WEST BANK: Pilgrims flock to traditional birthplace of Jesus in what has so far been the most peaceful Bethlehem Christmas in years

Record ID: 560634

  • Title: WEST BANK: Pilgrims flock to traditional birthplace of Jesus in what has so far been the most peaceful Bethlehem Christmas in years
  • Date: 22nd December 2008
  • Summary: (WD) BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK (RECENT) (REUTERS) WIDE OF ISRAELI BARRIER AT THE ENTRANCE TO BETHLEHEM WITH TAXIS PARKED IN FRONT WOMAN PASSING THROUGH ISRAELI CHECKPOINT TOURIST COACH ENTERING BETHLEHEM THROUGH TERMINAL TOURISTS WALKING TOWARDS NATIVITY CHURCH GUIDE TALKING TO TOURISTS NEAR NATIVITY CHURCH PALESTINIAN MINISTER OF TOURISM, KHOULOUD DAIBES-ABU DAYYEH TALKING TO REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PALESTINIAN MINISTER OF TOURISM, KHOULOUD DAIBES-ABU DAYYEH, SAYING: "This Christmas is different compared with last year and with previous years after the year of 2000 and 2007, since the Palestinian society, people are sending today very important message that peace should be achieved in this corner of the world." MAN CARRYING BELL AND RINGING IT, IN THE BACKGROUND THE NATIVITY CHURCH BELL RINGS TOURISTS STANDING TO TAKE PICTURE AND SAYING "MERRY CHRISTMAS" TOURISTS ENTERING THE NATIVITY CHURCH
  • Embargoed: 6th January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAAC4HJZ0AJUW5X4FY4DH1EFVDS
  • Story Text: The Christmas carol "Jingle Bells" rang out over Manger Square on Monday (December 22) as Bethlehem began celebrating this year's Christmas season amid hopes the festivities will cap a profitable boom year for tourism in the Palestinian town.

    "This Christmas is different compared with last year and with previous years ," Palestinian minister of Tourism, Khouloud Daibes- Abu Dayyeh, told Reuters Television. She forecast 1.25 million visitors by the end of 2008.
    Groups of tourists, particularly from Europe, arrived early in the day at the Nativity Church, before it became packed with tourists attending midnight mass.
    Trade in the biblical birthplace of Jesus was devastated in 2000 when a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began just months after a papal visit and millennium celebrations that had falsely appeared to ensure a secure future for Bethlehem as a tourist attraction.
    Eight years on, Palestinian hopes for a final settlement with Israel have faded, like the patched up bullet holes in the Nativity Church, remnants of a five-week siege in 2002. But a recent decline in violence has tempted back tourists who no longer fear suicide bombers and gunbattles erupting in the streets.
    Hundreds of Palestinian security officers loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank were deployed in the streets ahead of Christmas celebrations.
    Abbas' government has deployed hundreds of men in an effort to exert power in the West Bank and bolster him against Islamist Hamas which seized the Gaza Strip and routed Abbas' Fatah forces in violent clashes last year.

    "The security situation in Bethlehem is stable, what improves this, that in 15 November 2008 around million tourists enter Bethlehem. This number shows the security, stability, interior discipline and law," the Chief of Police in Bethlehem district, Suliman Amran, said.
    As evidence of the mini Bethlehem tourism boom hotel occupancy rates are now typically above 70% compared to 10% a few years ago.

    "We have now our honeymoon, we just married and we decided to spend our holidays just travelling in Egypt, Israel and of course we decided to visit Bethlehem," a couple visiting from the Ukraine told Reuters.
    Israelis attribute some of that calm on the streets of nearby Jerusalem to the construction of hundreds of kilometres (miles) of walls and security fencing around the West Bank.
    However many tourists still get only a fleeting glimpse of Palestinian life. Many prefer to stay in Israeli-run Jerusalem, 10 km (6 miles) away.
    Growing numbers of east European pilgrims are bused in on whirlwind day-trips from Egypt's winter sun resorts on the Red Sea, a five-hour desert drive to the south.
    Bethlehem can be a confusing place for visitors. It is a mainly Muslim city where the call to prayer from the mosque on Manger Square drowns out Christmas carols being played for tourists and where palm trees and warm sunshine contrast with the snow-capped Santa Claus figures on sale at the market.
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