Readers blog: Bethlehem is a place of unholy violence

My recent trip to Bethlehem shattered my illusions. The most iconic place in all of Christendom is the most unholy and violent I have ever visited.

Wander a little beyond Manger Square, with its splendid Church of the Nativity, souvenir shops and cafes, and you enter an entirely different world.

A world enveloped by Israel’s 50ft-high wall, topped with barbed wire and interspersed with intimidating watchtowers. A world of gun-toting Israeli soldiers, military checkpoints, and random road closures.

It’s a world where the stench of CS gas hangs permanently in the air.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian “terrorists” — teenagers for the most part, from one of Bethlehem’s three vastly overcrowded refugee camps — resist the occupation by throwing stones.

That their only “ammunition” mostly falls pathetically short of the intended target is seemingly lost on the soldiers of the Israeli Defence Force, who routinely respond with volleys of tear gas, skunk water, and rubber bullets.

It all makes me wonder how the Nativity might have occurred in today’s Holy Land. Instead of a manger, would Jesus have been born in the ruins of an Israeli-demolished Palestinian home? Would the shepherds heralding Jesus’s birth have been arrested for breaking curfew? And would the Three Wise Men have had their journey impeded by the apartheid wall?

So, peace, joy and goodwill to all, unless, of course, you come from the ghetto that is Bethlehem. There, they, too, know all about shattered illusions.

Terry Considine-Dooley

College Wood

Mallow

Co Cork