[Peace-discuss] Bethlehem: Tribune Article and Responses

[David Green]

Last week, the Tribune published a wonderful article
from one of its editorial board members, below. It is
followed by four letters that were in the paper this
morning. Three of these respondants are members of Not
In My Name, the Chicago-based organization of (mostly)
Jews against occupation, including its founder
(Feuerstein).

Legendary birthplace faces a slow death

30-foot-high concrete wall will destroy what is left
of the little town of Bethlehem

By Alfredo Lanier. Alfredo Lanier, a member of the
Tribune's editorial board, recently visited Israel

Published April 8, 2003

While American and British forces invade Baghdad, a
far quieter but no less effective campaign of military
attrition and economic strangulation continues against
Palestinians on the West Bank territories occupied by
Israel since 1967. And the fabled little town of
Bethlehem, with its population of 28,000, showcases
the tragic effect Israeli policies are having on the
Palestinian population.

Shooting occasionally breaks out in Bethlehem, south
of Jerusalem, as it did last month, when Israeli
soldiers shot three suspected Palestinian militants,
along with a Palestinian family in a car, killing a
10-year-old girl and seriously wounding her father,
mother and sister.

But the rest of the time, Bethlehem--which for
centuries has lived off its status as the birthplace
of Jesus--is dying a slow, asphyxiating death.

Where tour buses used to park bumper-to-bumper on
Manger Square, gangs of grungy kids now roam like
tumbleweed, hustling coins from anyone resembling a
tourist. Veteran guide Nidal Al-Korna, pacing outside
the Church of the Nativity, says up to 5,000 tourists
a day used to crouch through its incongruous
4-foot-high entrance. Now he's lucky to see 40 or 50.

In his second-floor City Hall office, overlooking the
empty square, Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser can barely
control his anger. In September, the Israeli
government announced it will annex the site of
Rachel's Tomb, a Jewish religious shrine on the
northern edge of Bethlehem, along with a clutch of
Palestinian homes. Worse still, the Israelis will seal
off the entire area with a 30-foot-high concrete wall
around the tomb--and down the middle of the two-lane
access road into Bethlehem.

Israeli authorities blame the recent fortifications,
and the crash of Bethlehem's tourist economy, on
terrorism. An Israeli army spokesman said two soldiers
have been killed in the vicinity of Rachel's Tomb
since the latest Palestinian uprising exploded two
years ago, and several Jewish worshippers also
attacked, though no one in town recalls the latter.
Most days only a couple of armored buses from
Jerusalem bring worshippers to the impregnable tomb. A
mile up the road, a military checkpoint also greets
all visitors to Bethlehem.

The wall is but the latest yank on the noose the
Israeli government has laid around the Palestinians in
Bethlehem. Since 1967, the Israeli government has
built the huge Har Homa and Gilo settlements on the
east and west sides of town, along with connecting
expressways--modestly called "settlers'
roads"--bypassing Bethlehem. On the south lies a
refugee camp, a no-man's town run by the United
Nations and housing approximately 23,000 Palestinians.

And now a Berlin Wall-like structure, with
watchtowers--and a military checkpoint that will creep
closer toward the center--on the remaining northern
access to Bethlehem.

When asked about it, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon invokes a vision, ever more elusive, of a
Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel.

But the all-important "facts on the ground"--the
baseline for any negotiations--point to a policy of
land annexation by Israel. What's left is not a
Palestinian state but rather an archipelago of
scattered Palestinian islets.

Menachem Klein, a political science professor at
Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, and author of an
upcoming book about the status of Jerusalem, dismisses
government claims that security concerns are behind
construction of the wall around Rachel's Tomb. "This
is just a cover, the idea is to make the wall into a
permanent border," he says. "You begin negotiations
from that point forward, because the wall becomes a
`fact on the ground.' "

Nasser, 63, has been Bethlehem's mayor for seven
years, vice mayor for 23, and says his family has
lived in the city since 1609. He has Ottoman Empire
and the British Mandate of Palestine land titles for
anyone who doubts his claim.

"The Sharon government has decided to annex Rachel's
Tomb, which is in the heart of Bethlehem," he says.
"They will build a wall down the middle of the road
leading to town, and around 42 Palestinian homes that
will become a ghetto. I feel very sad when I use this
word, it reminds me of the Jewish ghettos of Poland.
But what is going to happen to these Palestinian
families who are going to be completely isolated?

"They are trespassing on the land of Bethlehem. This
is robbery. This is theft."

No one disputes that approximately 500 Palestinians
will be trapped inside this ghetto--who will need
permits to come and go--or that the wall down the
two-lane access road to Bethlehem will choke the town.

According to Nasser, a dozen small hotels, and scores
of trinket and souvenir shops have folded during the
past two years. City government could not meet payroll
in January because hardly anyone in town is paying
taxes.

Construction of the security wall is farther along
north of Jerusalem, where it very roughly follows the
1967 border. In many areas it cuts through square
miles of valuable farmland, effectively annexing
it--in Palestinian eyes--to Israel. More "facts on the
ground."

