This weekend my Quaker community, Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) will be gathering at my home meeting, Bear Creek Friends, in the countryside north of Earlham, Iowa. The theme of the weekend is The Fierce Urgency of Now: Quaker Discernment and Action for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine with Steve Chase.

That coincides with the work I’ve been doing related to ways Quakers can do something, anything to bring attention to the horrors of the ongoing Israeli military operations and genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

I plan to set up a tent at our Quaker meetinghouse as a symbolic gesture, but one that I hope will encourage Friends to take a closer look at what is happening in Gaza. The mainstream media, and the government, are doing all they can to suppress news of the ongoing atrocities. And that was before the Trump administration, which is aggressively targeting anyone who expresses any concern about or takes any action in solidarity. This is usually justified as a charge of “antisemitism”, which it is not.

This heightened atmosphere of fear and repression makes me, and others, worried about possible negative reactions. We have seen violence against people and property on university campuses, some of whom had set up tents in solidarity with the Palestinians. I went to the tent encampment here at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

I plan to have a small Palestinian flag at the tent to perhaps minimize negative reactions. I see this tent encampment more oriented toward the Quakers who will be attending the weekend’s meetings.

I’ve greatly expanded the following PDF about Quaker Tent Solidarity. There is a download button below.