Eye witnesses:
Ecumenical Accompanier's reports
22.12.06 Silent Night
A dozen Palestinian men are lying on the ground by a metal gate on the outskirts of Bethlehem. It is 3:07 am on a clear, chilly night. To keep warm, the men have covered the asphalt with cardboard.
22.12.06 Two Worlds and a Huge Wall
I’m sitting on the terrace of the Augusta Victoria Hospital compound on the Mount of Olives with pine trees at my back overlooked by a spectacular full moon in a clear sky. It is 6 a.m. on a ‘warm’ December morning and in front...
22.12.06 On Harvesting
We leave Tulkarem before six, as Rabbi Achermann has asked us to get to Huwwarra checkpoint before seven thirty. Huge nimbus clouds tower across the light-blue morning sky as we zoom off in a sleepy Mercedes. The diesel engine...
9.10.06 10080 minutes in paradise
If your wonder years were during the seventies, you would remember Mike Batt of Tubular Bells fame. One of his less popular songs was ‘The Ride to Agadir’ which stirred my imagination and evoked images of battles in the desert...
1.10.06 A Day in the Life of an Ecumenical Accompanier
The account of a typical day of an EA working in Behtlehem.
29.09.06 A retreat in Taybeh, a Beerfest and a walk in the dark
It's Saturday 16th September, around five in the afternoon. I am on my way, along with one of my Bethlehem team mates, to Taybeh - a village close to Ramallah - for a retreat and a visit to the famous Taybeh beer festival.
21.09.06 A bus driver out of the ordinary
A bus driver who is loved by his passengers and who gives them fruit andsweets each day is not all that common. Then again, these passengers are not just anybody.
15.09.06 Stolen Trees and Broken Hearts
“They steal my trees, my land, my everything!” a woman shouts with a desperate voice. Her name is Grace Napoleon Abu Mohor and she owns 18 dunums of land to cultivate olive trees in Beit Jala outside of Bethlehem. Or rather she...
15.09.06 Humiliation at Huwwara
Last week, while I was providing cover for one of my colleagues in the Yanoun placement, I experienced the infamous checkpoint at the entrance to the city of Nablus; Huwwara.
Unlike other checkpoints I have experienced in the...
1.09.06 I did not vanish
The history of Jewish Hebron Revisited
It is a warm sunny day, as I take the bus from Tel Aviv towards the small Israeli town of Kfar Saba. The journey takes about one hour. Kilometres away from the West Bank city of Hebron, I...
