Christmas in Bethlehem
December 1995
When in Israel at Christmas the place to go must be
Bethlehem, especially in the year when the Israelis are going and the Palestine
Authority arriving. So I went, three times.
On Christmas Eve morning, I boarded a dusty Arab bus from
outside the Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem, and paid my thirty pence for the eight-mile
ride to Manger Street. Bethlehem is not a pretty town, even on a bright sunny
day. It is pretty squalid, a mass of litter, untidy precast buildings and - in
the absence of traffic lights - honking traffic chaos, controlled or
contributed to by the newly deployed Palestinian police and defence forces. A
visiting French journalist from one of Bethlehem's twin towns told me that the
Israelis had made no effort to develop the town's tourist potential during
their twenty-eight year occupation, preferring that tourists like me should
stay and pay in Jerusalem.
Manger Square is crammed with people at eleven in the morning
and Palestine flags and pictures of Arafat outnumber pictures of Mary and the
Infant Jesus. But those are there, as is a giant Christmas Tree outside the old
Israeli and new Palestine Police Station, the roof of which is full of armed
men. In the past few days, the barbed wire fence surrounding it has been torn
down.
We appear to be waiting for the Latin Patriarch, the Roman
Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem, whose entry into Bethlehem is preceded by an
endlessly long procession of bands, scouts and guides. I spot the Greek
Orthodox Patriarch disappearing up a side street in a shiny stretched limo. He
is the custodian of the Church of the Nativity, and others worship there as his
guests. Orthodox Christmas happens in early January, and Armenian Apostolic
even later. Today's celebrations are the first of the trio.
Clinging to municipal street furniture with half a dozen Arab
young men, I'm wilting in the heat when several hours later and to cries of The
Patriarch, Michel Sabbah, clad in pink, eventually enters Manger Square. I
can only take my photos now by holding the camera over my head. The crowd has
been relaxed throughout but it occurs to me that the Palestine security forces,
three days into their role here, have no experience of crowd control and a
sudden surge could easily result in people getting crushed. I'm also not sure
that I can last out until the midnight mass which Yasser Arafat is scheduled to
attend. I decide to return to Jerusalem by clapped out taxi (five dollars) to
rest and to come back later.
But how to get back? Israelis have been told Bethlehem is off
limits for Christmas, a closed zone, and what transport will be running is
unclear. I discover that the Anglican cathedral of St George in Jerusalem runs
a coach to Bethlehem in the evening in order to conduct a carol service at the
Church of the Nativity. This sounds attractive: my lack of religious conviction
has always had to take second place to the pleasure I take in singing carols.
So, leaving my camera behind (I've taken enough photos for today), I head over
to St George's, where an assortment of English pilgrims and American tourists
(some in Father Christmas hats) fills no less than three modern Israeli coaches
at three pounds a head. We've got a police escort, to make it easier, and the
Israelis take us down the new and eerily dark Bethlehem by pass road, built to
allow travel to Hebron (Israeli) without going through the Palestine Authority
enclave. At some point we are invisibly handed over to a Palestinian escort,
which pushes aside Bethlehem's packed crowds to allow the coaches to come close
to the Church of the Nativity. Inside, we get to see the Star of Bethlehem,
which marks the apocryphal place of Jesus's birth, before being escorted up to
the roof where we have our carol singing pitch for the evening. A lovely idea!
There to welcome us are the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, the
Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, and Yasser Arafat,
Chairman of the Palestine Authority, who shakes hands with each of us and stays
to listen to an hour's ragged English carol singing. We have no choristers or
instruments to help us out. Then Arafat makes a prepared speech before the one
TV camera on the roof. I forget what he said, and it scarcely matters, but it
was brief and modest. His job is to reassure Christians that they will be
secure under Palestinian rule, and much has been made of the fact that his wife
was born a Greek Orthodox Christian. He is surrounded by a bodyguard shield but
for the first time today I cannot see a gun.
Well, to stay in Manger Square for the open-air TV relay of
midnight mass inside the Church would be an anti-climax after this strange
encounter, so I go back in the coach to Jerusalem with the Anglicans. The
Bishop goes in his Mercedes and H. M. Consul in his Land Rover, a path cleared
for both by a blaring, flashing Palestinian police jeep.
It occurs to me that as pilgrims and tourists we haven't
spent a shekel, dinar or cent in Bethlehem (which has three legal currencies)
and I mention this to the Bishop's Chaplain, asking him to pass on the thought.
It was clear from the Bishop's address to us that his sympathies are with the
Palestinians; he effectively said Today Bethlehem, next year Jerusalem. So
he might well take heed. A compulsory snack, drink or knick-knack would have
done none of us any harm and the Bethlehem economy a tiny bit of good.
Christmas Day sees me back on the bus to Bethlehem, where
it's the morning after the night before. The crowds have gone, and I head to a
deserted Post Office to fabricate philatelic souvenirs. They haven't got
special Christmas stamps this year, but they have managed a special Palestinian
Authority postmark with a candle, holly and what I think we would tend to call
wedding bells. I stick regular Palestine Authority stamps on Bethlehem
postcards and get them specially cancelled at the post office counter. It's
still novel for the post office clerk, who laughs at my eccentricity. We don't
have enough language in common for me to explain that with any luck these cards
will pay for my holiday.
When you find yourself shaking hands with Yasser Arafat, what
do you say?
My knowledge of the situation amounts to this: Rabin is dead.
Arafat survives, despite rather more death threats and under pressure from all
sides: Israel, on which he is economically dependent and which requires him to
clamp down on his extremists; his people, who want an end to poverty and
Israeli checkpoints; Hamas, which won't participate in the January elections
for what they regard as a Bantustan; Arab states, which have their own agendas.
So I shook hands and said the sort of thing someone intent on
open air English carol singing might be moved to say:
"Good Luck!"
*
Written at the time; previously published in Trevor Pateman Silence
is So Accurate (2017)
