Statement and Pledge from those who have been Tourists in Palestine *
JeWe have been tourists in Palestine. Whether as tourists, delegates, or researchers, we have “toured” Palestine. Palestinian hosts have shared their time and stories with us. Even though they do not control their own borders, they have invited and welcomed us to Palestine. We have been in Palestinian homes, eaten Palestinian food, and drank Palestinian tea and coffee. We have slept in Palestinian beds at homestays or hotels and shopped at Palestinian businesses. We have experienced the boundless hospitality of Palestinians to trust us with their narratives under the expectation that we would share them. We refuse to remain silent about the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza.
The current Israeli onslaught against Gaza has stolen the lives of over 10,000 Palestinian people. As more than 40% of Gaza’s population are children, Israeli airstrikes have killed over 4,000 Palestinian children. Indeed, this genocide itself has been dubbed “The Genocide of Children.” As these massacres are being livestreamed, we have witnessed Palestinian doctors doing press conferences atop countless bodies, fathers carrying their murdered children, ambulances torn to shreds by Israeli airstrikes, mothers mourning over their babies, children bleeding and crying, people of all ages and genders being pulled from the rubble. We know that over 800 families have been erased from the civil registry altogether.
This attack comes on the heels of over 75 years of Israeli settler colonial state practice, which has displaced Palestinians from their homes, divided Palestinians from one another, stolen Palestinian land, and subjected Palestinians to an apartheid legal system that affords Jewish Israelis myriad rights that Palestinians are not granted. We, ourselves, traveled in Palestine with a freedom of mobility not extended to the Palestinians who shared their stories with us. Indeed, that we were able to travel to Palestine at all is in contrast to the many Palestinians in exile who are not allowed entry to their own homeland.
Furthermore, we know that we were invited to Palestine, entrusted with these stories, and asked to corroborate them because Palestinians are not believed when they speak. During this genocide we are witnessing, for example, Palestinians are accused of everything from bombing themselves to fabricating the numbers of their dead. We reject this framework and demand that Palestinians be treated as reliable narrators of their own conditions. Especially in this moment, where Israel is both cutting electricity and murdering journalists to make sure Palestinian stories are not heard, we want Palestinian voices amplified and what they are saying understood: the death count in Gaza is rising every minute and every day of silence results in more bloodshed.
As those who have traveled to Palestine, experienced Palestinian hospitality, and learned from Palestinians, we have seen for ourselves Palestinian steadfastness against the violence of the Israeli state. We also understand that this state violence has long been in the historical record and should not have needed more witnesses to be believed.
Until Palestinians are free, we pledge to:
- 1. Do everything we can to demand a ceasefire, including calling and emailing our representatives daily, attending marches and demonstrations against the genocide, planning or supporting sit-ins in representatives’ offices, and withdrawing our support for our representatives until a ceasefire is called. We will not stop protesting until the Israeli air strikes stop.
- 2. Speak—loudly—about what Israel is doing across our many communities. We understand that we have been trusted with Palestinian narratives of the harm Israel has caused them and it is a betrayal of that generosity to remain silent.
- 3. Amplify Palestinian voices on the ground while we simultaneously use our own. When we speak, we commit to sharing Palestinian scholarship, reporting, and resources as part of a citational practice that treats Palestinians as reliable narrators of their own conditions.
- 4. Support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, working toward all three pillars and not just the first. We will individually boycott Israeli products and pressure our institutions to boycott Israel until it complies with international law, but we will also organize toward divestment where we work and demand that Israel be held accountable through sanctions.
- 5. Follow the South African model and agitate against Israeli embassies where we live until Israel complies with international law. We vow to not normalize a rogue state that commits war crimes with impunity.
* Following Palestinian Feminist Collective’s Love Letter to Palestine, and given our understanding of solidarity as love in public, we extend the life of this pledge to our own public love letters to Palestine, a campaign that will continue to be archived here.
