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BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The move to Texas was not Jeola Salman’s idea.
It was her father’s.
He was already in Corpus Christi when he picked up a phone and told his
daughter she had to pack up her things, hop a plane, and get out of
Bethlehem, pronto.
Not because the town revered as the site of Jesus’ birth was dangerous,
but because it was a dead-end street.
"My father told me I have to go to Texas because I have nothing to do
here, and over there I can work and study," said Salman, a green card
holder who is planning to move the first week of January.
The lure of the Holy Land is fading for Salman and for thousands of
other Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem who are trading the chronic
economic and political pressures of the Middle East for a fresh start
abroad. Their departure is profoundly altering the makeup of the town.
Generations of Salman’s ancestors were born and raised in Bethlehem, but
her father broke free five years ago for a job as a carpenter in Corpus
Christi. Now his daughter will follow and try to smooth the way for her
brothers and sisters, who don’t have green cards yet.
She feels trapped in Bethlehem now that the Israelis have built a grey,
25-foot-high security barrier cutting the town off from neighboring
Jerusalem. She no longer can go to Jerusalem to see a movie or worship
at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site where Christian tradition
says Jesus Christ was crucified and, Christians believe, resurrected.
She can’t find a decent job in computer science, her chosen field. Her
friends are running out of money because jobs are scarce.
"If people can leave, they will," said Salman. "I’m happy to go to Texas
because there’s nothing to do here now."
The problems driving Christians out are all related. The ruinous
collapse of the local economy began six years ago with the start of a
violent Palestinian uprising, or intifada, against Israel. That
confrontation, in which Palestinian militants detonated dozens of
suicide bombs inside Israel, provoked Israel to build the hated security
wall.
The wall has sliced through residential neighborhoods and cut
Palestinians off from their shops, their crops and, in some cases, from
other members of their families. It is the final humiliation for many
Palestinian Christians who are now packing their bags and petitioning
foreign embassies for visas.
Palestinian Muslims face these same difficulties, and many of them are
trying to leave as well, but it is generally easier for Christians to
move to the West, where many already have family ties that can help with
visas, jobs and schooling. A large proportion of Christians already
speak English, another factor that makes it easier for them to move
abroad.
Uncertain future
Christians and some Muslims are also wary about the direction of a
future Palestinian state since the January election that brought the
militant Islamic group Hamas to power. Some Christians say they would
leave if Hamas tries to install rigid Islamic law.
"There is a real danger that in 50 years the Church of the Nativity will
be just for tourists," said the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, general director
of the International Center of Bethlehem. "It would be a Christian theme
park. We are not fatalists, but this is the trend. No one wants their
kids to grow up surrounded by walls in an open-air prison. The Holy Land
is being destroyed daily."
Until there is stability, he said, those who have the financial ability
to emigrate will do so.
"Tourists come here because they think this is the promised land, and
our people move to Canada and America because they think that’s the
promised land," he said. "If Christianity disappears from the Holy Land,
the whole region will become much poorer culturally and lose a very
important segment that makes it pluralistic.
" There has been a steady decline in the Palestinian Christian
population, which includes a hodgepodge of different denominations that
long have squabbled over who should control the world-famous Christian
churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Rifat Kasses, a project director with the World Council of Churches in
Geneva, said rough figures indicate the Christian population in Israel
and the West Bank has fallen from about 15 percent in 1948, when the
state of Israel was founded, to less than 2 percent today.
"The creation of the state of Israel was a big blow to the Christians in
the region, and it created a cycle of emigration," he said. "No one
spoke a word of condemnation when the Israelis took land that belonged
to Christians. I fear for the Christians because they are a minority
that is vanishing."
Changing landscape
The beauty of biblical Bethlehem survives. The rolling hills and olive
groves seem to glow with a light of almost unbearable clarity. But the
physical and mental landscape has changed with the construction of the
new security wall and a highly militarized Israeli checkpoint that
establishes firm control over who enters and exits the town.
Inside the barrier, Bethlehem has a slow, languid, lights-out feel.
Most of the tourist shops are nearly empty. Few guests stay at the
restored Jacir Palace, a luxury hotel that was intended to be a
showpiece of the town’s economic revival and now stands as a symbol of
its failure.
The displays inside the Bethlehem Peace Center on Manger Square in the
town center celebrate brotherly relations between the faiths, with
inspiring words from religious leaders, but the outside walls are
plastered with posters honoring youthful Palestinian suicide bombers.
The dead young men are hailed as martyrs for killing Israelis.
Pilgrims with all sorts of digital paraphernalia still line up to
descend into the grotto at the Church of the Nativity to be photographed
at the spot where tradition says Jesus was born, but very few locals can
be found worshipping.
Christians say the community has been in crisis since 1948, when much of
their land was lost after the state of Israel was founded. The trauma of
that dislocation still can be felt. Throughout Israel and the occupied
territories, Palestinians recall how they, or their parents and
grandparents, became refugees after they lost their homes, fields and
olive groves.
