Palestinians Dispirited in Birthplace of Christ

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — A few spots of Christmas color lighted a battle-scarred background. Bagpipes and cymbals wailed and crashed in the streets, red ornaments dangled from a towering spruce tree and a few sprigs of holly shimmered on old limestone balconies.

Children crowded Manger Square on Wednesday, but almost all were locals. Few religious pilgrims chose to worship in this war zone.

Christmas arrives during a winter of frozen hopes in Christ’s birthplace. The local economy is in tatters, the ancient olive groves and vineyards outside of town are likely to be cut away by Israel’s new barrier, and tension is slowly rising as Palestinian militants from across the West Bank seek shelter in Bethlehem.

“Don’t Strangulate Bethlehem,” read the banners strung on City Hall in hopes of grabbing the world’s attention during the holiday festivities. “The Holy Land Doesn’t Need Walls, but Bridges.” And near a massive portrait of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat: “Don’t Convert Bethlehem Into a Ghetto.”

Centuries after Bethlehem secured its place in the popular imagination as a humble sanctuary for a frightened Jewish couple who were expecting a child, this biblical city has become a refuge for hunted Palestinian militants who’ve been quietly migrating here since Israeli soldiers pulled out over the summer.

The day before Christmas Eve, the Bethlehem commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group with ties to Arafat, sat in an idling sedan at the edge of Manger Square, slumped low in his thick jacket. The trunk of his car was stocked with a tangle of M-16 rifles. Abu Hussein was relatively comfortable.

“I’m sitting here talking to you, and the people can see me,” he said. “This wouldn’t have happened before, with the Israelis.”

But even in Bethlehem, living on the lam isn’t easy. Hussein stays awake at night and sleeps in one of various safe houses during the day. He eats cold meals, mostly, and says he’s always nervous.

Still, he enjoys a certain freedom in Bethlehem under the watch of Palestinian troops, with whom he says he enjoys an “excellent, excellent, excellent” relationship.

“With the Palestinian police, it’s mutual respect. We visit them and they visit us. We’re all under the instructions of the president,” he said, referring to Arafat.

“Here we can walk around, we can drive around,” said Abu Diya, a fugitive from Hebron who sought sanctuary in Bethlehem five months ago. On Wednesday, he slipped out among the crowds to watch the Palestinian Christian marching bands step high in white boots, pounding their drums until their faces were slick with sweat.

Israel’s complaints that Bethlehem has become a sanctuary for militants on the run are accurate, Palestinian security officials say. “Some have come in, but they’re Palestinians,” said Majdi Atari, Bethlehem’s director of security. “If they’re respecting the law, we leave them alone.”

When Israeli tanks wended their way out of Bethlehem’s center last summer, it was meant to be a gesture of good faith. Along with Jericho, Bethlehem was to be an oasis of Palestinian autonomy amid an occupation that binds most of the West Bank into a network of Israeli patrols, snipers’ nests and checkpoints.

But people in Bethlehem say it hasn’t worked out that way.

“Whatever the Israelis try to tell you, it’s nonsense,” said Ahmed Aid, a Bethlehem commander with the Palestinian security forces. “The occupation is still here. I don’t have any control, and our citizens are still suffering at the checkpoints.”

Although the people of Bethlehem no longer see Israeli military trucks, green uniforms and young soldiers slinging machine guns in their ancient streets, the troops are still hunkered down in an impenetrable ring around the city.

To enter or leave town is a laborious -- and risky -- endeavor. These days, most people have learned not to bother.

“We’ve even forgotten about going to Jerusalem -- and that’s supposed to be our sister city,” said Manal Hawash, a 31-year-old mother who stood near Manger Square on Wednesday, watching her two sons march in the annual parade.

Hawash has left Bethlehem only once since the intifada against the occupation began in September 2000. Her husband, a schoolteacher, needed emergency ear surgery and went to a hospital in Jerusalem. Doctors had given her documents to help her cross the Israeli checkpoint, but she was turned away. She ended up creeping through the fields.

“The people have lost hope, and now they’re even starting to lose faith,” said Bethlehem Gov. Zuhair Manasra, throwing a chin to indicate the families who lined Manger Square to greet Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah. “Look at them. They’re not happy. They’re not smiling.”

On Christmas Eve, Palestinians leaders postponed peace talks with Israel, deeply angry over this week’s raid into the Gaza Strip, which left nine Palestinians dead and dozens wounded.

Fear of Israel’s barrier, which would partition the Jewish state from the West Bank, is also pressing down on Bethlehem. Israel says the fence is meant to ward off suicide bombers, but it has cleaved into the West Bank to gird Jewish settlements. Palestinians regard it as a land grab that they fear could become a permanent border.

The barrier “is in contradiction with the nature of this land of God and the nature of the two peoples who have to live together regardless of the calculations and political interests of the leaders,” Sabbah told the Catholic congregation at midnight Mass.

The wall is plotted to slice Bethlehem and surrounding villages into three separate zones, Manasra said. It would prevent hundreds of farmers from harvesting their fields of olive and grape and will seal Bethlehem into an even deeper isolation, he said.

In the streets of Bethlehem, residents say the troubles can’t get much worse. They used to rely on tourism and day labor in Israel. Now the tourists don’t come, the workers are hemmed in, and the people are poor.

“We are besieged,” said Yousef Tareh, the 26-year-old painter who spelled out the banner messages in angry blacks and reds. “If they keep building the wall, it will be a catastrophe, especially for the Christians. We’re losing our land. And the world is forgetting that we exist.”

Metal shutters were clamped tight over most of the souvenir shops that once served Christian pilgrims. Bottles of holy oil, olive wood mangers and rosaries are gathering dust. The dates on postcards in the Il Bambino souvenir shop tell the story of a city frozen in time: They are left over from 2000, the year the intifada erupted.

As the winter afternoon grew pale on the stones of Manger Square, a Christian laborer named Yousef Thalgieh paused in paint-spattered work clothes. It was the day before Christmas Eve, and the square stood almost deserted. A few aging nuns shuffled past in gray tweeds. Children scrambled homeward from school, tussling and hollering into the dusk.

Thalgieh was making his way home, past the spot where his only son was gunned down two years ago. At 17, Johnny was a Greek Orthodox altar boy. He was struck in the head by a sniper’s bullet outside the sanctuary and died a stone’s throw from the traditional site of Jesus’ birth.

“It was right there,” said Thalgieh, 46, nodding toward the church. “My wife still has a hard time, always remembering. His sister still has dreams about him.

“This intifada has achieved nothing,” Thalgieh said, and turned for home.