Battered Bethlehem faces another gloomy Christmas

THE Church of the Nativity is largely empty, a few ornaments hang forlornly on trees in a deserted Manger Square and few tourists or pilgrims are to be found in the town where Jesus was born, just days before Christmas.

Another gloomy Christmas faces Bethlehem, a West Bank town battered by relentless Palestinian-Israeli violence that has decimated its tourism-based economy, throwing thousands out of work, closing shops and leaving the town’s residents with little to celebrate.

Even Yasser Arafat, a symbol of pride for most Palestinians, will be forced to skip Christmas Eve celebrations again this year, Israel announced.

Arafat told a Christian delegation at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah Tuesday that he hoped to take part in the Christmas festivities this year in Bethlehem.

“I haven’t missed it, except since being besieged in this building,” Arafat said.

An Israeli official said the Palestinian Authority had requested that Arafat be allowed to make the 12-mile trip from Ramallah to Bethlehem, but Israel would not agree.

Arafat, a Muslim, has attended the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in Bethlehem each year after Israel turned Bethlehem over to his Palestinian Authority a few days before Christmas in 1994.

Christmas Eve then became as much a Palestinian political celebration as a religious one, with posters of Arafat and streamers made of hundreds of Palestinian flags flying beside coloured lights, and crowds of young Palestinians celebrating independence alongside Christian tourists and pilgrims. But it is sombre this week.

George Juha sat in his empty Manger Square restaurant, flipping through a picture album, reminiscing about the good old days when hundreds of tourists, diplomats, and famous personalities lunched there .

“We’ve been closed most of the year. There are no tourists, so business is very slow,” said Juha, 44, looking at pictures from just five years ago, when his restaurant was packed with US congressmen enjoying a traditional Middle Eastern meal.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists used to throng the city in the weeks before Christmas, and Manger Square, larger than a football field, would fill up with people on Christmas Eve.

This year, Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser expects only a few hundred visitors.

The Israelis are never far from Bethlehem, in fact or in spirit, and Nasser said that their measures were harming the town. For example, he said, a security barrier Israel is building to keep West Bank attackers out has cut 4,000 Palestinians off from their town while confiscating part of its land.

“The biggest danger we are facing on the ground today is the wall,” said Nasser in his traditional pre-Christmas news conference.

Last Christmas, the Vatican complained to Israel about access to Manger Square in Bethlehem because it was again under Israeli military occupation. The Israelis had moved back into the town in response to violence, but pulled their tanks back just before Christmas.

This time they are a bit further away, after leaving the town again in July. But Nasser said they caused €4.2m in damage in their seven months in the town.

Israeli soldiers are manning checkpoints at the entrances to Bethlehem, restricting movement there, as they do in the rest of the West Bank. “Our city is still a closed city. We don’t feel we are free, we feel like we are in a very big prison,” he said.