Christmas Under Occupation

To everybody celebrating Christmas today, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas from the Holy Land. As people celebrate the birth of Jesus and Bethlehem is mentioned in countless Nativity plays and sermons all over the world, too few will realize the suffering endured by this holiest of cities. Surrounded by the illegal Israeli settlements of Har Homa and Gilo, Bethlehem today lies captive to the abusive policies of the Israeli occupation. The main road linking Bethlehem to Jerusalem has been closed off to Palestinians (Christians and Muslims) for several years now, reserved exclusively for the use of Israelis. The settlements and the Apartheid wall have taken up large tracts of Bethlehem’s land. Beit Jala, a suburb of Bethlehem, had 22% of its land confiscated by Israel in 1967, and a further 45% will be lost for the construction of the wall. For Palestinians in the northern West Bank, it is almost impossible to reach Bethlehem, courtesy of another one of the occupation’s military rules that restricts the entry of civilians from the northern West Bank to its southern branch.

Recently, Western diplomats such as Tony Blair have promoted Bethlehem as a safe and secure city for foreign tourists, and there has been a noticeable increase in the number of tourists visiting for Christmas this year. The problem with all this is that the root cause of Bethlehem’s suffering is ignored. There is no mention of the occupation that has almost closed off Bethlehem to those living near it, nor of the wall and settlements that continue stealing the town’s land, water and resources. Just last week the Israeli government announced plans to construct a further 750 housing units in Har Homa. Needless to say, this will come at Bethlehem’s expense.

There is a sad trend amongst many evangelical Christians, particularly in the United States, to see Israel’s occupation as a necessary chapter in the lead up to the Second Coming. They forcefully refuse to recognize the rights of native Palestinians-including Palestinian Christians who suffer no less than their Muslim compatriots. In calls contrary to the fundamental humanism of Christianity, they use their considerable political clout to demand that no pressure be placed on Israel to end its illegal occupation and Apartheid policies, while supporting the further colonization of what remains of the West Bank. I find it perplexing that people who see themselves as the saviors of Christianity will today celebrate the birth of Jesus while contributing to the terrible suffering of the town where Christ was born.

This Christmas, I know a lot of Palestinian Christians will be wishing that their Christian brethren around the world will realize what they are going through, just like Palestinian Muslims wish their Muslim brethren would wake up to the reality of their suffering, and the suffering of two of the most important towns for Christians and Muslims alike-Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Eid Mubarak & Merry Christmas