Chris Wigglesworth reflects on a personal journey to Bethlehem.

O little town of Bethlehem How still we see thee/you lie! Above thy/your deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by; yet in thy dark streets shineth/your streets is shining the everlasting Light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee/you tonight.

PHILLIPS Brooks’ charming carol either keeps Bethlehem alive in our wonder at Christmas, or else the images of its opening verse lull us into mere nostalgic Yuletide escapism.

Inspired by a first sight of Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 1865, during a peaceful period in Ottoman rule, the 30 year-old New England Episcopalian preacher’s poem written a couple of Christmases later almost always call to mind a Christmas card picture of ‘baby Jesus’ in a sleepy village. But it can give an edge to our thoughts about following Jesus, both in Palestine, and here today. The reality is that Bethlehem does not ‘lie still’ now, nor has it during much of its past.

Just as for Mary and Joseph, Bethlehem is over-crowded and stressed out by an occupying and threatening military occupation. Then it was because of Roman Emperor Augustus with his compulsory census, and ‘King Herod’ the collaborator; more recently there was the ‘Great War’, then the troubled British occupation and Mandate from 1917 to 1948; followed by the Israeli Wars of Independence and the Palestinian ‘Disaster’; then Jordanian rule, and from 1967 onwards, its military occupation and economic colonisation by the State of Israel, now carved up by its 24 feet high, concrete West Bank Separation Wall and “settler-only” roads.

“The hopes and fears of all the years” are certainly focussed there today, and they should disturb our Christmas preparations. Fears are better identified and dealt with than kept vague and hidden. Having visited Bethlehem before, last year I was shocked by the extent of Israel’s oppression. The city itself still has three refugee settlements from 1948. Though its old city has had the coveted UNESCO World Heritage status since 2012, its Christian and Muslim inhabitants have only three permitcontrolled exits, and are forced to queue from 5am daily to get to work in Jerusalem a few miles north (nearer than Penicuik to Edinburgh). Almost 90% of the Bethlehem area is now under Israeli army control. Fear of a violent reaction to mounting oppression and possible consequences is widespread.

Many readers will have heard of the “Tent of Nations” and Daoud Nassar’s peaceful resistance to unjust encroachment by illegal and Israeli settlers. The theft of land, destruction of olive groves and denial of water, or even the right to build for growing families, contrasts with the expansion of illegal, luxurious Jewish settlements, whilst separating Palestinian farmers from much of their own land. There are many other cases less well-known in the West, about which our politicians mostly remain silent. Christian leaders from Bethlehem, like Naim Ateek and Mitri Raheb, have written and spoken for years about the largely non-violent response of Palestinian Christians, their Muslim neighbours, and a significant number of courageous Jewish Israeli groups, such as “Rabbis for Human Rights”.

It’s hardly surprising that people have parodied Brooks’ verse:

O little town of Bethlehem Imprisoned now you lie. Above your deep and silent grief, Surveillance drones now fly. And through your old streets windeth, A huge illegal Wall. The hopes and dreams of peaceful schemes Are yearning for its fall.

Unnoticed in our Christmas festivities, or even by many of the pilgrims bussed in and out to visit the Church of the Nativity, is the daily ongoing denial of all that Jesus was born, lived and died for: the equal need of all people for forgiveness, mutual reconciliation, and for justice, with a fair share of land and water. Yet there are glimmers of hope in Bethlehem. The picture shows a children’s peace park set up right at the Wall, by a Conflict Transformation Centre (called “Wi’am”, meaning “cordial relationships” and partnered by the Church of Scotland’s World Mission Council). Its logo is a star and members teach forms of non-violence, while hoping that the world’s leaders, including those of Israel, will either be shamed or pressured into ending the occupation, so that in the end the Wall will come down, an essential step towards the birth of God’s community of love.

A Christian faith that sings about Bethlehem must never be antisemitic but it has to challenge Zionist exclusivism and expansionism, just as it opposed South African Apartheid, which also tried in vain to claim biblical support. Today Bethlehem depends on tourism. We are invited to “come and see”.

If you can afford to, do go and stay there – there’s plenty to appreciate. In any case, we all need to think what we spend our money on, or invest in – and what we sing, think, and do about the “little town of Bethlehem”.

Unnoticed in our Christmas festivities, or even by many of the pilgrims bussed in and out to visit the Church of the Nativity, is the daily ongoing denial of all that Jesus was born, lived and died for: the equal need of all people for forgiveness, mutual reconciliation, and for justice, with a fair share of land and water.

Modern day Bethlehem