The The Stones Cry Out Solidarity Delegation Report
February 26 - March 6, 2024
Report by delegation participant the Rev. Diane Dulin
Artwork by Banksy on the apartheid wall in Bethlehem
And some of the Pharisees in the multitudes said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.
Luke 19:39-40
The Stones Cry Out Solidarity Delegation to the West Bank and Washington, D.C. consisted of 23 American Christians – faith leaders (both lay and ordained) representing 12 different denominations – who traveled to Palestine to hear the people of that place describe their reality and send us home with a direct and urgent message. Among our delegation were four UCC participants: our trip leader the Rev. Dr. Michael Spath of Ft. Wayne, Indiana; Stephanie Gilstrom of Olympia, Washington; Sarah Klokowski of Belmont, Massachusetts; and the Rev. Diane Dulin of Madison, Wisconsin.
Organized by the Indiana Center for Middle East Peace and sponsored by eight nationally recognized advocacy groups1, our delegation met with religious and civil society leaders, Christians and Muslims and Jews, community leaders and everyday residents. We visited a refugee camp, a privately owned farm, churches, non-profit and advocacy NGOs, and public spaces such as the Apartheid Wall and Nelson Mandela Square in Ramallah. We passed through military checkpoints and traveled both Israeli-only highways and Palestinian roads of dirt and stones.
The message given to us by those we met is this: “The genocide in Gaza is unspeakably horrific. And the violence and strangulation of daily life in the West Bank is crippling. Tell this to your elected officials and public servants in Washington. Tell it to your church leaders. Tell it to your communities back home.”
From those we met, we heard words of fearfulness, anger, grief, and discouragement. Palestinians living in the West Bank feel invisible, abandoned, dehumanized.
Over and over again, the people we encountered thanked us for coming. They told their stories trusting us to return home to speak the truth.
While in the West Bank, we shared lunch at the Tent of Nations farm, owned and worked by the Nasser family, whose deed to the land originated during the Ottoman Empire, long before the founding of the State of Israel. During our meal, two Israeli settlers with semi-automatic rifles strode through the grounds. Upon seeing the two settlers, Daoud Nasser rose, saying, “This is private property.” In response, the settlers made a sweeping gesture as if to take in the entire hillside and proclaimed, “All this belongs to us.” Later, during our advocacy in Washington, D.C., we informed our legislators about settler violence and impunity in the West Bank – always a problem, exponentially worse now, and off the radar for most of the world.