Oasis of Peace - Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom

A couple of days ago while on a short break from the work in At-Tuwani, I took the opportunity to visit a village in Israel called Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom.  This village is located half way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, on land give for the village by Latrun Monastery.  The village was started 30 years ago as an intentional mixed Palestinian-Arab and Jewish village (all with Israeli citizenship) to demonstrate the coexistence between Jews and Palestinians by developing a community based on mutual acceptance, respect and cooperation.  Democratically governed and owned by its members, the community is not affiliated with any political party or movement.

The village gives expression to it's vision through programming like it's bilingual, binational school (first Jewish-Palestinians bilingual children's educational program in Israel) and the school for peace (conducts outreach education through encounter work between Arabs and Jews).

Please feel free to watch this short video about the village if you are interested...better than any words I'd find to describe it!

There is a Canadian Friends of WAS/NS group which has been working on touring an exhibit of art from last year's summer camp program in the village across Canada as part of raising awareness about the village and the programs that are offered there.  The board of Canadian Friends is currently based in Calgary and I have been involved with their efforts in the past half a year - and so I'm glad that I took the opportunity to visit the village while here.

Follow-up on the Quartet and Electricity in At-Tuwani

Thanks to all of you who responded to the urgent action that the CPT At-Tuwani team released the other week after the Israeli military delivered a demolition order to the newly constructed electricity pylons in the village.

We have heard back from the Quartet office - they are concerned about the situation and are working on it.  And just the other day the Mayor of At-Tuwani had a call from the Quartet office saying that the villagers have verbal permission from the Israeli authorities to bring electricity down.  Of course verbal permission is not as good as a written permit....however today construction workers are beginning to string the wires on the pylons down from the next town to the north!

Boys on Wheels

The new paved roads in At-Tuwani have opened a whole new realm of play for the young boys in the village.  Anything with wheels is used to zoom down the hills...from bikes and rollerblades to bits of a broken skateboard, and a roller skate attached to the bottom of a plastic crate.  Here are some photos!

The clinic in the village is still only open one day a week, through CARE international, so it is probably a good thing that the kids haven't attempted to stand on their wheeled toys as they ride down the hills.