There are no signs of Christmas festivities in the city considered to be the cradle of Christianity, reports Peter Hirschberg from Bethlehem.The abstinence is a protest against theIsraeli military presence in the city. Incensed at thecurfew, residents say they havelittle desire to celebrate
It is the week before Christmas, and every one of the 210 rooms in the Bethlehem Hotel is empty. In the cold lobby, two young employees lean idly against the check-in counter, their chatter magnified by the large, deserted entrance area. The nearby wicker chairs, set around a mural of Mary tending baby Jesus, are all empty. The souvenir shop in a corner of the lobby is locked.
For the first time on Christmas, the hotel is devoid of any decoration. "Even last year we had trees and lights, but what is the point?" says Elias El-Arja, a wealthy Palestinian Christian textile entrepreneur who built the hotel with his brothers during the immediate, ultimately fleeting, euphoria spawned by the Oslo accords. "No one's coming to Bethlehem. Our total occupancy this year is less than 1 per cent."
The absence of any palpable sign of Christmas festivity is evident throughout the city, considered the cradle of Christianity. There are no Christmas trees, no lights in the streets, and the city's many souvenir shops are empty. There are no tourists or pilgrims in the Church of the Nativity, and Manger Square is empty, except for a teenage boy, who is braving the steady drizzle in the futile hope he might spot a tourist and convince him to buy one of the kefiyeh headdresses he is selling.
The abstinence is also a form of protest, against the Israeli military presence in the city. Incensed that they have been caged in their homes due to a three-week curfew, imposed after a suicide bomber from Bethlehem killed 11 Israelis on a bus in Jerusalem last month, residents say they have little desire to celebrate. The mayor vows there will be no Christmas lights in the city as long as there are armoured vehicles on the streets.
But the pre-Christmas dejection engulfing Bethlehem and its 28,000 residents did not begin with the latest curfew. It dates back to the eruption of the intifada, in September 2000, and the subsequent Israeli military response to the uprising, including the reconquering of almost all West Bank cities. The fighting scared away the tourists who are the city's lifeblood.
Sitting in his office, with four framed pictures of Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat adorning the wall behind him - and an almost life-size poster of the Palestinian leader leaning against another wall - Bethlehem mayor Hanna Nasser laments the shattered tourism industry in his city.
Since the start of the intifada, says Nasser, a Palestinian Christian, the tens of thousands of tourists who used to descend on Bethlehem each month have dwindled to a trickle of "maybe a few hundred a month". Some 4,000 people who worked in tourism are jobless. The city, he estimates, has lost "at least" $100 million in tourist income in the last two years.
"Sixty-five per cent of our economy was tourism. Now it has collapsed," says the thin-faced, spectacled mayor, who regularly strokes his graying goatee.
He blames Israel. "They're here with their army and all their tanks and still they can't stop the attacks. Security is simply a pretext for them being here. The occupation is the key problem. They have to return to talks and end the occupation."
Nasser, an Arafat appointee, scoffs at Israel's decision to bar the Palestinian leader from attending midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity for the second year running. "His absence," says the mayor, "will again be marked by an empty chair with a kefiyeh draped over it." The last time the Palestinian leader visited the city was when Pope John Paul II was making his historic millennium tour of the Holy Land, including a stop in Bethlehem, and thousands of tourists and pilgrims squeezed into Manger Square, in March 2000. The only remnant of that visit is a rusting, out-of-order neon sign in the square that reads: "Bethlehem Municipality Welcomes His Excellency President Yasser Arafat And His Esteemed Guests."
Israeli officials say the army cannot be withdrawn because of a "strong terrorist network" in Bethlehem. They point to the fact that the Muslims, who are the ones usually at the vanguard of militant Palestinian nationalism, now constitute a majority in the city.
The Palestinians' predicament, they add, is self-made. "The intifada has destroyed our tourist industry as well," says Avi Pazner, a government spokesman. "Those who have started the war of terror should be held responsible for what happened to Israeli and Palestinian tourism. It's a direct result of the intifada."
A few streets from Manger Square is one of the first signs that Christmas is approaching. A two-metre, blow-up Santa Claus maintains a lonely vigil outside the Jumana Gift Centre, on a road lined with decorative lights.
"They don't work," says Christian shop-owner Victor Hosh, pointing to several electricity poles felled by Israeli APCs.
Initially, Hosh vacillated over whether to place the inflatable Santa outside his shop. "People aren't in the mood [to celebrate\]. I thought it might make them mad," he explains.
Inside the shop, Jingle Bells issues from a CD player, but then gives way to a seemingly more appropriate Gregorian chant. The shelves are filled with Santa Claus mugs, boxes of musical lights, Christmas cards and crackers. But the shop is empty, and a glum Hosh says few of the locals have money to buy.
"People aren't even prepared to take a cheque any more," he says. "They're scared it will bounce." Before the intifada, recalls Hosh (38), his shop was so packed in the run-up to Christmas "that I wouldn't have had time to stand and chat. There's no work because there are no tourists. Not even the Christian Arabs in Israel are coming. They're afraid, like the tourists from the US and Europe, because the army has declared this area a closed military zone".
Israel has begun to ease the curfew, lifting it during daylight hours. It is mid-morning and there is no sign of troops or armoured vehicles on the streets. During the holiday itself, says Pazner, the army plans to keep as low profile as possible.
But that is unlikely to lift the Christmas gloom. Celebrations in the home of Mouna and Bassem Abu Rhanem will be low-key. There will be a tree, but no presents.
"Money has to go on food," says Bassem, whose livelihood depends on tourists buying the small camels and donkeys he carves out of olive-wood in the cramped workshop below his home in the Beit Jalla neighbourhood, on the outskirts of Bethlehem.
Bassem, who was born here in 1956, wrings his hands, calloused and cracked from the carving, as he recounts how he has had "no work for two years". A considerable part of his income is a monthly 600-shekel ($130) disability grant he gets for his seven-year-old son who lost his arm after being hit by an Israeli tank shell two years ago. The boy is alive today because the shell did not explode.
At the time, the neighbourhood was the scene of fierce gun battles, with Palestinian militants firing on the Jewish neighbourhood of Gilo across the wadi, and Israeli tanks returning fire. The gun battles have long ceased now that the militants who initiated the nightly fire are no longer in Beit Jalla, but that has not instilled hope.
"No one wants to celebrate," says Mouna. "We're living in a prison."
At the Bethlehem Hotel, Elias El-Arja is teasing a friend, Shawki Awad, who says he's too depressed to put a tree in his living room. "In the end you'll do it," chuckles El-Arja. "Because your wife will want one, and she's the one who decides."
"Violence begets violence," says an irritated Awad, who is more intent on talking about the conflict than about Christmas. "If the Israelis stop their violence, then the Palestinians will stop. But we have to defend ourselves."
El-Arja, maybe because he can afford to, remains optimistic. "I'm waiting for the peace process to restart and for the tourists to start coming back. Business will return to the city."