The meeting in Betjala was great .More than fifteen SERVAS members attended the meeting.Rana ,myself and a friend of mine called Nadeem ,also attended the meeting. Everyone has the chance to speak about him/herself and life ,then they give me the chance to speak about our life in Palestine and about the political situation and the proposed solutions, fear and hope, peace and hatred , love and life. The whole group was very happy with the meeting and the fruitful discussion and it was like an intercultural lectures and mutual understanding. Differences is the spice of life .

After that we met together in the restaurant of the Beit Ibrahim Hotel and youth hostel and shared together a very delicious dinner.

The place is called Beit Ibrahim Guist House, very beautiful and ancient place .I recommend you all to visit .

The next day ,two SERVAS members visited us in Hebron, Chriss from Switserland and Peter from Germany. We took our lunch together and then visited the family of my father- in -law. It was marvelous.Peter from Germany is a game player ,he makes us all happy all the time .

Salam

Naim ,Rana and Nadeem

Inken , from Germany wrote:

Dear participants of the International Servas Meeting in Israel,

as you know it was not possible for Rana and Naim from Hebron to take part in the meeting in Sde Boker. Due to a curfew they could not leave their city in the Palestinian Territories. After having talked to them on Skype, some of us decided to meet Rana and Naim for a dinner.

On Monday April 8th we met in a guesthouse in Beit Jala, a Palestinian town between Jerusalem and Beth Lehem. The name of the guesthouse fit to the program of our meeting: “Beit Ibrahim” (in arabic it means “The House of Ibrahim – and “Ibrahim” is the arabic version of “Abraham”). The German name of the guesthouse is “Abrahams Herberge”. (the guesthouse is supported by the protestant church of Germany).

Abraham/Ibrahim is very important for Jews, Christians and Muslims – as patriarch and prophet. His grave is in Hebron. So having our meeting in this guesthouse was really symbolic for all of us.

Rana, Naim and a christan arabic friend of them from Beit Jala and eleven members of our International Meeting (Sibbele, Geartsje, Ruthilt, Andre, Peter, Gerda, Christoph, Joerg, Leonardo, Lisa and me) had an impressive discussion and dinner in Beit Ibrahim.

Naim is an engineer, and he studied Peace and Conflict Solution in the United States. Currently he works as assistent for the president of the university of Hebron. Rana was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up and was educated as nurse in Dubai and came to Hebron when she got married to Naim. She works as a teacher of arabic for the doctors and nurses of “Medicine sans frontières” (Doctors without borders) that work in the Palestinian Territories.

Naim and Rana informed us about the difficult situation of the people that live in the Palestinian Territories, about the wall, the curfews, the hatred, the water shortage. Their friend told us how difficult it is for him to visit Israel and the rest of the world though he has a permit to go to Israel twice a year (being Christian he can get the permit for Christmas and Easter – but often he doesn’t know in advance whether he gets it or not). Rana told us how difficult it was for her and their three children when soldiers and tanks were in the streets of Hebron during the second Intifada – they hid under a table not to be shot, and there was lot of fear for life.

Naim also informed us about his activities in a peace organization and his attempts to rise the number of Servas members in Palestine. He told us that his family hosts ten to twenty Servas travellers per year.

Peter and Christoph went to their house in Hebron the following day, and Ulli Alter from Berlin also planned to visit them.

We invited Naim to the International Summer Meeting in Berlin and hope that he will be able to attend!

I am very thankful that we could manage to meet Rana, Naim and their friend at the end of our impressive journey through Israel.

Shalom and Salaam to all of you!

Inken