The other story of Bethlehem

[modern]

Churches will be crowded throughout Britain over the coming days in celebration of events believed to have taken place 2,000 years ago.

Christian clergy will commemorate the birth in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem of their saviour as the son of God who had no place to lay his head and was, accordingly, born in a manger.

In Palestine today, lack of shelter remains a major problem for the people of Gaza, many of whom have been condemned to live in tents for the past two years.

Monday will mark the second anniversary of Israel's unjustified military assault on the coastal enclave, when its armed forces wiped out over 1,400 Palestinians in just over three weeks.

The attack was designed to destroy social infrastructure to make people's lives unbearable as a way of turning the Palestinian people against Hamas, which they had backed in free and democratic elections.

Israel has tightened the blockade against Gaza, despite international condemnation of this collective punishment of civilians, which is classified by the Geneva conventions as a war crime.

The occupying power, which presses ahead with its illegal colonisation of the West Bank, refuses to allow concrete or other building supplies into Gaza, preventing both the Palestinians themselves and the United Nations from beginning vital reconstruction.

Global opinion has been outraged by the inhuman treatment of the people of Gaza, prompting a number of humanitarian initiatives to breach the blockade.

Israel's obstinate determination to hold its line and to deter further blockade-challenging efforts was revealed by the murderous assault in May by special forces on the Mavi Marmara aid ship, which killed 10 Turkish aid workers.

Despite the complicity of the international media in giving Israel a head start to offer its slant on events on the Mavi Marmara, a tsunami of global public opinion put Tel Aviv on the back foot.

It promised to ease the blockade, but it continues to starve the people of Gaza - "putting them on a diet," as one Israeli official cynically put it.

Only half the food necessary to feed the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza is let through, while the sole export allowed out is strawberries.

The UN estimates that Gaza requires 670,000 lorryloads of construction materials to rebuild the homes, shops and factories destroyed by Israel's bombs and rockets left in ruins, but only an average of 715 a month have been let in since Israel announced that its blockade would be eased.

A coalition of 22 humanitarian organisations produced a report last month revealing that the supposed easing had barely dented the blockade.

The situation is likely to worsen in light of Israel's refusal to consider a halt to its West Bank colonisation programme and its perennial predisposition to resort to pre-emptive military assaults.

Negotiations are off the agenda currently because of Israel's attitude and because the US supposed mediator is in Tel Aviv's pocket.

As with apartheid South Africa previously, apartheid Israel's arrogance must be met with international criticism in the shape of the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement.

In common with that minority of white South Africans who identified with the cause of liberation, progressive Israelis will recognise the need for sanctions against their state.

They will understand that until there is justice for the Palestinians there can be no lasting peace and that pressure is required to achieve it.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/content/view/full/99215

[luke]

In Bethlehem, shepherds watching their flocks by night are a dying breed
Jewish settlements, Israeli army checkpoints, closed military zones and the separation wall make them an increasing rarity


A Palestinian shepherd at an Israeli checkpoint in the village of Maasarah, near Bethlehem

If an "angel of the Lord" were to appear in the sky over Bethlehem today, there would be scarcely any shepherds keeping watch over their flocks to witness the scene.

Spending nights and days in the fields herding sheep has become an almost impossible task for the fast-diminishing community of shepherds in this biblical Palestinian town.

Jewish settlements, Israeli army checkpoints, closed military zones and the West Bank separation barrier have reduced the grazing area to such an extent that a growing number of Bethlehem shepherds have been forced to give up their traditional livelihoods. "I miss the freedom of the wilderness. Everything is different now. We can barely move," says Adel Alsir, a 35-year-old Palestinian who herds his flock less than 100 metres from a biblical site known as the shepherds' fields.

While Alsir speaks, his 40 sheep scrutinise this small plot of land surrounded by houses in a desperate search for a blade of grass.

"The change has been huge," he says. "Before the [Israeli separation] wall was built, I had 300 heads. I remember how we used to start our way down to the Dead Sea early in the morning. On that hill, we used to stop to take a nap under the trees when the sun got too hot."

The hill he points to is Har Homa, a Jewish settlement built in the 1990s where 20,000 people live.

Jawad Badr, the head of the veterinary department at the Palestinian ministry of agriculture in Bethlehem, explains that in five years the shepherds have lost a third of their sheep. "This business is not profitable any more. Owing to the droughts and the lack of grazing areas, the shepherds are forced to buy fodder, but the prices are too high," he says.

The Palestinian Authority, he adds, cannot afford subsidies apart from a couple of free shots of vaccines a year.

If shepherds have become a kind of endangered species in Bethlehem, 73-year-old Carlos Nicola Sarras is an even greater rarity. He is one of the few remaining Christian shepherds in the area. His house sits next to the barrier that cuts Bethlehem and Beit Jala from the west. It is surrounded by half a hectare of land, where his sheep "go out to breathe some air".

Sarras, who despite his situation wears a permanent smile on his face, says: "This cannot be called herding."

This season, rain has been so scarce that he cannot even milk the sheep. Selling the rams and waiting for a better time is the only option. Today, Sarras is getting ready to slaughter one of his 30 sheep to celebrate Christmas with part of his family. The rest of his relatives, including five of his nine children, have emigrated. "Here there is no work. My kids could not live off the sheep even if they wanted to."

Many of his fellow shepherds have given up. Some lay bricks in the nearby settlements. Others remain jobless in a region where the unemployment rate reaches as high as to 23%.

But Sarras is not so interested in talking about the misfortune of his peers. Instead, he wants to show off his wooden catapult which he used to use to hunt birds.

He says: "This one is very good. The only problem is that the birds seem to have disappeared. I think it's all the weather's fault."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/23/bethlehem-shepherds-dying-breed