Wanted urgently in a little town: a miracle of hearts and minds

By ron ferguson

Published:

O little town of Bethlehem,

How still we see thee lie!

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by:

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight.

HOW often this carol will be sung over the next few days – at nativity plays, school carol services and watchnight services. It’s a beautiful carol, very poetic: phrases like “above thy deep and dreamless sleep” and “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” stay in the mind. The song conjures up the city of David. It is both physical and spiritual; its name in the Hebrew means “place of bread”. Bread is the basic need in life, so it’s appropriate that the mystery of God is manifested in a place with such elemental, royal and spiritual resonances.

Pilgrims to the Holy Land make for Bethlehem, following the words of the shepherds: “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.” Visitors stand in Bethlehem, heads bowed, meditating on the birth of Christ. Yet Bethlehem today is a tragic place.

More than 2,000 years after the birth of Christ, far from being a peaceful spot, Bethlehem speaks of tension and conflict. It is part of a territory divided by a huge wall.

Around 2% of the Palestinian population is Christian. Many of them live in what’s known as the Bethlehem Triangle. The rest live in places like Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza and other small towns and villages.

In 1967, Israel occupied all of the West Bank, including Bethlehem and east Jerusalem. Soon after that, Israel initiated a policy of building settlements in the occupied territories. These settlements, along with the roads that connect them, surround Bethlehem, confining it and cutting it off from other Palestinian communities.

The 26ft-high security wall completes the isolation of Bethlehem and prevents it from ever expanding. The new roads are effectively closed to Palestinian residents.

Palestinians living in Jerusalem require a pass to travel between the towns, and it has to be renewed every three months. The Israeli military exercises complete control over the roads.

Palestinians have had to watch much of the land being confiscated or made inaccessible. Farmers can spend hours trying to get access to their own land. Observers who have walked with the Palestinians have been horrified by the obstructions put in their way.

The expanded settlements, the roads and the wall all mean that many Palestinian Christians feel that they are effectively living in an open-air prison. The little town of Bethlehem finds that its deep and dreamless sleep has turned into a nightmare.

With farmers having difficulty doing their work and tourism affected by the new arrangements, Bethlehem's future looks bleak. If these trends continue, Bethlehem may end up being nothing more than a Christian museum.

The creation of a just peace in the Middle East has to be a world priority. The instability of the region threatens the security of the whole world, with Israel possessing nuclear weapons and Iran seemingly hell-bent on doing the same.

The current situation is brutalising both parties in the Israel-Palestine standoff.

Yehuda Shaul, a 26-year-old Israeli Jew, joined the Israeli defence forces at the age of 18. He served for two years in the West Bank. He became disillusioned by what was going on. He talks now about how he and his fellow-soldiers would use Palestinian people to identify booby traps. He would order Palestinians to pick up suspicious packages in the street.

“There is no way to be a soldier in the occupied territories and see Palestinians as human beings,” he said. “For Israeli children, our transition to adulthood is bathed in violence. You live in a reality where violence is not only your answer to everything, it is your instinct.”

When his military service ended, he was horrified as he reflected on what he had done. “It is like a moment of enlightenment,” he said. “Suddenly, you reflect back on what you have done and see it in a very different light. The first second you stop thinking as a professional combat soldier and think like a civilian is a terrifying moment. You lose justification for 90% of the actions you have taken.”

Since then, Yehuda, after finding out that many others shared his experience, set up Breaking the Silence. The organisation has collected hundreds of testimonies from soldiers. The stories bear witness to the fact that abuse, looting and destruction of Palestinian property are commonplace and yet, Yehuda argues, in Israeli public discourse these incidents are portrayed as “exceptional cases”.

“It is not a story of a rotten apple; it is a story of a rotten sack,” he says. “You don't have to be a monster to be a monster. You have to be human to be a monster.”

Yehuda, who is a very brave man, believes that the conflict is having a devastating effect on both Israelis and Palestinians. “We are holding a mirror up to our own society to start a debate about the moral cost of the occupation,” he says.

We need more people like him on both sides of the divide. Palestinian children are brainwashed into offering themselves up as human sacrifices. They also are taught that “the other side" are less than human.

There has to be a political solution which safeguards the security of Israel while providing justice for the Palestinians.

It will take something of a miracle of hearts and minds to change the current impasse.

To be realistic, the provision of a just solution is dependent on a more-vigorous approach by the US government. Yet the prize of a just settlement is a huge one.

If the current situation is allowed to continue, the future is very bleak. In the meantime, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in the little town of Bethlehem once again.