The Pilgrimage for Palestine 2026

Last year the day we set out, Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza. This year, the day we set out, it attacked, with the US, Iran. The Pilgrimage seems to have the knack of marching in step with catastrophic events. And it’s the hectic drumbeat of that chaos we are walking against – as if trying, with the rhythm of our feet

on the ground, to modulate that cracked music.Political-religious extremism has a grip on Israel, the US and Iran. It’s not a clash of civilisations, it’s a distortion of civilisation. When we reached Parliament Square on March 22 nd , Doctor Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Ambassador, spoke about pilgrimage as an ancient peaceful ritual common to all faiths, and he’s right. I spoke about Islam as a vast resource for our country,

of devotion, civilisation, poetry, wisdom. This we saw for ourselves when we set out on February 27 th from Orgiva in the Alpujarra mountains. (To be precise we set out from Cana, higher up, on the 28 th , but we had an event in Orgiva on the 27 th .) The dry mountains are waves of olives, thanks to the irrigation system built by the Moors. Arabic words like alberga are still used for the various channels and cisterns. In the market square in Orgiva we danced dabke, led by a Chilean/Palestinian dancer, who met us again in Lanjaron for more dancing.

And in Granada, the Alhambra Palace, and its gardens – I wish you could have seen Feda’s face, her pride and joy, Feda Shahien from Hebron, who walked with us in Spain. And Ashraf said, ‘when the kingdom fell the King cried and his mother said, ‘you cry like a woman because you did not fight like a man.’’

But you can understand his feelings, the Inquisition replacing a culture where Christians, Jews and Muslims recognised their need for one another, as set out in the Quran. That’s civilisation. We only had half an hour there, hurrying away to visit cave schools in the rain, where under the ground Ashraf told stories to the Spanish children, just as he did to the children of Gaza. Things are different in Spain, our hosts had

connections to another school so Nick went there and asked if we could come the next day. They said yes and we did, connecting the children with Yara in Gaza, to talk about her manga book Shattered, our bestseller. Two of the children spoke English and we left it to them to interpret between Yara and the

others – we left the kids talking, one culture to another. That’s civilisation. Yara’s smile makes her eyes disappear, but I will always remember how the smile fell and the eyes widened when she told them about the famine. That’s communication.

I know at this point I get things in the wrong order – I am only just learning to eat lunch again and sleep a straight seven hours – but I think it was in Newbury I attended Friday prayers, for the first time, and heard the sermon, about the Caliph Ali and the capture of Jerusalem. Bishop Sophrenius invited him to pray

in the church, but Ali declined, because he knew that if he did, his followers, in reverence, would make the church into a mosque. The subject of the sermon was restraint in power. No lesson could be needed more, and no wonder those who want their power to expand forever, seek to stamp out such teachings.

This year the anger was greater. I will not hurt your tender ears with a list of what we were called. The flags are out, as everyone knows, and of course we were flying our own. It stands for statehood denied, but it’s taken as an invasion in force, they call it the Hamas flag, even confuse it with the flag of Iran. But this year I found it was possible – on two occasions – to listen to the

fury, and when it ran its course, to put my own view and be heard. And I think it was the rhythm of the Pilgrimage that softened the rage – if only on these two occasions. Pilgrims carry as little as possible, but they accumulate huge bundles of welcome, encouragement, poetry, rivers, mountains. After sohoor staying at an olive farm I walked out into the dark. When I stepped off the track among the

trees, everything changed suddenly. What can I say about what they said? Anyway I carried it along with me, as well as books of Palestinian poetry to take out of my pocket and read here there and everywhere and finally in Parliament Square. The media were focused elsewhere this year, for obvious reasons. Our message perhaps did not spread so widely, but it felt like it sank more deeply, and perhaps we really have called through the soles of our feet to the soul of Britain, the soul of Spain, the soul of civilisation.