Fading hopes

The embattled West Bank hill town of Bethlehem faces a second cold Christmas as Palestinian Christians leave, and tourists stay away from the birthplace of Jesus and Christianity. “During these difficult times that our Palestinian cities are going through, especially in the Gaza Strip, it is difficult to show any signs of joy and happiness,” Orthodox priest Issa Thaljieh told Reuters. “The emigration out of Bethlehem is increasing daily and monthly, and ... this has a negative impact on the city,” he added. The Bethlehem municipality calendar for December shows no events. Bethlehem’s media spokeswoman Carmen Ghattas confirmed to The Gulf Today in a telephone interview that Christmas celebrations have been cancelled for the second year.  

Bethlehem’s economy has long depended on pilgrims and tourists visiting the 4th century Orthodox Church of the Nativity built over the grotto where tradition holds Jesus was born. The number of visitors has dwindled over the past two years due to Israel’s crack down In the West Bank and war on Gaza. Shops selling mother-of-pearl jewellery and olive wood carvings and cafes and restaurants have had little business. The high point of the year was the Christmas season. Festivities began in early December with the lighting of coloured lamps on a tall Christmas tree in Manger Square. The municipality staged a series of events to draw and entertain visitors. There were Christmas markets, displays of handicrafts, music, and, on Christmas Eve, a marching scout band. Celebrations lasted through the first week of the New Year when the Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas.  

Covid stole Christmas from Bethlehem in 2020 and 2021 following the 2019 bumper year. Celebrations revived in 2022 but were shut down last year. Since Hamas’ Oct.7, 2023, attack on Israel, at least 750 Palestinians have been killed and several thousand injured in the West Bank while the death toll in Gaza is about 45,000 with 10,006 injured. During this time, the US has protected Israel by vetoing UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the unrestricted delivery of desperately needed food, water, medicine and fuel. While the Western world feasts and exchanges gifts, Gazans are hungry, sick and under constant threat of death. Christmas is a luxury Palestinians can no longer imagine. 

An ancient town 10 kilometres south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem entered written history in Egyptian correspondence from 1350-1330 BC. Recent archaeological excavations of a 4,200-year-old cemetery proved Bethlehem had been a Canaanite settlement. Located on a hilltop, the city became a hub for trade and a strategic redoubt for waves of conquerors. On the site where the Church of the Nativity stands the Romans built a temple to Adonis (4 BC-326 AD), the human lover of the Greek goddess of beauty Aphrodite. The first Christian Basilica was erected by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine around 326 AD. This structure underwent multiple expansions and reconstructions, was damaged by earthquakes and destroyed by war, fire and neglect. In 2002 during the Second Intifada, 50 Palestinian fighters who had taken refuge in the church were besieged by the Israeli army for a month until an end to the siege was negotiated. In 2012, the church complex became the first Palestinian site to be listed as a World Heritage Site. 

Between 2013 and 2021, Italian experts carried out major renovations at a cost of $15 million to restore the church as they claimed, “to its former glory.” Managing director and CEO of the Bethlehem Development Foundation Mazen Karam, stated, “The Church of the Nativity is a treasure of history and of faith,” Donations from around the world totalling $30 million are to be used in the Bethlehem area to rescue and repair historic sites.   

Before Israel’s 1948 war of establishment, 85 per cent of Bethlehem’s population was Christian. Since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, illegal Israeli settlements, walls, and military outposts have compelled Muslims from surrounding villages to move to Bethlehem while Christians have left. It is easier for Christians than Muslims to go to Australia, the US, and other Western countries where they may have relatives and there are well-established Arab Christian communities. Today, Christians comprise 10 per cent of the Bethlehem’s population of about 28,500 according to the most recent census in 2017.  

The Bethlehem governorate has not been spared Israeli army and settler violence since Israel launched its Oct.7, 2003, war on Gaza and deepened repression in the West Bank. Travel between Palestinian cities, towns and villages has been made difficult by Israeli checkpoints and settler obstructions and harassment. When the situation was quiet, Palestinian Christian citizens of Israel living in the northern city of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, used to spend Christmas in Bethlehem. Some 200-300 of the 1,100 Christians in Gaza were given permission by Israel to travel to Bethlehem for celebrations. But they are no longer privileged. In October last year an Israeli airstrike killed 18 Palestinians sheltering in an outbuilding at the 860-year old Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza. 

Local and visiting West Bank residents are certain to flock to St. Catherine’s Roman Catholic church for midnight mass on Christmas eve. Before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon mounted his 2002 campaign on the West Bank, this service was attended by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. During Sharon’s offensive, Arafat was imprisoned in his Ramallah compound and could not travel to that year’s service which I attended with friends living in Jerusalem. On the front row chair where Arafat normally sat, a black-and-white keffiyeh was placed to symbolise his spiritual presence.  He never returned to Bethlehem.  Israel permitted an ailing Arafat to leave the compound in 2004 and he died in a hospital in France far from his war-torn homeland. 

Photo: AP