A Tayside man wants to return to Israel and Palestine to help “bring the two polarised communities together”.
Alex Holmes, 59, from Inverkeilor, spent three months as a human rights monitor with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme.
He witnessed violence in the West Bank during his mercy mission and said one of the hardest challenges since his return has been “to hang on to hope”.
The trip had a personal resonance for Mr Holmes whose father was a young officer with the British Army who was based in Palestine during the Arab Revolt from 1936-39.
He said: “The Holy Land is indeed a prayerful place but each one of the three monotheistic religious communities, believing in the ‘one God’ prays apart from the others.
“Huge walls, literally and figuratively, separate them.
“With my return to the UK, I’ve wanted to engage with my experiences at the level of religious faith.
“There is so much commonality yet so much that divides and separates the faiths.
“I dream of occasions when in some way I can facilitate the coming together of Jews, Muslims and Christians to pray together.
“I hope to return to the Holy Land and renew contacts made there.
“In particular I would like to return and engage with organisations that bring the two polarised communities together.”
Mr Holmes attended the Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony in Tel Aviv which left him filled “with a sense of possibility, anticipation and hope”.
The ceremony is organised by two groups who work for non-violence and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis who join together to remember the fallen.
Mr Holmes also spent time with a five-year-old boy from Palestine whose 18-month-old brother and his parents were killed in a firebombing attack attributed to Israeli Jewish extremists.
Ahmad was the sole survivor and spent the last year in an Israeli hospital before finally being allowed home in July.
After spending time with the family during his three-month stay, Ahmad’s uncle Nasser presented Mr Holmes with a copy of the Quran.
Inside was a hand written inscription which asks for the Alfateha to be read “for the souls of Ali, Said and Reham Dawabsheh”.
Mr Holmes said that five days after the arson attack Nasser lent a spare wheel to a Jewish settler family that had broken down as he returned home from the hospital.
He said: “My each day starts with the image of little Ahmad, smiling at the balloons in the sky.
“That gives me hope.
“As does the story of his uncle Nasser’s act of compassionate kindness, the mercy he showed towards ‘his enemies’.”
