What if—The Holy Family tried to Enter Bethlehem Today? Reflections on an Occupied Palestinian Town—Then and Now
By: John Mason/Arab America Contributing Writer
In this and the next two articles, we will be looking at the historic town of Bethlehem, the town of Jesus’ birth. First, we’ll reconstruct what it would be like were Jesus’ family, Mary, and Joseph, to seek refuge there today; then, how the three wise men or ‘magi’ may have fared in making their way to the manger; and third, how today’s pilgrims paying homage to one of the world’s most famous birthplaces are being accepted. Our focus on Christianity is linked to the historical importance of Bethlehem to Christians and to the occasion of Christmas lying just around the corner.
Bethlehem: Then and Now
The Bible has it that Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth, where they were not welcome, to Bethlehem. Sometime after the birth, the Roman King, Herod, who had dominion over the region, was told that the ‘King of the Jews’ had been born. Fearing an uprising following this news, the Bible also asserts, King Herod ordered the killing of all boys two years or under in the area. Warned of Herod’s order by an ‘angel of the Lord,’ Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus fled to Egypt. Once Herod died, Jesus’ family returned to Nazareth. That is the religious rendering of Jesus’ birth, which serves as the basis for the story of Jesus Christ as the ‘Savior of mankind for all time.’
As to the actual birthplace of Jesus, there is disagreement. Some believers aver that Jesus or the ‘Messiah’ (the deliverer of the Jewish nation prophesied in the Hebrew Bible or, more generally, a leader or savior of a particular group) was born in a cave outside the town of Bethlehem, where the holy family had taken refuge. Others believed he was born in a manger in the town, surrounded by shepherds and their animals. Later came the magi, about whom we will talk in a subsequent post.
Today, as Christians move into the season of Christmas, they will sing carols that mythologize the town and the event of Jesus’ birth. While the town at the time of his birth was probably less than 1,000 people, now it is upwards of 30,000. While most of the population is Palestinian Muslim, about a third is Christian. According to a Redletter Christians newsletter, “When Christians today sing ‘O little town of Bethlehem,’ they seldom think of the real city with the real people…But what happened in Bethlehem 2000+ years ago was something real.
Jesus was born as a refugee. His family was forced to leave Nazareth and go to Bethlehem.” Its citizens now still consider themselves refugees from the war of 1948, when the State of Israel was founded. The Palestinians came there to seek refuge, some of whom still live in refugee camps, where they await a resolution of their status.
Walls of Occupation in the Birthland of Jesus
Palestinian life under Israeli occupation now may be reminiscent of a time when their ancestors lived under the control of the Roman Empire. Today the occupying authorities also control the foreign visitors who meet in Bethlehem to relive the Christian story of the birth. The Redletter Christians newsletter tells a story from 2010, in which a well-known evangelical preacher came to attend a theological conference in Bethlehem.
“Upon arrival at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israeli officials told him that they would like to invite him for a cup of coffee in their offices and have a chat. For almost four hours he was questioned about his decision to attend a conference in Bethlehem.” It turned out that the Israeli police believed the conference would be attended by some “radical” Palestinian theologians.
The story of the visiting evangelist preacher and his “VIP” treatment was recalled by a leading Palestinian priest, noting that other visitors to Bethlehem are often detained at Ben Gurion and sometimes sent back to their homelands. The Priest noted to an evangelist visitor, “As someone who knows his Bible well you should not have been surprised by such treatment. The same VIP treatment was also extended to the Magi from the east that came to see Jesus in Bethlehem. Herod too invited them ‘for a cup of coffee’ to ascertain why they wanted to travel to Bethlehem, and how they knew about the newborn child. So now you have experienced something biblical. Welcome to the Holy Land!” The Israeli intelligence practice of inviting travelers for coffee is by now well known by another name—interrogation.
The story of the magi being interrogated by Herod’s authorities is not so well known, much less the fact that Bethlehem, at the time of Jesus’ birth, was a besieged city. As then, today the town is besieged, surrounded on three sides by a 25-foot-high concrete wall. The wall is justified to keep Palestinian “terrorists”, as they are called, out of Israel. One might suggest that, today, Jesus’ birth there might be difficult, perhaps not even allowing his birth in the town itself.
Following the thread of the story from the earlier-noted newsletter, “The shepherds would be stuck inside the walls, unable to leave their little town. Jesus might have been born at the checkpoint like so many Palestinian children while having the Magi and shepherds on both sides of the wall.” This situation, while perhaps exaggerated, is not so far afield from how Palestinians are treated when they approach checkpoints to Bethlehem.
A Birds-Eye View from a Noted Resident of Bethlehem
Bethlehem comprises one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Most Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox, followed by Roman Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Copts, Episcopalians, and several other, smaller sects. Concentrated in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, these Christians live mainly in East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Nablus. Altogether, Christians make up only 2% of the West Bank and Gaza populations. Christians are such a small fraction of the total population because many have emigrated due to the difficulties of living under military occupation.
According to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, in the “occupied territories, Palestinian Christians suffer from the same restrictions, including on movement, applied to all Palestinians living under Israel’s 45-year-old (now 53) military rule. These same restrictions do not apply to the more than 500,000 Jewish settlers living in illegal settlements in the occupied territories.”
Israeli officials often claim that Palestinians, Christian and Muslim alike, have free access to their holy places in both occupied East Jerusalem and in other parts of the West Bank, including Bethlehem. However, the reality is another thing since access to places of worship are restricted to all Palestinians.
Even the U.S. Department of State concurred with this finding, noting in its 2011 Report on International Freedom: “Strict closures and curfews imposed by the Israeli government negatively affected residents’ ability to practice their religion at holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, as well as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.” Continuing its critique, the Report later noted, “The separation barrier significantly impeded Bethlehem-area Christians from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and made visits to Christian sites in Bethany and Bethlehem difficult for Palestinian Christians who live on the Jerusalem side of the barrier.”
Arab America interviewed a lifelong, highly respected resident of Bethlehem, Maha Saca. Saca is the head of the Palestine Heritage Center. When asked about the role of Israeli checkpoints, she proclaimed, “Checkpoints are beyond imagination in terms of the high number of them and soldiers’ treatment of Palestinians at those checkpoints.” In order of the severity of the treatments, light to heavy, of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers,
Mrs. Saca noted that they harass and degrade; interrogate; refuse to let them in; beat; imprison, and shoot them. And, finally, linking to the holy story of Jesus, the soldiers make pregnant women wait at the checkpoint, often resulting in the delivery of a child at the checkpoint.
Inconveniences confronted by Saca and all residents of the city are that movement within and around Bethlehem is arduous because of the large wall encircling it, separating towns within the area, and thus distancing families from one another. This restriction on the free movement of townspeople is complicated by “the army roaming around the city, a sign of intimidation, and entering any home at any time and searching it from top to bottom.”
Saca said the army will often attack residents on some suspicion or other, sometimes killing them and killing the economy there. In short, as she exclaimed, “What do you expect in Bethlehem? It’s a land under occupation.”
References
“Bethlehem: Then and Now,” Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, Red-letter Christians newsletter, 12/3/2012
“Palestinian Christians, Bethlehem & East Jerusalem,” Institute for Middle East Understanding, 3/23/2013
Arab America Interview with Maha Saca, a resident and activist in Bethlehem all her life and head of Palestine Heritage Center. 12/8/2020
John Mason, PhD., who focuses on Arab culture, society, and history, is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID, the UN, and the World Bank in 65 countries.
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