit by a missile. The article described a man with his head in his hands, crying out for his son, but his son was gone. Only little plastic slippers remained, scattered around the site where the children were killed.

Mr. Nix looked at us as if we were the ones on trial. He asked, 'Would you not try, if you could, to stop a Hezbollah missile from slamming into a village in Israel? Would you not try to stop an Israeli missile from hitting a children's swimming hole?' He argued that the question wasn’t whether these five activists had a lawful excuse for their actions, but rather: What is our excuse not to do more?

The Irish jury acquitted the activists on all charges, but I did not feel acquitted. I had to sit with Mr. Nix’s question deep in my heart. Shortly after, I joined a group traveling to South Lebanon to bring relief supplies to villagers who were trapped under daily bombardment.

The Lebanese police initially blocked our caravan, but after a tentative ceasefire was declared, we were finally able to visit those villages, speak with the people, and learn what they had endured."

"It so happened that I was with a small group of four. We didn’t really know our way around and inadvertently walked right into a funeral. In that context, Muslim funerals involved the women gathering in one home and the men in another. My friend and I quickly went to sit with the women. I soon realized that one woman was being embraced by everyone who arrived; she was wearing a medical hood and a neck brace.

When she realized we were Westerners, and as I watched the women comfort her, it dawned on me: this was likely the family of the little girl whose mother had taken her to the shelter. We had read in the newspapers that people were told the shelter was safe—that children there would not be hit because the structure was sturdy enough to withstand bombs. However, she didn’t know that the United States had sent Israel a new type of weapon: the Bunker Buster.

This bomb penetrated the shelter, killing the woman's beloved daughter. The mother pointed to her son and said, 'Please, my son, go and get the newspapers.' He brought a stack of papers detailing the tragedy. Then, she sent him to get a photo. He returned with a framed picture of a five-year-old girl with tousled hair and a serious expression that looked as if it were on the verge of a smile.

There was a plastic covering over the photo. The mother, Umm Zahra, from the Shalhoub family,  tapped the plastic and asked me, 'Is she the terrorist?' She then pointed upward and asked, 'Didn’t they know? Didn’t they see my Zahra? I took her to the shelter every day. Each morning, she would run to me; I would pick her up, hug her, and give her breakfast.'"

"She asked me, 'Didn't they know? Didn't they see?' And then she asked, 'Who are the terrorists?' and 'Is she a terrorist?' Of course, that little girl was not a terrorist.

Now, I would like to show you some photos that help me understand this question about terror and war. When I was quite young, I learned about the concentration camps—those horrible, hideous places where Jewish people and others were slaughtered, gassed, and starved. When I first saw the film Night and Fog, I remember saying to myself, 'I will never be a bystander in the face of such unspeakable evil.' But I am sorry to say, my friends, I went through the Vietnam War and never took action."

"So many times in my life, I have been a bystander, but recently I have been deeply challenged by the story of Hans and Sophie Scholl. They formed a collective called the White Rose, distributing leaflets that decried Nazi atrocities. Every leaflet declared, 'We will not be silent.' They took immense risks; Hans would go out late at night to spray-paint slogans denouncing the Nazi government and exposing their actions. At one point, while at their university, they wanted to distribute the flyers. Sophie pushed a stack of them over a ledge, and they fluttered down four flights of stairs. A custodian saw her, and he turned her and her brother in. These are the mugshots of Hans and Sophie Scholl. They were tried, convicted, and executed by guillotine within just three days. Today, they are remembered and honoured all across Europe."

 

"If you mention the White Rose, people will know who they were. But I feel so challenged now—will people know about the 260 Palestinian journalists who said, 'We will not be silent'? They were assassinated. They were killed. They were hunted down by snipers and burned in their press tents. Some of their families were also killed.

Not only have these witnesses to atrocities been slaughtered, but the doctors and nurses who witnessed them have also been attacked by snipers, assaulted in their homes and hospitals, imprisoned, tortured, and 'disappeared.' Right now, 80 Gazan doctors are still held in prison without trial. One of them is Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. This is a picture of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya walking toward two tanks after Kamal Adwan Hospital had been reduced to rubble. There are mountains of rubble all over Gaza now. This man in his white coat walked toward those tanks because they told him, 'You must turn yourself in.' He had refused to shut the hospital down because it was the only one serving the northern part of Gaza. 

