Thursday, December 25, 2008

Peace Be With You: Bethlehem


Peace Be With You
Originally uploaded by tsweden
Media accounts today claim things are much better today, Christmas '08, in Bethlehem. More tourists, more visitors. But Palestinians who live in Bethlehem and work in Jerusalem still have to pass through this monstrosity every day, this apartheid wall.

Things will not be 'better' in the Holy Land until these structures are all blown up.

Merry Christmas.


P.S. Check out Juan Cole's much more extensive account of how awful things really are in Bethlehem.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And also with you.

Good point. Hegemony and repressive barricades do not breed peace. Time to topple Israel's apartheid wall.

Anonymous said...

Agence France Presse reports that "West Bank Muslims have driven out 50% of Bethlehem's Christians since Oslo . . ."

But keeping blaming Jews, gang! I'm sure that's the real problem!

Ted Swedenburg said...

I'd like to see where AFP actually said that. I doubt it. (I searched but couldn't find the source.) In any case, if you read the items posted by Juan Cole and referred to in my post, you'll see that "Muslims" aren't the chief factor in the outmigration of Christians from Bethlehem. Yes, the rise of Islamist movements plays a role, but Israeli policies, especially the economic strangulation of Bethlehem, play the biggest role.