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Indybay Feature

Religious tourism and freedom of movement denied in isolated Bethlehem

by Electronic Intifada (reposted)
Maureen Clare Murphy writing from Bethlehem, occupied West Bank, Live From Palestine, 23 December 2004
"It is quite simple. We have no business," a shopkeeper in Bethlehem's Old City tells me when I ask him how his business is faring after four years of Intifada and intensified Israeli military occupation. Camels and religious figures carved out of olive wood sit neatly and undisturbed on their shelves. His inventory is the same as it was four years ago. Since no one comes into his store to buy his souvenirs, he doesn't replenish his stock. And because businessmen like him are not ordering more merchandise, the factories in Bethlehem are at a standstill.

However, cheerful international media reports on Bethlehem make it seem as though the historic is enjoying a rebirth of tourism. An Associated Press article reports that the city is "often still full of tour buses," and because of a November joint agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian Ministers of Tourism to cooperate to help build their respective tourism industries, the press is singing hopeful songs about the revival of religious pilgrims to the area.

It has been reported that during the Christmas season, an Israeli Tourism Ministry official will greet religious tourists with bags of sweets at the Gilo checkpoint that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem, named after the illegal Israeli settlement nearby. But there was no such reception for this visitor Wednesday morning. Instead, I was made to wait on a bench for fifteen minutes while the bored Israeli soldiers flipped through a car magazine before they finally checked my passport and let me through, asking me brusquely in Arabic what I was intending to do in Bethlehem, and what I was planning on buying.

"The economy in Bethlehem is dramatically different now [since the beginning of the Intifada]," the shopkeeper in the Old City says, explaining that people are living off of savings accumulated during the tourism boom right after the Oslo Accords and before the current Intifada that broke out late September 2000. Unemployment is rampant, and in the last four years, nearly 10 percent of Bethlehem's Christian population has immigrated abroad, causing much worry about the disintegration of the town's cultural diversity.

Manger Square, which was bustling Wednesday with local children giddy with holiday excitement, is remarkably devoid of tourists despite the Christmas season. And when I walked down Milk Grotto, which leads from Manger Square to the site where legend has it that Jesus received his first feeding, more than half of the shops were closed. Workers at one of the opened stores were busily cleaning its very dirty windows, and it was clear that this was the first time the shop had been open in a long time.

Bethlehem has seen much trauma to its economy since the Intifada. A recent UN report informs, "a total of 28 hotels, 240 olive wood and mother-of-pearl workshops, and 50 restaurants have closed." Fears of violence and Israeli intimidation and closure have stopped religious tourists from coming to both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and those that do come to what they consider the Holy Land tend to spend most of their time in Jerusalem, and make only brief day trips to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Since approximately 18 percent of Bethlehem's population was employed in the tourism sector before the Intifada, and the Annexation Wall that is ghettoizing Bethlehem continues to be built, the outlook is grim.

An hotelier tells me that before the Intifada, the situation was good. Built in 1999, his business was immediately successful, and he boasted its four-star rating. When it opened, the hotel employed 45 people, but currently it employs only eight. Though it has 85 rooms and 160 beds, the hotel sometimes goes by for a month with no customers. At the best times, the hotelier says, ten rooms are occupied. This, despite that before the Intifada the hotel was full all year. And even though Bethlehem is at its peak tourism season, only one of his rooms was occupied at the time of my visit.

He explains how tourists are intimidated by Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints that close off Bethlehem from Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. "The guides and tourists say when they come to Bethlehem, the soldiers at the checkpoints hold them up for such a long time that they think Bethlehem is unsafe," so they are afraid to sleep in Bethlehem and they immediately return to Jerusalem after visiting Bethlehem's holy sites.

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http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3452.shtml
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by Palestinian Christmas decorations
manger Square!!!??? Isn't that where the paletinians captured "collaborators" (those who want peace) and tortured them, then disemboweled them, dreagged them through the streets and hung them from lamposts as Christmas decorations? That's a sure way to increase tourism!
Alternatively, they could take over another church and threaten to kill the monks unless more tourists show up.
by another Zionist lie
Collaborators are not "those who want peace." They are those who aid and abet Zionist aggression. There can be no peace without justice. There can be no justice while Zionist aggression is allowed to continue.

