After spending an early Christmas day in Bethlehem, we wondered how Jesus would feel about the eight-metre concrete wall that completely surrounds Bethlehem, condemning Christians and Muslims who live there to a life of captivity? No one is freely allowed in or out. Resident Palestinians, Arabs and Christians must apply to Israel for a visa to exit Bethlehem and enter Israel on the other side of the Wall. Armed guards ensure no one enters or leaves without authorization.
In 2004, I participated as the NGO representative of the IBVM or Loretto Sisters at the United Nations when Israel was engendering outrage by building a security wall that, at completion, was expected to be four times the size of the Berlin Wall. By a vote of 150-6, with 10 abstentions, the UN General Assembly ruled the wall was illegal and demanded that Israel comply with the International Court of Justice and cease construction of the wall on Palestinian territory. Israel refused.
That same year, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops termed the action a “collective punishment of Palestinian citizens.” In 2006, following a deterioration of economic and humanitarian conditions among Palestinians in the occupied territories, the UN General Assembly established a body to keep a “record of damages arising from the construction of the wall.” There are literally thousands of claims today.
The wall and the Israeli government’s settlement campaign have been consistently condemned by the UN as a breach of international law and humanitarian rights. Israel argues the wall is necessary for security and that it has a right and obligation to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and other attacks that had been on the rise before 2004. But Israel’s security argument is disputed by the International Court of Justice. In 2009 after visiting Bethlehem Pope Benedict XVI called the wall a “stark reminder of the stalemate that relationships between the Israelis and the Palestinians seem to have reached.”
Our pilgrimage group celebrated Christmas in November at a Mass in the Basilica of the Nativity built over the cave where Jesus was born. It was a special moment during our Holy Land pilgrimage. But later that night, as we stood singing on our hotel balcony, our joy became sadness as we looked out on the enormous wall just metres away and as we felt the looming presence of the Jewish settlement overlooking the city on a nearby hill.
In Bethlehem we met people who have been walled in, imprisoned in their own town, yet they retain hope that one day they will be set free. We met people who were kind and generous and grateful that we pierced the wall to visit them. We were guided by our own special angel, Gabriella, a Christian resident of Bethlehem and a tour guide who had to leave our bus at the Israeli checkpoint while we went on to Jerusalem just minutes away. Our driver, a Palestinian whose home is on the Israeli side of the wall, is fearful every time his eight-year-old quintuplets pass through the checkpoint at the wall to attend a Christian school in Bethlehem.
Bethlehem has become a ghetto reliant on income from pilgrims who visit the holy places in spite of an Israeli sign posted prominently at the entrance gate warning that we enter at our own risk. Even priests, brothers, sisters and seminarians who study at the only Catholic seminary in Palestine or maintain the holy places have difficulty moving in and out of Bethlehem.
The restrictions on movement have devastated the economy, causing businesses to close, unemployment to rise and social services to become almost nonexistent.
The holy places are at risk of becoming mere tourist destinations, rather than places of pilgrimage and prayer, as tour guides wisk large groups through with a bit of historical commentary.
In Bethlehem, we felt no danger. We were welcomed warmly at Our Lady of Fatima School for Christian and Muslim children who receive education together due to the generosity of foreign donors. At the Holy Family Creche, run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, we were hugged by children in an orphanage. Sister Marie said these children have no hope of being adopted because they have no identity and cannot leave Bethlehem.
Gabriella’s son, recently graduated from the University of Bethlehem, has little hope of finding a job and cannot even look for one on the other side of the wall. Everyone we met, including the rector of the Catholic seminary, asked us not to forget them and to tell the world what their life is like.
We will celebrate this Christmas in Canada thankful to live in a free country, but wondering how we can help those trapped in Bethlehem. We will urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who will visit Israel soon, to demand that the wall come down. We will remember the people who urged us “to not forget them” and to “be their voice to the world outside the wall.” And we will pray for peace so that the wall can be dismantled and the people of Bethlehem can be freed.