1) Jerusalem Post: Palestinian Authority cancels Christmas

2) AP: Bethlehem faces gloomy Christmas

3) Take the virtual tour of Nativity Church, pick up your Bethlehem
Christmas Cards, learn about Christmas history, and soon I'll tell
you how to listen to LIVE traditional Christmas music from
Bethlehem! Check back with me...

http://www.bobmay.info


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Jerusalem Post: PA cancels Christmas

Khaled Abu Toameh Dec. 17, 2003

Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem will be restricted to low-profile
religious ceremonies for the third year in a row, Mayor Hanna Nasser
announced Tuesday.

Nasser said that a Christmas tree would be posted on Manger Square
and many streets would be decorated, but there would be no public
celebrations due to the difficult conditions inside Bethlehem.

A senior Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah told The
Jerusalem Post that Chairman Yasser Arafat does not have plans to
travel to Bethlehem. The official was responding to reports that
Israel would not allow Arafat to go to Bethlehem for Christmas.

"The president does not have any plans to go to Bethlehem this year,"
the official said. "There will be no celebrations in the city when it
is under siege and our people are under attack."

The mayor told reporters that, "The clouds of instability and
suffering continue to hover over Bethlehem. Cases of despair and fear
are the daily bread of the residents of Bethlehem."

The city has suffered a major blow as a result of six Israeli
incursions since the beginning of the current wave of violence, said
Nasser, estimating damages to property at nearly 5
million. "Bethlehem is continuing to pay a heavy price as a result of
the siege of the Church of the Nativity and the Israeli closure,
which prevents the movement of people and merchandise," he added.

Nasser said tourism, a main source of income for the city, has come
to a standstill with virtually no tourists or pilgrims coming to
visit the Church of the Nativity on the eve of Christmas. He said
unemployment in Bethlehem is at 65%, and more than 60% of the
residents were now living under the poverty line.

Nasser lashed out at the security fence that is being built around
Bethlehem, saying the project has prevented more than 170 families
from reaching their olive groves and fields.

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Bethlehem faces gloomy Christmas
By Lara Sukhtian
The Associated Press

The Jordan Times - Thursday - December 18, 2003


BETHLEHEM — The Church of the Nativity was empty, a few ornaments
hung forlornly on trees in a deserted Manger Square and no tourists
or pilgrims were to be found in the town where Jesus was born, just
days before Christmas.
Another gloomy Christmas faced Bethlehem, a West Bank town battered
by relentless Palestinian-Israeli violence that has decimated its
tourism-based economy, throwing thousands out of work, closing shops
and leaving the town's residents with little to celebrate.

Even Yasser Arafat, a symbol of pride for most Palestinians, would be
forced to skip Christmas Eve celebrations again this year, Israel
announced Tuesday.

Arafat told a Christian delegation at his sandbagged headquarters in
the West Bank city of Ramallah Tuesday that he hoped to take part in
the Christmas festivities this year in Bethlehem.

"I haven't missed it, except since being besieged in this building,"
Arafat said.

An Israeli official said the Palestinian Authority requested that
Arafat be allowed to make the 20-kilometre trip from Ramallah to
Bethlehem, but Israel would not agree.

Arafat, a Muslim, had attended the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in
Bethlehem each year after Israel turned Bethlehem over to Palestinian
Authority a few days before Christmas in 1994.

Christmas Eve then became as much a Palestinian political celebration
as a religious one, with posters of Arafat and streamers made of
hundreds of little Palestinian flags flying alongside strings of
coloured lights, and crowds of young Palestinians celebrating
independence alongside Christian tourists and pilgrims.

But it was sombre on Tuesday.

George Juha sat in his empty Manger Square restaurant, flipping
through a picture album, reminiscing about the good old days when
hundreds of tourists, diplomats, and famous personalities lunched
there .

"We've been closed most of the year. There are no tourists, so
business is very slow," said Juha, 44, looking at pictures from just
five years ago, when his restaurant was packed with US congressmen
enjoying a traditional Middle Eastern meal.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists used to throng the city in the
weeks before Christmas, and Manger Square, larger than a football
field, would fill up with people on Christmas Eve.

This year, Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser expects only a few hundred
visitors.

The Israelis are never far from Bethlehem, in fact or in spirit, and
Nasser said that their measures are harming the town. For example, he
said, a security barrier Israel is building to keep West Bank
attackers out has cut 4,000 Palestinians off from their town while
confiscating part of its land.

"The biggest danger we are facing on the ground today is the wall,"
said Nasser in his traditional pre-Christmas news conference Tuesday.

Last Christmas, the Vatican complained to Israel about access to
Manger Square in Bethlehem because it was again under Israeli
military occupation. The Israelis had moved back into the town in
response to violence, but pulled their tanks back just before
Christmas.

This time they are a bit further away, after leaving the town again
in July. But Nasser said they caused $5 million in damage in their
seven months in the town.

Israeli soldiers are manning checkpoints at the entrances to
Bethlehem, restricting movement there, as they do in the rest of the
West Bank.

"Our city is still a closed city. We don't feel we are free, we feel
like we are in a very big prison," Nasser said.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Jonathan Peled, said in Jerusalem
last week that "every effort will be made to facilitate and ease the
arrival of pilgrims to Bethlehem." The conflict has reached into the
Church of the Nativity, marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
Last year the church bell ringer, Samir Ibrahim Salman, was killed on
his way to the holy site, apparently by a stray bullet, as Israeli
forces traded gunfire with Palestinians holed up inside the church.

Salman's brother Hanna has taken over. "I love my job," he said. But
church officials say Salman, who suffers from Down syndrome, is
afraid to leave his room at night because of the violence.