On June 6, 2023, a small US delegation sponsored by Friends United Meeting landed in Tel Aviv and drove to the Ramallah Friends School to start a three-week service learning trip led by North Carolina Friends Max and Jane Carter. In the West Bank, they met with Palestinian religious leaders, businesspeople, farmers, educators, activists, and current and former members of the Palestinian Authority to hear firsthand the lack of freedom under military occupation—the limitations placed on travel, the home demolitions, the rapidly expanding Israeli settlements, the lack of self-government, and the increasing violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers. In Israel, they met with a reserve officer in the Israeli defense force, a kibbutz rabbi, an educator, a journalist, two Palestinian Israeli priests, and the Palestinian Israeli mayor of a fully integrated Israeli "peace village."
At Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting, Steve Chase will share his reflections on the trip and what can be done to promote peace, equality, and justice in the Holy Land.
