Life in Bethlehem

Today dawned bright and sunny – with not  cloud in the sky at 6.00 am according to the early risers. Things were clouding over a bit by the time we boarded the bus at 8.00, after a breakfast the matched yesterday’s meal in both quality and variety.

Half an hour later we were at the Dar al-Kalima School, and meeting with the principal, Naila Kharroub, in her well appointed study. Nobody asked what children were doing at school on a Saturday morning, but we did learn that 8.30 was by no means early in the day: school starts at 7.30!
Dar al-Kalima is a private school run by the Lutheran Church. It is co-ed, and aims to have 50% Christian and 50% Muslim students, ranging from kindergarten to university entrance. Fees, which are already heavily subsidised by the Church, are US$1000 pa – but only 40% of parents manage to find these in total. So the principal’s responsibilities appear to include finding the funding to make up the shortfall that threatens year after year.

Naila’s glittering career, which led to her receiving a few years ago an Olympics achievement award for her work in introducing sports for girls, has clearly given her a full awareness of the quality of education on offer for Palestinian children, and she sees the great advantage that a school like this can offer. The fact the Muslim parents want to make use of it speaks volumes, though it is worth noting that girls are likely to be moved to another school by a certain age – it is hard for that reason to keep a proper gender balance. But the opportunities pupils are given certainly sounded impressive, along with the sensitivity towards their particular needs growing up as it were in a cage. When we were allowed a few moments to talk with some of the older pupils we certainly were impressed – not necessarily by their choice of favourite football teams, but by their desire for peace, and for us to understand that the Palestinian people want to live in peace. And every one of them, even if their ambitions were to study abroad, seemed determined to return to and remain in Palestine.
Then it was back on the bus for the short journey down the hill to Beit Sahour and the YMCA Centre.  We were greeted by Nader Abu Amsha, the Director of the Centre and also of the Rehabilitation Programme which was started in the early days of the first intifada. Palestinian youths who were caught by Israeli soldiers throwing stones were frequently brutally beaten, following the military order that in effect prescribed such  treatment rather than shooting, which was bringing down international condemnation. But the young people were traumatised by their experiences, and their broken limbs often led to their having little hope of making anything of their lives.
The programme developed patterns of rehabilitation drawing on psychological and physical resources, and then in time also embraced other people with disabilities, not necessarily connected with resistance. There are now 27 teams working in the community in Palestine; and children and young people, sometimes with their families, are brought to Beit Sahour for up to a week at a time for both recreation and assessment. A good proportion of clients have been in Israeli prisons, where their treatment has been described as bordering on torture by no less a person than Ban Ki Moon. A Canadian programme helps staff to prepare realistic assessments of individuals’ potential – and after Nader’s talk we spent a fascinating few minutes looking at some of the apparatus used in the workshop in the process. Then he took us for a brief visit to the adjacent shepherds’ grotto, where the angels appeared to the shepherds in the gospel story. Of course, he admitted that there are at least three such grottos, though all in the same area: there’s the Catholic Grotto, and the Greek Orthodox Grotto, but this is the true one!
The bus then took us to the Tent, with its views across to the massive Har Homa settlement, where we were served a magnificent lunch – all kinds of Palestinian delicacies of the salad and humus variety  for a first course, which would probably have been sufficient for most of us, but with a meat course to follow. Perhaps we needed fortifying for the afternoon.
We met up at the Tent with Jack Giacaman again, who led us on a tour along various stretches of the wall. From the Tent we had been able to see that way in which a section of housing belonging to the Greek Orthodox had been contained within a strange meander which left it the “right” side of the wall’s path: apparently the Israeli government had decided that it would not be worth the hassle that the Greek government would probably cause. But once we had driven past that section of houses on to the open road looking over the valley, the extraordinary course of the wall became clearer to see. It seems that it total distance will be something like three times the length of the green line, because of the way in which it meanders to take in any unbuilt areas of land. In other words, what Israel sells to the world as a security barrier is nothing but a land grab, and one which then provides settlers with luxury accommodation such as that of Har Homa.
Yet bizarrely there are legal processes used to justify what is being done. Laws used by the Ottomans and then by the British, in other words laws of the colonial oppressors, are now employed to justify the confiscation of land. And where (as in the case of those Greek Orthodox) papers are in order confirming ownership, houses can  change the barrier’s course. Where we stood with Jack was one such house – all on its own, and with the barrier (at this point an electric fence) just a few yards from the owner’s balcony. We walked here with caution: touch the fence, and Israelis (or possibly their unmanned vehicles) will sweep down the military road that runs between the double fence, bringing retribution.

We drove on to another of the Bethlehem townships, on the way crossing Route 30 – the Israeli main road connecting the settlements with Jerusalem. At this point the road dives into a tunnel under the very community that we were passing through – and for the length of the road back to the next tunnel it is protected by its own length of wall. Further on, near the Salesian monastery, we stopped to look at the splendid view down the valley (almonds in full blossom, and wild flowers covering the vineyard) and across to the Gilo settlements. On the way back we took a lower road so that we could get right up to that stretch of barrier. Right by it were some vast stumps of olive trees, cut nearly to the ground, yet sprouting again. We had heard in the morning the hope and optimism of the young students – and here were signs of hope of a different order. But the background of the barrier suggested a harsher reality than many of us would want to deal with.
Our next stop was at the Lagee Centre next to the Aida Refugee Camp. Here, as we engaged in conversation together, Mohammed responded to a question of mine by saying that whatever the leadership may be saying about the possibility of a two state solution, the feeling on the street (ie in the camp) was that the only just outcome of the conflict would be a single state. And since over the entrance to Aida is a large key representing the keys that the refugees in 1948 had in their pockets, there is no way they could contemplate that single state unless they were granted a right of return. Refugee status has to be applied for, Mohammed explained to us, and is highly prized as a reminder to the United Nations (who run the camps) and the British in particular of the disastrous actions that have allowed this conflict to develop as it has.
We went round the camp before it grew dark – 5,200 people living in an area less than half a square Kilometre. It lies in the shadow of the wall – higher and more threatening than ever at this point, as it prepares to make a virtual enclosure around Rachel’s Tomb. For 25 years or so people lived in the little box houses provided by the UN. As numbers grew, and they recognised there was no imminent ending to the conflict, they built upwards. There is no room for roads – they needed every plot of land; but at the intifada the Israeli troops stormed in, demolishing walls and houses as they did so. Children were killed in the UN school, which now has bricked up windows for protection: but there are still bullet holes to be seen in the solid iron gates.
Back on the bus, we stopped for a final look at the wall just up the road from Rachel’s Tomb, where the road once forked for Hebron. Some one noticed a house built right up again the wall, which once would have had a view over the valley, but now looked straight out on to the wall. Yet, in place of the graffiti which cover much of its length, someone had painted their own view – with hills and sunshine. And hope, I wonder?
And this evening, after dinner, most of us went into town again – meeting Jack at his factory this time, and seeing a little of his own wood-carving skills, before relaxing for an hour in the café next door to his shop.
It’s the close of a long and eventful day! – Tomorrow, Sunday, we will be back at Manger Square after breakfast,  and then worshipping with the Lutherans, before making our way to the ancient and divided city of Hebron.