Ecumenical Accompaniment in Palestine and Israel

Abstract

For twenty years, Ecumenical Accompaniers have been present on the occupied West Bank and in Israel to observe and witness and to tell the international community what is happening in the everyday life of people living in this volatile context. Impartiality and nonviolence are some of the watchwords of the Ecumenical Accompaniment. Its mandate is to infuse hope in a seemingly hopeless situation and to point to the possibilities in a geographically and politically small space. Bedouins evoke romantic images of camel breeding and nomadic life, as well as the desert’s deceitful beauty. Actually, they are among the poorest and most marginalised communities in Palestine and Israel, increasingly forced to adopt a sedentary lifestyle in derelict houses in slum areas, with little or no access to clean water, electricity or other basic services. Bedouins are the residents of the village Khan Al Ahmar located east of Jerusalem. The closest school is in Jericho, 14 km away. The children of Khan Al Ahmar used to walk there, but after four of them were killed in traffic accidents on the highway, the villagers agreed to build their own school.