A Christmas Card from Bethlehem

The town of Bethlehem

Picture: Palestine Monitor

Recent years have witnessed a steady decrease in the Chistian Palestinian population of Bethlehem. If this trend continues one of the most holy cities to christianity will be without a christian Palestinian community in merely a few decades.

Throughout the christmas hollidays christians everywhere go to church and hear the story about Josef who walked with his pregnant wife Maria from Nazareth to the city of David, Bethlehem, to register at a census. A stable bathed in the dim light of the star over Bethlehem with Josef and Maria standing next to the manger flanked by the three wise men; this is how most of us picture Bethlehem. Two millenia later the image of this Biblical town is quite different.

Although progress has been achieved both economically and with the overall security situation on the West Bank, Bethlehem faces its share of challenges. Years of unrest during the second intifada caused a drastic drop in the number of visiting tourists to the Christian shrines inevtiably leading to economic stagnation. Increasing number of Israeli settlements surrounding the city isolated Bethlehem from the rest of the West Bank territory. This phenomenon of isolation was further exacerbated by the ’closure regime’ imposed by Isareli authorities after the building of the ’security barrier’.

The IMF has reported a steady growth the past year in the major cities of the West Bank. In spite of this increase in economy, optimism is hardly prevalent when talking to people on the streets of Bethlehem. They don’t seem to feel economy is getting better. On the contrary they feel that the well-to-do middle class community, comprising mostly of Christians has been disadvantaged; hence the significant trickling of population. The Chrisitans are leaving - slowly but steadily. In 1947 about 75% of the population in Bethlehem were Christians. Today that number is down to about 20%. Between 2000-2004 about three thousand Christian Bethlemites left the city. Although that number has decreased since the end of the intifada, Christians continue to leave Bethlehem.

The Middle Class Brain Drain

Dr. Jad Isaac, Director General of the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ) expressed his concern over the changing demographic of Bethlehem during an interview with Palestine Monitor. ”There is a brain-drain effect going on and we are losing the brightest of our youth in Bethlehem. And it’s not a question of religion it’s just that traditionally the middle and upper class consist of christians. It’s the economic situation in the city that has only gotten worse and worse and that’s forcing the people that have money to go abroad.” According to Dr. Jad, the main causes of the economic situation can be attributed to the Israeli ’security barrier’ surrounding the Palestinian territories. In order to build the barrier the Israeli authorities have confiscated hundreds of square kilometers of Palestinian owned agricultural land, without offering compensation in return which largely restricted the local economy and employment. Furthermore, trade between the two ’sister-cities’ Bethlehem and Jerusalem, has also suffered great losses because of the restrictions on movement of labor and goods. ”in the year 2000 no less then 12.000 Bethlemites had a working permit to Jerusalem however in 2008 merely 1.000 permits were issued to Bethlemites”, Dr Jad states. It should be noted that some of these issues were caused by the violence during the second Intifada that reached its peak in 2003-4. Although a major part of the policy has to do with pure discrimination.

Dr. Jad also talks about the issue that Jonathan Cook calls the Israeli system ”designed to encourage the most privileged Palestinians, which has meant disproportionately Christians, to leave”. Cook is referring to the daily difficulties that have ”been greatly accelerated in recent years with the erection of the wall and numerous checkpoints. As he further explains, the objective has been to encourage elite and middle class Palestinians to seek a better life in the West, turning their back on the Holy Land.

The number of illegal settlements surrounding Bethlehem is increasing ’locking up’ Bethlehem and making people feel they are trapped in an open prison. George Rashmaawi, a young christian Palestinian from Bethlehem remarks over the changing sitation. ”Bethlehem is getting smaller and smaller – I’m talking about the area around Bethlehem is physically getting smaller because of the wall and the settlements, you see, we cannot go anywhere without a permit. The daily routine is suffocating.” He referres to the permits Palestinians can apply for during hollidays issued for a period of 45 days for visiting family and friends and religious shrines in Jerusalem, after which it become impossible to apply for another permit for the Easter holidays.

A Return in Tourism?

Inside the nativity church

Picture: Palestine Monitor

The lastest Bethlehem municipality reports indicated that tourism is finally returning to the city with over 1.2 million visitors in 2008. Although the statistics sound impressive, Bethlehem a few days before christmas appears a ghost town. On the city’s main square an older woman sits on one of the benches while her grandchildren are running around playing with eachother. Young men in small groups are dispersed sporadically on the square, hanging around, playing Arabic pop music on their mobile phones while middle-aged taxi drivers sip coffee and wait for costumers to arrive. The cafés are empty; the waiters are forlorn. In an interview with tha mayor of Bethlehem, Victor Batareshe, he explains that, ”the average tourist spends approximately two hours in Bethlehem and is then driven back to Jerusalem to dine and go out, to sleep and to buy souveniers. It’s all related: if you sleep in Bethlehem, you dine as well and in the meantime you walk around the city and drink coffee and buy souveniers.” In 2000 tourism made out some 40% of the city’s income, now the hotels run with an average of 30% vacancy throughout the year. Only during christmas are they fully booked and only for few days. Most of the travel agencies are located in Jerusalem and are Israeli owned companies that arrange trips to Bethlehem. Because of the immense ’image’ problem that Palestinians have faced post -Second Intifada many of the travel agencies choose not to let tourists stay in Bethlehem over night.

San Diego & back again

Issa Sacaan, a twenty-one year old christian Bethlehemite and a young aspiring documentarist will celebrate Christmas in his home town this year. A year ago he came back from San Diego, California, where he studied electrical engineering for about a year. He came back because he missed his family and friends and his homeland. His comments about this return reflect the conflciting emotions. ”life is not easy here and the conflict will go on, I think,” As Issa pauses for a few seconds, his eyes are fixed on the ash tray on the café table. He then continues ”if I could do it again, I would have stayed in San Diego.”

Sitting on the bus from Bethlehem to Ramallah, weary after a long day of speaking Arabic and impromptu meetings, the conversation with Issa resurfaces and its hard to make the association; that his name translates to to ’Jesus’ from Arabic. The late afternoon sun lays like parchment on the tawny mountains as the road winds through the landscape, the light changes from afternoon to evening. The drive is pleasantly calming. The bus passes by a house on a hill top, its black contours strinking against a deep blue evening sky. A gloomy yellow light shines through the windows, a reminiscent of a beautiful Christmas tale.