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was arrested on December 27, 2024, and he has now begun his 13th month in prison. He has been beaten and subjected to starvation and scabies. Who are the criminals? Who are the terrorists? A woman in Lebanon once asked me that question, and her question must still be heard. Artists, celebrities, and students all over the world are trying to hear that question and say, 'Free Dr. Abu Safiya; free all abducted Palestinian healthcare workers.' 

I think we find that in places all around the world, people want to say: 'We believe in the works of mercy.' Like Mohandas Gandhi, we must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, visit the imprisoned, care for the sick, and bury the dead. We want to end the works of war. I know some of you see those works in your own beloved homelands—where people destroy crops and land, seize food supplies, destroy homes, scatter families, contaminate water, imprison dissenters, inflict wounds and burns, and kill the living."

 

Which path are we going to choose? How do we learn to live together without killing one another?

 Nobel laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, whom Louis Campana mentioned, met me once in Baghdad. He was quite upset and asked, 'When are we going to meet the children?' Since I had arranged his itinerary, I quickly gathered a group of young students. He listened to them, and they were incredibly compelling. That experience taught me a vital lesson: listen to the children.

These are children in Kabul, Afghanistan. They are child labourers who cannot attend school because they must earn an income for their families. You can see one little girl, Sakina, with a yellow-handled hammer. She is pounding a collection of toy plastic guns. These children wanted to create their own version of 'beating swords into ploughshares.' They broke those plastic guns into small pieces, buried them, and planted a tree on top of the 'grave of guns.'"

In reality, unexploded ordnance and shells—the horrific leftovers of war—remain buried across Afghanistan and throughout Gaza today. I also want to show a slide from Pakistan. So many people have become refugees of war. In this slide, you see a housing compound that was a home for Afghan refugees in Pakistan. It was bombed, leaving this little girl an orphan; her parents were killed. Here is a picture of her with two of her surviving siblings, holding the shrapnel from the bomb that killed their parents.

Artists decided that this little girl would be remembered. They created a massive installation of her beautiful, innocent face so that any drone operator flying over the area would see her. Surely, the drone operators flying over that Lebanese mother’s home saw what was happening to her and her daughter. When a bomb is fired from a military base far away, such as in the United States, the operators are still the ones controlling the drone.

When the bomb hits, they often refer to the victim as 'bug splat,' because of the way the heat radiates on their screens. To counter this, these artists titled their installation 'Not a Bug Splat.' I think it is vital for us to recognize those who are victims—whether they have been killed, maimed, orphaned, or displaced. These refugees are the 'shining shards' that Salman Rushdie says reveal the truth to us.

Today, I want to remember a little girl who wanted to be a princess when she grew up: Hind Rajab. Yesterday marked two years since Hind and her family were murdered. Her mother, sister, uncle, aunt, and four cousins received word that their village would be attacked and were forced to flee. Her mother went on foot with one of the older siblings."

"It was pouring rain, and they didn't want little Hind to be soaking wet, so she fled the invasion in a car. She was with her uncle, her aunt, and four of her cousins. Her uncle, unsure of which way to go, was in contact with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), who were trying to direct him toward a safe route. Instead, he drove directly in front of a tank. The tank fired on the car, immediately killing Hind's uncle, aunt, and three of her cousins.

Surrounded by death, destruction, and terror, her older cousin, Layan, survived the initial blast and managed to call the Red Crescent office. The workers tried to calm the children, promising that rescuers were coming. Then, Layan began screaming, 'The tank is closer!' An explosion followed, and Layan was killed.

Hind was left alone. When the Red Crescent workers called back, Hind answered, terrified. They told her, 'Dear darling, we’re going to get you. You have to try to hide. Stay calm.' It took several hours for the ambulance drivers to receive coordination and permission from the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) for a safe route. They eventually had her in their sight—only about 140 meters away—when the tank suddenly fired. The Israeli military unit assassinated the two ambulance workers, followed by a barrage of missiles into the car where little Hind died. Before she passed, she pleaded, 'Please come. I am so scared.'

