LIGHTS OF HOPE SHINE OUT IN BETHLEHEM, THANKS TO HAMAS
by Stephen Farrell, Bethlehem
The Times (London)
December 21, 2006, Thursday
Bethlehem’s festive lighting engineers have been working for 26 days
and have decorated half of Star Street. Their labour is a true act of
Christmas charity: they have not been paid for four months because of
the Western freeze on Palestinian aid after Hamas’s election victory
this year.
But it will take more than the 8,000 metres of cable being strung up
by Samaan Shaheen, a Christian city engineer, and his Muslim colleague
Khalil to cheer up the birthplace of Christianity.
British church leaders will arrive in Bethlehem to offer some support
to the troubled city today.
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Cormac
Murphy- O’Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Rev
David Coffey, the Moderator of the Free Churches, and Bishop Nathan
Hovhannisian, Primate of the Armenian Church of Great Britain, will
make the long walk from the Israeli Jerusalem-Bethlehem checkpoint to
Manger Square. Their visit was welcomed by Archbishop Michel Sabbah,
the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who said that it was a reminder
"to us, to the Israelis and the Palestinians, and to the world,
that the pilgrims’ path of hope and love must remain open".
In his Christmas message Archbishop Sabbah said: "Bethlehem is meant
to be the city of peace. Unfortunately, it is now just the contrary
-a city of conflict and death."
Bethlehem is sunk in gloom: sealed off from Jerusalem by Israel’s
wall, its tourism crippled by six years of intifada and war and
by Western sanctions against the Islamist Hamas-led Palestinian
Authority. Politics even infest Christmas.
Khalil and Samaan, who has been erecting lights for 23 years, joke
that yellow is the only safe colour left for the Nativity lights
this year: red would be too Popular Front and green too Hamas, as
the Islamist faction endures an uneasy truce with Fatah. But why,
Khalil wonders, can Bethlehem afford to beautify itself at £ 2.50
per metre of festive lights -bought or donated from Nazareth -when
their salaries have gone unpaid since late summer? "How do you think
it makes me feel? I don’t have half a shekel and I have a sick son
who needs dialysis that I can’t afford," he says.
The answer, Bethlehem’s Christian and Muslim councillors sigh in
unison, is that private and corporate donors are happy to contribute
in cash or kind for the festivities, but the municipality’s running
costs and £ 52,000 monthly salary bill are paid through taxes and
other revenues.
These have dried up because of the economic crisis begun by the
Israeli-Palestinian violence, and compounded by the Western boycott
on the Palestinian Authority. "We are isolated, anyone can see that,"
says Saleh Shoukeh, one of Bethlehem’s five Hamas councillors.
"Nevertheless we want to show the world that we are united here in
this city, Christian and Muslim, and that the City of Bethlehem should
be augmented with decorations on an international holiday."
The upshot was that local donors were asked to contribute, and
came forward.The Hamas-led Government -as eager as its Arafat-led
predecessor to be seen to be supporting Palestinian Christians -has
also promised tens of thousands of pounds for decorations.
Bethlehem had a majority of Christians until the late 1970s, but
that is now down to 45 per cent of the city’s 30,000 population, and
20 per cent in the wider district, said Anton Salman, a Christian
council member with Fatah. Before the outbreak of the intifada in
2000, Bethlehem drew more than 1.2 million pilgrims a year; only a
tenth of that number come now.
Back on the decoration round, Samaan gets on well with his Muslim
colleague, but as elsewhere in the region there is unease among
Christians about being caught between vastly more numerous -and
well-armed -enemies.
The two Bethlehem engineers will reach the square shortly before
Christmas Eve, to fit the last of the sparkling decorations.
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