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26/01/2004

Israel Fact-Finding Tour.

On January 4 Grahame Davies went on a week's visit to Israel and Palestine. This was a research trip which arose out of his 2002 book, The Chosen People, which dealt with the relationship between the Welsh and the Jewish people over the centuries. He was invited by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and met with politicians and community leaders from all walks of life. These included official government representatives, politicians from the left and right of the spectrum, representatives of the Israeli Arab population, peace activists, and representatives of the Palestinian people, including Sheik Tal El Sider of Hamas. Due to the troubles in the region, much of the visit was sombre and thought-provoking. Among the places visited was a cemetery containing graves of the many Welsh soldiers killed in the 1917 Palestine campaign who are buried in Jerusalem on Mount Scopus . Here's an article Grahame Davies wrote about the place and its history. Another particularly memorable event was an unscheduled visit to Bethlehem on the night of the Eastern Orthodox Christmas, courtesy of Canon Andrew White, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Special representative in the Middle East and the broker of the Alexandria Declaration . Here's an article Grahame Davies wrote about some of the people encountered from all parts of the political spectrum. The party also visited the inspiring Save a Child's Heart scheme in a hospital near Tel Aviv, where Israeli doctors perform heart surgery free of charge on Palestinian children whose families could not afford the cost of medical treatment - there he saw plaque to Selmi Awada, towards the cost of whose life-saving surgery the advance and proceeds of The Chosen People were donated. There are a couple of articles in Welsh here about aspects of the visit here..

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