Killing those who collaborate with aggressors is just and moral. The Palestinian resistance is behaving no differently than maquis who killed members of the Vichy government or members of the IRA who killed spies for the British. For that matter, they are no different than the American patriots who killed Tories during America's own struggle against imperialism. It’s the right thing to do. In fact, it was the slaughter of the traitorous collaborators falsely known as “Loyalists” at King’s Mountain that proved a crucial turning point in the war. It forced Corwallis to retreat, his left wing destroyed, and led to his eventual surrender.

If the Palestinians are wrong to kill collaborators, then so were the French, the Irish and the Americans.

However, it is often a more effective object lesson to knee cap them, because it lasts longer and more people see it. That doesn’t mean that collaborators don’t deserve to be killed. They do. But they make much better object lessons as life long cripples. Just a suggestion.

by heard it before

by another Zionist lie Monday, Dec. 27, 2004 at 1:49 PM

They are those who aid and abet Palestinian anti-Zionist aggression which nessie supports. There can be no peace without comprehensive justice. There can be no justice while Palestinian aggression supported by nessie is allowed to continue.

messie's support for killing those who collaborate with Zionists against the aggressive terrorism he supports is highly unjust and immoral. The so-called Palestinian resistance is behaving very differently than maquis who killed members of the Vichy government or members of the IRA who killed spies for the British. For that matter, they are even more different than the American patriots who killed Tories during America's own struggle against imperialism. It’s the detestable thing to do.

The Palestinians are wrong to kill collaborators, as there case is much different than the French, the Irish and the American.

However, nessie's sadism finds an outlet by suggesting it is often a more effective object lesson to knee cap collaborators, because he reasons it lasts longer and more people see it. That doesn’t mean that collaborators with Palestinian terrorists don’t deserve to be killed. They do. But they make much better object lessons as life long cripples. Just a suggestion.
Oh really? How so?
Oh really? How so? Be specific.
I was polite enough to answer your question. Now you answer mine.

Or aren't you as polite as i am?
by anti-racist
You were polite enough to answer me but you negated your politeness by sullying the image of the Palestinian Human Movement that wages an ongoing war against the inhuman treatment their fellow Palestinians mete out to both Zionists and Palestinians who reject their path.

You abet evil and injustice. As such, you don't deserve an answer.
by Death to Imperialism
They acted correctly, as did the French the Irish and the Americans. I praised them for it.

It is *always* better that a few suffer so that the many do not, especially if those few so richly deserve it as collaborators do. There is no way that the suffering of Palestine will ever end without more suffering being imposed on their oppressors. Collaborators are every bit as guilty of oppression as any soldier in the IDF. They are guilty and they deserve to be punished to deter others from also collaborating. This war. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Surely you will not suggest that those who collaborated with the Nazis should have been spared, will you? There is no difference. Zionists are just Nazis in drag. They believe the same things and they act the same ways. They are just from a different ethnic group, that’s all.

by heard it before
>Your praise for mob lynching is morally inexcusable

So what are you saying here, that the American patriots shouldn’t have tarred and feathered all those tax collectors, ridden them out of town on a rail and then lynched them? Are you saying that the Zionist underground shouldn’t have kidnapped, tortured and then hung those British soldiers that time? Are you saying that people who helped the Nazis kill Jews should have been allowed to live? Is that what you’re saying?


>you have elevated the "national" good above the value of individual human lives

Wrong. I have merely pointed out a self evident fact, that what is good for many is more important than what is good for the few, especially if those few happen to be guilty of helping a racist aggressor commit ethnic cleansing.


>the least deserving among Palestinians of being murdered,

Wrong. They are the most deserving. They helped Israelis murder innocent people and steal their land. Some of them personally participated in the murder of fellow Palestinians by their Israeli masters. They are no different than the Jews who joined the Judenrat. Surely you are not suggesting that Adam Czerniakow should not have been killed, are you?


>Their oppressors are found among their leaders' ranks

Bullshit. This is a typical Zionist lie. You’re blaming the victims. What you are saying is like telling us that Lidice was the fault of the Czechs because if they hadn’t killed Heydrich, it never would have happened. It’s a lame excuse, and we don’t believe it.

Surely you are not suggesting that Heydrich should not have been killed, are you?

Well, are you?
by gehrig
nessie-nym: " Zionists are just Nazis in drag. They believe the same things and they act the same ways."

As usual, your hyperbolic nonsense undoes your message. Unless, that is, your message is to praise mob violence, which certainly seems to be the case here, and incite more mob violence against Israel and Israel's supporters.

