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Dec. 14, 2005

Plenty of room in the inns this year

Walled-in Bethlehem awaits rebirth of Christmas tourism

by Michele Chabin
Religion News Service

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Most of the merchandise in the Bethlehem Star Store has been sitting undisturbed on glass-encased shelves since 2000, the last time crowds of pilgrims flocked to the town where Jesus was born.

        “Back then, we worked day and night,” recalls George Baboul, the shop’s Greek Orthodox owner, surveying his overflowing inventory of mother-of-pearl crosses and olivewood Nativity scenes. “That was the year Pope John Paul II visited the Holy Land.”

        But when the Palestinian intifada erupted in September 2000, “the tourists stopped coming, and there was no business,” Baboul says. “None. There was shooting and it was very dangerous.”

        Baboul closed his store for three years. Palestinian-Israeli violence began to wane last December, but Baboul, 72, is still waiting for the crowds of tourists that used to be his Christmas staple. He had high hopes of a recovery this year, but business is hardly booming.

        “We hear that tour groups are coming, and that the hotels have reservations,” he says, referring to Christmas week and Hanukkah, which also begins on Dec. 25.

        But it’s getting harder and harder to cling to hope.

        While the increase in hotel reservations is a plus, Palestinian tourism officials say one terrorist attack or military maneuver could scare away even the most intrepid Christmas pilgrims.

        The residents of this mixed Christian-Muslim town, most of whom make their livings in tourism, are trying to remain upbeat.

        “Things are better this year,” Bethlehem Mayor Viktor Batarseh says from his office overlooking Manger Square. He credits political reforms and the lull in violence for his optimism.

        “We have a new, democratically elected municipality,” the mayor says. “Things are quiet politically, and security-wise the city is very safe. We’re expecting about 30,000 tourists.”

        Last year’s total was about 18,000.

        “We’re having an eight-day Christmas fair, concerts, choirs,” Batarseh says. “It’s very festive.”

        Last year’s festivities got off to a late start because of the 40-day Muslim mourning period for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died on Nov. 11, 2004 — and because of security concerns.

        Unlike the intifada years, when Bethlehem and neighboring towns served as a battleground for Palestinian militants and Israeli soldiers, the streets are calm today. Schoolchildren play tag along the narrow, winding streets, where most stores are open for business. Many shops, including those owned by Muslims, display Christmas trees, Santas and other symbols of the holiday.

        But residents say their Christmas is once again being cramped by the restrictions Israel places on personal movement.

        While tourists should have no problem entering the Bethlehem area — which Israel recently surrounded with an imposing 25-foot-high concrete security barrier intended to prevent terrorist incursions — it is almost impossible for ordinary Palestinians, Muslim or Christian, to enter Jerusalem for work, family gatherings or prayer.

        The result is an unemployment rate of 50 percent to 60 percent, by the mayor’s reckoning, and a steady emigration of local families. In 1990, 60 percent of Bethlehem’s residents were Christians; today they represent just 20 percent to 30 percent.

         “We live in a prison. This is not peace,” says Maryam Azziza, a 48-year-old Latin Catholic who works at the Bethlehem Peace Center.

        She says Bethlehem needs tourists more than ever.

        “I appeal to all pilgrims to come,” she said, “to pray and to support the Palestinian people. Let us pray for peace in the Middle East.”

        Despite the security situation, which intensified after a deadly Dec. 5 bomb attack in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, the government has announced that it will permit 500 Christians to enter Israel to worship and visit family.

        “Why should we need permission to visit our churches and relatives?” Azziza asks.

        The atmosphere is a great deal more upbeat in Israel, where a dramatic reduction in terror attacks in 2005 has given residents and visitors a sense of well-being. Long-shuttered restaurants and shops have reopened downtown, and once-quiet streets are again packed with people.

        “We anticipate having approximately 2 million visitors this year,” says Jonathan Pulik, a spokesman for the Israel Tourism Ministry. “The hotels are virtually full for holiday week, due to the convergence of Hanukkah and Christmas. We’re having difficulty finding places for some groups.”

        Nearly 2.7 million people visited Israel in 2000, the year of the pope’s visit and the start of the uprising. That number plummeted to 860,000 in 2002, then inched higher in 2003 (1 million) and 2004 (1.5 million).

        While no one doubts that Israelis feel safer than they have felt in years, merchants warn that the sense of security may not necessarily translate into a blockbuster holiday season.

        “Security has improved, of course, but the economic situation is very slow right now, and the little people don’t have as much money as they used to,” says Rachel Avraham, manager of the Kid Land candy store in the Malcha Shopping Mall in Jerusalem, which sells chocolate Santas and Hanukkah gelt (chocolate-filled coins).

        While people in western countries start shopping for Christmas and Hanukkah weeks or months before the holidays, that’s not the case in Israel, Avraham says. That gives shop owners hope of a last-minute stampede.

         “Things are less commercialized here,” he says, “but a couple of days before the holidays begin, the shopping hysteria will begin, too.”