The 41,000 residents of the Palestinian city of
Qalqilya, northeast of Jerusalem, are by now almost
entirely surrounded either by a concrete wall with
watchtowers, or a series of fences, barbed wire and
ditches. Part of the wall cut through Palestinian
farms that were expropriated without compensation. The
single bottleneck entrance to town is controlled by
the Israeli army.

Qalqilya's economy, which depended on nearby farms and
trade, is withering. About 4,000 residents have fled
the city, some permanently, others to work outside and
send money for their families left behind.

Mayor Nasser says he will file suit to stop
construction of the wall. On Feb. 24 the presidents of
the Bishop's Conference in Jerusalem issued a
declaration, nothing if not melodramatic: "The
inhabitants of Bethlehem, and particularly Christians,
seeing themselves closed in, and threatened to the
point where some of them may feel [forced] to leave
the country, appeal to you! This is an S.O.S. cry!"

Qalqilya's Mayor Maarouf Zaharan also has hired
lawyers and commissioned aerial pictures of the
Israeli wall rapidly surrounding his town. But as
Israeli bulldozers continue to rip through nearby
farms and olive groves, you can tell he's losing hope.


VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (LETTER)
Israeli actions
Caroline Herzenberg

April 14, 2003

Chicago -- Alfredo Lanier's commentary describes in
some detail the horrifying ongoing destruction of
Bethlehem by Israel's military occupation.

Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is of course one
of the most sacred sites of Christianity, and this
ongoing destruction and violation of Bethlehem must
sadden all Christians.

The Israeli government is annexing yet more territory
near the very center of Bethlehem, and is building an
enormous "security wall" through the town with which
it will seal off the newly annexed territory.

This monstrous concrete wall is to be 30 feet high
with military watchtowers, and in some locations the
Israelis have built beside it a trench some 14 feet
wide and 8 feet deep, and accompanied it with barbed
wire and a military road patrolled by the Israeli
army.

This abomination, like a Berlin Wall, has already been
built on Palestinian land in other areas of the West
Bank, and this military wall is now to be built right
in the heart of Bethlehem, where it will ghettoize
what remains of Bethlehem. This wall is also being
built on the one remaining access road to Bethlehem,
which is now largely surrounded by large Israeli
settlements and their connecting "settlers roads";
together with military checkpoints this wall will
largely choke off travel to Bethlehem.

Christians everywhere should raise their voices in
protest of this desecration of one of the most
important holy sites of Christianity; and Christians,
Jews, Moslems and people of all other faiths should
join together in protest of this desecration of a
sacred site of Christianity in the Holy Land by the
Israeli government.

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (LETTER)
Israeli occupation
Steven Feuerstein

April 14, 2003

Chicago -- Alfredo Lanier's eyewitness account of the
continuing efforts of the Sharon government to annex
Palestinian land is a powerful and important
contribution to the debate inside the United States on
policy toward Israel ("Legendary birthplace faces a
slow death; 30-foot-high concrete wall will destroy
what is left of the little town of Bethlehem,"
Commentary, April 8).

It is not enough for President Bush, much less Ariel
Sharon, to mouth niceties about a "viable Palestinian
state." We need action, and real pressure, on this
extremist Israeli government to immediately end its
annexation, as well as its ongoing destruction of
Palestinian homes and displacement of Palestinian
families.

When such things happened in Kosovo, we labeled them
"ethnic cleansing." I am one American Jew who is sick
of seeing his tax dollars ($3 billion a year to
Israel) used to support the same kind of actions,
horribly carried out in the name of the Jewish people,
in the West Bank.

Lanier's commentary goes a long way to wiping the fog
away from our view into this situation. I congratulate
the Tribune and Lanier for their commitment to keeping
their readers fully informed about the ongoing
occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands.


Eric Jansons
Published April 14, 2003

Crystal Lake -- If Alfredo Lanier's commentary on
Bethlehem doesn't stir us to protest the injustices
perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinians, then we
might as well resign to living with lasting Middle
East turmoil and terrorism at home.

With our blind support of the Israelis, we are as
guilty as they in fostering terrorism. With our aid we
are the builders of settlements and of access roads.

We are guilty of dynamiting homes and shops, and of
denying Palestinians basic human rights and driving
them into despair to commit suicidal attacks against
our supplied tanks and gun ships.

Let's not forget that, contrary to what we have been
led to believe, Israel started the war of '67, when it
attacked Egypt and occupied Palestinian lands, and now
it is trying to make aggression pay.

If we are so concerned about Saddam Hussein's human
rights violations in Iraq, then let's also look at
what we are doing on the West Bank.


VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (LETTER)
Bethlehem's agony


Martha Reese
Published April 14, 2003

River Forest -- I am writing to express my profound
gratitude for Alfredo Lanier's commentary. Perhaps
more Americans would understand the ongoing
destruction of Palestinian society if they were to
visit, as he has done. In the absence of that, it is
crucial that firsthand reports such as this reach a
large audience. Thank Lanier for making his journey,
and for writing so eloquently about it.

I only wish that essays such as his could offer some
hope that the Israeli strangulation of Palestinian
life might be stopped and reversed. Unfortunately
unrestricted U.S. support of Israel--economic and
political--only perpetuates the occupation. 


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