Bethlehem

Dec 21, 2006 18:05

I subscribed to Open Bethlehem today and plan to do all I can for them next year.

I didn't realise Bethlehem was in such a state. Israel's thirty foot wall of doom passes around Bethlehem and separates it from Nazareth and Jerusalem, people are required to go through two hour long checks and queues to pass from Israeli land into Palestinian Bethlehem, all the time watched by Israeli soldiers with automatic riffles.

Because of this Bethlehem has lost 90% of it's income. The tourist trade has been murdered, the only visitors come in on Israeli tourist coaches, spend ten minutes at the Church of the Nativity and leave.

The Christians in Bethlehem have gone from an 80% majority to a 15% minority in a short time, the Christians had the contacts, family and money to evacuate when the wall crushed their living, the Muslims didn't. This is why the Palestine football team includes Palestinian Christians who have to travel from as far afield as Brazil and Australia to play international games.

Regardless of religion though the people of Bethlehem are being crushed. They are living in poverty and polarising, like the rest of the world into Western Christianity and Muslim communities.

In countries like Palestine Christians, Muslims and Jews have traditionally lived as brothers, their scholars have debated and shared understandings of texts with one another. We can not let this continue or the world will be engulfed in fire and fury. Bethlehem is the most Holy town in the world we must do all we can to defy the wall until it is down and the people are free to trade and live normal lives. Until then we must help them financially because if we don't then no one will.

Next year I hope to get a Bethlehem passport and visit at some point, I'm really curious to see what life is like there. Maybe I could convince some kind of press folks to pay me to write about it. I won't ask vice though this time, they seem scared to touch anything political now unless it features tits or deepthroating.
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