Christmas in Bethlehem

CHRISTMAS IN BETHLEHEM: a beautiful, tranquil occasion. A deeply spiritual experience. A peaceful, inspirational moment when religious pilgrims return to a place of great significance, to see the place where Jesus came into the world and experience what it must have been like, in the town that has hardly changed since.

Not.

Try this: Palestinian soldiers with automatic weapons are posted every 100 feet or so along the road, glancing quickly as vehicles pass, always on the lookout for signs of terror. Crowds of Palestinian Arabs, mostly males, swarm through the old streets toward Manger Square, where live cameras will broadcast a live Christmas event, complete with big blow-up Santas and "Merry Christmases" everywhere. A handful of religious pilgrims clutch their handbags dearly and try to scurry safely past the barriers and into the Church of the Nativity, hours in advance of the beginning of the evening's big event: the Parade of the Patriarchs.

Security is so tight, we wonder if Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, is in town. Perhaps no one worries more about terrorists than do the PA authorities, who live in close quarters with Hamas and other rivals. Thus the Palestinian soldiers, whom I barely made eye contact with, let alone dare to photograph.

Christians were almost no where to be seen. Palestinian soldiers profile the crowd, preventing local Christians from entering; the main religious sites were open only to tourists. Symbols of Christmas -- the commercial as well as the religious -- mixed together in a way that was haphazard, and under other circumstances might have been hilarious. Tonight the birthplace of Jesus was full of tension; while there was a tenuous Peace on Earth there was very little Good Will Toward Men.

The political and cultural conflicts between Muslims and Jews serve as an omnipresent backdrop, but tonight, on Christmas eve, here in Bethlehem, other conflicts are more palpable: Palestinian government vs. rival factions, political Islam vs. Christianity. Christmas Eve seems to have become mainly a carnival for Bethlehem's largely non-Christian residents.

Evidently Christians have been largely driven from their historical homeland here. Some say it's because Israel's security barrier has devastated the local economy, all but eliminating a whole class of merchants. We spoke to a shop owner who complained the tour buses don't come anymore, and why would they? The pressure cooker we saw is not for the casual tourist. But clearly there's also truth in the opposing view, that the PA is inciting extremism through its policies. I worry that a whole generation is being taught to resist coexistence with Israel. We saw those whimsical historical maps several places, supposedly proving that Palestine (with modern Israeli borders) is an ancient Muslim nation. This is scary to me; I can only imagine how threatening this must be to the local Christian population.

With the Christian exodus, only one town in the entire West Bank, Taybeh, has retained its Christian majority -- at least that's what the New York Times said when they wrote about the Khoury family, Arab Christians whom I remember from the days they ran a liquor store in our neighborhood in Brookline. Before they opened the first Palestinian brewery, in Taybeh. The only place they could gain acceptance, since alcohol is considered forbidden by most Muslims. More recently they've been doing well in Muslim markets, selling a new non-alcoholic brew. Maybe we'll get a chance to explore Taybeh, and meet the former neighbors.

Getting to Bethlehem. . .and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. . .that's another story, I'll have to save for later. In fairness, I must mention that Ha'aretz had a very different, and very positive, impression of the same event. Maybe we left too early. Or maybe we just aren't accustomed to life the way it's lived here. Anyway, check out the other view.

Photos are here.