WMJM Member Leads Eyewitness Palestine Delegation
by Rev Michael Yoshii
As Co-Chair with Friends of Wadi Foquin I was asked to co-lead a recent delegation to Palestine from October 14-24, 2022. Professor Leslie Quintanilla of San Francisco State University was the co-lead, with administrative support from Bay Area youth leader, Jackie Gutierrez. The trip was organized and sponsored by Eyewitness Palestine highlighting “environmental justice.” A total of 25 delegates signed on to the trip with one person denied entry at the Ben Gurion airport in Israel. The majority of the delegation were Palestine rights activists representing a diversity of organizations. The delegation was very dynamic in composition and included several Palestinians and Jews providing their unique family and historical perspectives.
The trip included visits with Khalil Issa with Grassroots Al-Quds, an organizing group in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem; Omar Haramy with Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center; a tour of the separation wall in the Ramallah district with Jamal Jumaa of Stop the Wall; the Al-Haq human rights organization in Ramallah; Issa Amro with Youth Against Settlements in Hebron; the Badil Resource Center in Bethlehem; and Masafer Yatta. We also made visits to the Naqab desert area in Israel where Bedouin villages are being erased and to the historic village of Lifta, whose residents became refugees during the Nakba (catastrophe of 1948). Visits also included the village of Wadi Foquin and neighboring village of Batir, where the group participated in olive harvesting organizing by Al Ard, and agricultural workers organization.
It had been seven years since I had been on Palestinian soil, although we have continued to provide updates through Friends of Wadi Foquin on the challenges specific to the village and larger West Bank. This trip provided a visceral reality check and confirmation of what we have been hearing and reporting. The annexation and takeover of Palestinian land throughout the West Bank is accelerating rapidly, accompanied by draconian home and property demolitions, and increased settlement expansion. Palestinian living under this apartheid regime are calling for international response and solidarity.
Members of the delegation are available for report back events via zoom for interested churches and/or organizations. Feel free to contact me at michaelyoshii1@gmail.com to schedule a report back event.