@%<
by heard it before
It's the plain fact of the matter, a point which i noticed he didn't even try to refute. He merely called it a name. He offered no proof whatsoever that Nazis and Zionists differ in significant ways. That is because he can't, because they do not. Two more similar ideologies are harder to find, except perhaps in Rwanda. Ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing, no matter what ethnic group does it. Nazis did it to Germany and Zionists did to Palestine. There is no difference., except perhaps in the number of dead. But it's much too soon to count the dead. That has to wait till the struggle is over.

He didn't answer my questions either. So we can only guess how he feels about people's justice being inflicted on the likes of Czerniakow, Heydrich and British tax collectors and occupying troops. Perhaps he believes we should submit to evil and leave justice to G-d, or maybe the courts. He's wrong. It's people who believe that kind of crap who allowed the Nazis to take power in the first place.
by anti-racist
Those "collaborators" (the use of quotation marks is meant to remove the negative connotation you've attached to this word on this issue) were helping Israelis against their compatriots who had been murdering any Palestinian who wouldn't toe the extremist, racisat and violent "death to the Jews" party dogma.



by heard it before
They didn't "murder" anybody. They executed criminals who had helped the Israelis murder their comrades and countryman. If this is extremism, then so was the "murder" of Czerniakow. He, too, rejected armed resistance to racist aggression. He, too, helped racist aggressors murder his comrades and countrymen. He got what he deserved and so did they. If you think he didn't get what he deserved, ask any surviving ghetto fighter.
by gehrig
You know, take away nessie's overblown, inapt, and inept Nazi analogy, and his comprehension of the Arab/Israeli conflict drops to zero.

Mind you, it doesn't drop from a very great height.

@%<
by heard it before
he can't refute what i say, so he attacks me. How typical.

Perhaps someone else out there would care to try to explain why Czerniakow, and people like him, shouldn't get what they deserve.

Come on, let's hear it. Why should collaborators be spared from justice? Be specific.
by history buff
>Czerniakow . . . The people who murdered him should have kept him in some sort of arrest or turned him into police custody when the war was over.

Yeah, like that was possible. Gimme a break. o you take us for fools?

Courts are a civilian function. This is war. In war, partisans hold tribunals, reach verdicts and carry out sentences, all without the benefit of an established government or official courts. That's how it is. That's how the Irish did it. That's how the partisans of Vilna did it. That's how the Palestinians do it. That's how it's done.

Even among regular armies of traditional nation states, traitors are executed. You want to talk about barbarism, talk about the decades old prison camp that the Israeli army has made of the Occupied Territories. It's the new Warsaw Ghetto, and it's residents are behaving like Polish Jews.

by anti-racist
>>Czerniakow . . . The people who murdered him should have kept him in some sort of arrest or turned him into police custody when the war was over.

>Yeah, like that was possible. Gimme a break. o you take us for fools?

You don't know how to read on top of being disingenuous and morally decrepit. As long as the war raged on, he should have been overpowered and then kept under civil custody until life could return to normal and then he should have been transfered to the nearest police precinct with an accompanying complaint.
Go back to school.

>Courts are a civilian function.

Courts are also a military function, bluffer. You know that but still lie intentionally.

>In war, partisans hold tribunals, reach verdicts and carry out sentences, all without the benefit of an established government or official courts. That's how it is.

Still, even under war conditions the killing of a human is morally and legally prohibited other than in self defense.

>That's how the Irish did it. That's how the partisans of Vilna did it.

Not everything done in the more distant past was morally or legally right or justified. Besides, you're trying to pave the way to your excusing mob lynching and barbarism against collaborators and even people *suspected* as collaborators with Israel among the Palestinians.

>That's how the Palestinians do it. That's how it's done

Palestinians have done it in a much more grisly fashion. Your eternal denials mean nothing.
But the most important point you're overlooking is that there have been a numerically vast and powerful Palestinian police force and court systems along with prisons since about 1994. So there's no excuse for mob lynching of people who either collaborate with the "enemy" or are suspected of collaboration. You're well aware of the existence of this legal system but prefer the Palestinians ignore it and totally supplant it with mob rule. That renders you a lynch supporting monster who despises civilized behavior and legal bounds..

>You want to talk about barbarism, talk about the decades old prison camp that the Israeli army has made of the Occupied Territories. It's the new Warsaw Ghetto, and it's residents are behaving like Polish Jews.

