I first heard about The Big Ride 4 Palestine when I was at a pro-Palestinian protest in central London earlier this year to mark 75 years of the Nakba (the "catastrophe" in Arabic, and what Palestinians describe as the beginning of the Israeli state's occupation of Palestine). I saw a person with a Big Ride 4 Palestine cycling jersey on and loads of flags on their bike, I looked up the organisation, and the rest is history!

The Big Ride for Palestine is an annual charity bike ride, that uses cycling as a mechanism to inform people and show solidarity with the Palestinian people. They are teaming up with the Amos Trust to send a cycling team from Gaza - the Gaza Sunbirds - to the Paralympics in France in 2024. Anything you can donate will help towards this! I'll be cycling from Cardiff to Bristol over 2 days on Friday 4th August = over 120km (74ish miles).

As a passionate cyclist and a Jew - this is both a physical challenge and one that allows me to say: "not in my name". Not in my name will the Israeli state destroy Palestinian homes, so that I might go and live in occupied territory under the "Law of Return". Not in my name will the Israeli state suppress Palestinian livelihoods so that their economy grows stronger. Not in my name will the Israeli state kill and torture Palestinians under the guise of "defending" the Jewish people. Jews know all too well about oppression, genocide and ethnic cleansing. That's why as a Jewish person - and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors - I want to use this cycling challenge to say "not in my name", and support Palestinian representation at the 2024 Paralympics.