I believe they wanted to drown out her voice, just as they tried to drown out the voices of Gandhi and Archbishop Oscar Romero. But that little girl’s voice is still being heard around the world. Three movies have been made about Hind Rajab, and students have taken brave actions in her name.

At Columbia University, students took over Hamilton Hall and renamed it 'Hind’s Hall'. Similar actions have happened elsewhere. I am also thinking of our friends in Pietermaritzburg and those who cheered South Africa’s brave action at the International Court of Justice to denounce genocide. We must denounce the war before us now.

When we ask ourselves why these wars continue, consider this image. It is from a Soviet satirical magazine called Krokodil. In this cartoon, a personification of War sits in a chair next to a bloodied sword."

The war character hardly looks human. The person bringing dollars, holding a knife and cutting through the currency, represents U.S. President Harry Truman in the cartoonist’s view. Beside him are the British Winston Churchill with a pile of pounds, Konrad Adenauer of Germany, and Antoine Parnoy of France. They are all bringing their cash to the table of war.

In the background, the table for education is covered in cobwebs; the table for healthcare is empty; the science table is hobbled; and at the arts table, a broken cello sits behind the artist. What if all these people came together and said, 'We won't put up with this anymore'? What if there was a worldwide movement saying we are through with supporting the warmakers? We want to hear the voices of the children—voices like Hind Rajab and my young Afghan friends burying their toy guns—who say, 'Choose life for us and our future.'

In the next slide, I want to remember the Iraqi children, some of the most beautiful in the world. We hung their enlarged photos on vinyl over the banisters of our hotel. When the Marines arrived in Baghdad, this is what they saw: 'Courage for Peace, Not for War' alongside the faces of those children. We even brought water to the arriving Marines—they are human, too.

But we must carry Gandhi’s message into every war zone, every 'merchant of death' corporation, and every faith-based or educational group. We must ask: 'How can we learn to live together without killing one another?' and 'How can we find courage for peace, not for war?' Don't feed the war.

Finally, across from the United Nations, etched into the Isaiah Wall, is that beautiful prophecy: 'They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.' Thank you for helping me remember Mohandas Gandhi today and for reflecting on these images. May the memory of children like Hind Rajab stay with us, so that children will never again die of cold, hunger, or war."

Acknowledgment

This is the transcribed text of the valedictory address delivered by the author during the online session of the International Fellowship Programme on Nonviolence and Peace, organized by the Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan on January 30, 2026.The program was held in association with an esteemed network of global partners, including Gandhi International (France), The Academic University College for Non-Violence and Human Rights (AUNOHR) (Lebanon), the International Centre of Nonviolence (ICON) at the Durban University of Technology (South Africa), and Portland Community College (USA).Dr. Michael Sonnleitner, former professor and trustee of Portland Community College, introduced the guest speaker. Prior to her address, Louis Campana, President of Gandhi International, France, addressed the fellows. Dr. Siby K. Joseph, Director of the International Fellowship Programme on Nonviolence and Peace, edited this transcribed text.

 

About the Speaker

Kathy Kelly is a renowned American peace activist and the current Board President of World BEYOND War. After earning a Master’s degree in Religious Education from the Chicago Theological Seminary and volunteering at the St. Francis Catholic Worker House in the 1970s, she transitioned into outspoken activism in 1986, serving a nine-month prison sentence for civil disobedience at a nuclear silo. Over a career marked by more than 60 arrests, she co-founded Voices in the Wilderness to challenge U.S. sanctions against Iraq—an effort that earned her the first of four Nobel Peace Prize nominations—and later worked with Voices for Creative Nonviolence in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Gaza. Known for her courageous presence in conflict zones, including Baghdad during the 2003 "Shock and Awe" attacks, her recent leadership includes co-coordinating the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, which found major US weapons contractors guilty of aiding war crimes. She has remained a pivotal voice for Gaza through public fasts at the United Nations and prolific reporting for outlets such as Counter Punch and Common Dreams.