You're lying with a vengeance. To the extent those territories are a prison camp, this has been brought about by the various Palestinian terror groups who, aware of the Israeli counter measures of curfews and closures, have virtually caused Israel to impose them almost incessantly. But the comparison of these areas to the Warsaw Ghetto and their Arab residents to Polish Jews is absurd and makes you suspect of being anti-Semitic.
by do you take us for fools?
In the rubble that the ghetto became!?! Gimme a break. Do you take us for fools? Or are you completely ignorant of history. It was not possible. Period.

And stop blaming the victims for what you have done to Palestine. They are among the most oppressed people on earth, and it's your fault. You did that to them. Whatever they do back, you brought on yourselves. You treat Palestinians like animals. And you expect them to not bite you for it!?! Gimme a break. You deserve to be bit. To put on an Israeli uniform should be an automatic death sentence. No Israeli soldier should be allowed to live. They are the Wehrmacht of our age. Kill them all. Let the old men, the women and children live, but the soldiers? Never. Kill them all. Let not one escape.

Then, and only then, will peace and justice come to Palestine.
by anti-racist
No. It's only you and your likes I'm taking for fools. Consider that a compliment given your real character as I have outlined above.

>In the rubble that the ghetto became!?! Gimme a break. It was not possible. Period.

That's your version. That's not exactly how it transpired.

>And stop blaming the victims for what you have done to Palestine.

I have done to "Palestine"? Phuleez. For one, you have no idea who I am and what I have done and where. Secondly, you have caused the Palestinian issue an enormous disservice by propagating your beloved violence as their first resort and encouraging them to remain backwards and unreasonable. For shame.

> They are among the most oppressed people on earth, and it's your fault. You did that to them. Whatever they do back, you brought on yourselves. You treat Palestinians like animals. And you expect them to not bite you for it!?! Gimme a break.You deserve to be bit.

I tell you, I've just got up after I fell down on the floor laughing uncontrilibly.
Now, disregarding your empty-minded personal attributions of all kinds of evil doings to me, the blacks in Darfur, like the Tibetans in Tibet are far more oppressed than the Palestinians ever have been.
Moreover, when the Palestinians were offered the Taba proposal giving them 99.99% of their demands, they were biting Israel with top vigor. You're an obnoxious enemy of truth, justice, civility, humanism and reason.

> To put on an Israeli uniform should be an automatic death sentence. No Israeli soldier should be allowed to live. They are the Wehrmacht of our age. Kill them all. Let the old men, the women and children live, but the soldiers? Never. Kill them all. Let not one escape.

Only Nazis in drags can lie so egregiously about Israel's soldiers and urge death for them all. This just exposes your monstrosity and ultra simple mindedness.

>Then, and only then, will peace and justice come to Palestine.

Peace and comprehensive justice will only come when you and your ilk are wiped off the face of this lovely earth so that they can't encourage Palestinians to substitute violence for desiring coexistence and reason. Personally I prefer you be "wiped off" via a reeducational effort, be it through CIA methods which were applied coercively to subjects in Canada in the 1960s, or a somewhat more benign form of reeducation.
by another Zionist lie
That's the version of the eyewitnesses and participants.

>coexistance

Coexistance with racist aggressors is immoral. Promoting coexistance with racist aggressors is immoral. The only just peace possible is a single, secular, egalitarian society in which all Palestinians, Jew, Muslim, Christian or whatever, are equal members. Anything less is the appeasement of evil.
by Sefarad

You say that the Zionists are liars so you are asking for us to be banned in this website.

Do you think the people who can read our posts are idiots who cannot think by themselves? Or do you want us to be banned for other people not to know what we say?
.
That's yet another bald faced lie you're telling. Conversely, I was beingf truthful. You're just pretending your version is the eyewitnesses' account.

>Coexistance with racist aggressors is immoral. Promoting coexistance with racist aggressors is immoral.

I'm in accord with you. And you inadvertently admit you're wrong by submitting this, for you have been promoting obvious racist aggression and racist aggressors..

>The only just peace possible is a single, secular, egalitarian society in which all Palestinians, Jew, Muslim, Christian or whatever, are equal members. Anything less is the appeasement of evil.

That's your opinion. Don't present it as fact. We don't fall for it. Your beloved Palestinian racists abhor your allegedly sincere peace vision.
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