In solidarity [sign here],
Rabab Abdulhadi, Director and Senior Scholar, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies, San Francisco State University
Sohaib Akbar
Zainab Akbar
Waheed Akbar
Anthony Alessandrini
Barbara Altemis
Imani Altemus-Williams, Eyewitness Palestine Delegate
Faiza Anwar
Summer Ghasan Awad
Theodoor Bakker
Morgan Bassichis
Tithi Bhattacharya , Purdue University
Anuradha Bhagwati, MPP, MFA
Lisa Bhungalia
Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Susan Bramhall, Board Member, Eyewitness Palestine
Rev. Christine Caton
Karma Chávez, Professor, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Gavriel Cutipa-Zorn
Iyko Day, Mount Holyoke College
Susie Day
Jess Devany, Multitude Films
Jayeesha Dutta, Eyewitness Palestine, Windcall Institute + Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative
Urmi Dutta, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Morry El-Badry MD
Ella
Erik DeLuca
Gerard Farias
Hassan Fouda, NorCal Sabeel.org
Cynthia Franklin, Professor of English at the University of Hawai’i
Jade G.
Robin Gabriel ,University of California Santa Cruz
Emmaia Gelman, Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism
Alborz Ghandehari, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies
Yulia Gilich, founding member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ)
Terri Ginsberg, film scholar and activist
Maggie Goff
Amy Greer
Jacqueline Gutierrez
Ashwini Hardikar
Rowena Harry, Eyewitness Palestine
Shaheen Hasan
Gretchen Head
Matt Hooley
Damla Isik
Valentina Jadue
Gabi K, International participant in Freedom Theater Freedom Bus, 2013 International academic researcher in Jenin on multiple trips, 2016-2022
Anjali Kamat
Maryam Kashani, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jennifer Kelly, Associate Professor, Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz / researcher of delegations to Palestine, 2010-2020
Karla R. Kelly
Medeeha Khan
Usman Khan
Mary Jo Klinker
manicato la fontaine
Maria Lebron
Marisol LeBrón, University of California, Santa Cruz
Grace Lile, Librarians and Archivists with Palestine
Brooke Lober, Lecturer, Gender and Women’s Studies, UC Berkeley / Organizer, Bay Area Jewish Voice for Peace
Adrian Lopez
Barbara Low
Alex Lubin, Professor of African American Studies, Penn State University
Rev. Marietta Macy
Sunaina Maira, Asian American Studies, UC Davis
Reem Marto
Ella May
Alli McCracken, Tree of Life Educational Fund
Andrea Miller-Nesbitt
Kimberly Monroe, Pan-African Community Action/ Black Alliance for Peace
Mary Mullen, Villanova University
Naima, Yale University
Samar Najia
Vani Natarajan, participant in LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine (2012) and Librarians and Archivists Delegation to Palestine (2013 and 2015)
Rosa Navarro, University of California, Santa Cruz
Jenna Noelle
Aviv ONeill
Lynn Pollack, Jewish Voice for Peace
Leslie Quintanilla
Maia Ramnath
Jennie Renn
A. Rief
Deanna Roberts, Librarian, Pitts Theology Library
AJ Robinson
Anaïs Salamon, McGill University Library
Libre X. Sankara,
Tanzina Sattar
Emily Schneider
Heike Schotten, USACBI, Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism
Maggie Schreiner, Librarians & Archivists with Palestine
Sarah Scruggs
Daniel A. Segal, Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges
Stephen Sheehi
Tasneem Siddiqui, Africa World Now Project Media Collective
Emily Siegel
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Amber Smith, former Eyewitness Palestine delegate
Sam Stein
Connor Troost, Eyewitness Palestine
Kelsey Vanhee
Naheed Usmani
Zukiswa Wanner, writer
Melissa Weiner, College of the Holy Cross
Laura Whitehorn, 2016 Prison, Labor, and Academic Delegation to Palestine
Lesley Williams, Center for Jewish Non-Violence delegation, 2016 and 2017
Craig Willse
Sasha Wright
Aubrey Yarbrough, Eyewitness Palestine
Michael Yoshii, Friends of Wadi Foquin
Melinda Zepeda