The Rev. Naim Ateek, the Anglican founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical
Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem, said these land seizures set in
motion a chain of events that ultimately led tens of thousands of
Christians to leave the Holy Land.
"We lost everything," said Ateek of his family members, who had enjoyed
an affluent lifestyle in the town of Beisan near the Sea of Galilee
before Israeli forces seized the three houses his father had built. "We
were given two hours to leave our home or we would be killed," Ateek
said. "The same thing happened to many people. Most people hoped it was
temporary and thought that they would return to their homes in a short
time."
That never happened. Palestinians call these events the nakba — the
catastrophe. This mass displacement kick-started the Christian departure
from the Holy Land.
Ateek’s family ended up seeking refuge with friends in Nazareth, which
also came under Israeli rule and today is recognized as part of Israel.
Ateek has Israeli citizenship as an Israeli Arab, a group that makes up
nearly 20 percent of the country’s population.
He said Christians and Muslims inside Israel face discrimination from
Israeli bureaucrats who give Jews favored treatment when it comes to
schools, jobs and municipal services. Israeli officials deny there is
discrimination and maintain that Arab citizens are treated well inside
Israel.
At the same time, Christians in the West Bank and Gaza expect to face
similar discrimination at the hands of Islamic groups such as Hamas once
a Palestinian state is formed, Ateek said.
"What we want as Christians, what we need to stop the emigration, is a
democratic, secular state with protection under a constitution of law,"
he said. "But Israel doesn’t have a constitution, and the Palestinians
don’t have a constitution. We don’t know which way this will go. Hamas
has shown quite a lot of tolerance, but because of their founding
principles, ultimately there will be discrimination."
Lose-lose situation
Palestinian Christians are in a lose-lose situation. Many Israelis do
not trust them because of their Palestinian roots, and many Muslims
believe the Christians are pro-Western because they share a religion
with many in the West. With Christians a vulnerable minority in both
Israel and the Palestinian territories, those with friends and family
overseas are increasingly willing to forsake the Holy Land for less
troubled parts of the world.
The current wave of departures is the result of a vaunted peace process
that went terribly awry. When the Oslo peace agreement was signed in
1993, world leaders hailed it as the end of a poisonous, decades-long
conflict.
But 13 years later, relations between the Palestinians and Israelis have
reached an all-time low. Residents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip find
they have far less freedom of movement and fewer economic opportunities
than they did in the 1970s and 1980s, when Palestinians moved easily
inside Israel to pursue jobs.
Israel has built dozens of new settlements on disputed land and
installed new checkpoints and barriers that make travel for Palestinians
extremely difficult. Instead of reconciliation and trust, the two sides
are separated by a grotesque series of physical and mental barriers.
Israeli authorities, their civilians mutilated by dozens of human
bombers, regard each Palestinian coming their way as a potential threat,
and the resentment this has caused among law-abiding Palestinians has
become toxic.
Israeli officials believe the newly built security wall has helped
curtail the rash of suicide bombings. But it has had a disastrous impact
on many people’s lives in Bethlehem and beyond.
‘No one will help’
In the residential area near Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, the wall has
separated Khaleed Musallem, 52, from the two small shops that provided
him with a steady income for years. The wall also sits on his small
parcel of land, which used to produce olives that he could sell at the
local market.
In a painful ritual, he walks to the wall each morning, lies flat on the
dusty road, and peers underneath it to make sure his shops — just 100
feet away — are still intact.
"I’m very poor now," he said, brushing the dust off his slacks and
shirts after checking out what was once his property. "Where can I go?
What can I do? No one will help."
Nearby, Carmin Nessar, 66, lost Central, the thriving restaurant where
she used to serve Middle Eastern meals and barbecued chicken to Arabs
and Jews alike. It closed after Israeli soldiers occupied her building
so they could use the top floor to track Palestinian militants.
Hundreds of spent bullet casings line what was once the restaurant
floor.
The wall runs along the edge of her property. She no longer can see the
hills outside Bethlehem from her balcony. All she can see now is the
gray barrier.
The apartment, decorated with images of the Virgin Mary and the Last
Supper, feels like a penitentiary. The television and washing machine
are broken; there is no money for repairs.
Still, she will not pack up and go.
"Most Christians sold everything and left, but I feel it is a big
mistake to leave your country," she said. "We used to have money, we
used to have a business, but now it’s very hard. It’s not easy to ask
for charity. We prefer not to eat than going and asking for charity. We
still have hope it will get better, but our grandchildren blame us for
not leaving."
Before all the barriers were built, it was common for Israelis to come
to Bethlehem and for Palestinians to travel to Jerusalem and other
points inside Israel. There was a working relationship between the two
peoples that has collapsed.
Relations between Muslims and Christians have also frayed as the
Palestinian resistance movement has become more militant and more
Islamic in tone with the rise of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other
religion-based groups that espouse a strict form of Islam and advocate
the destruction of Israel.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, reflected in the election of Hamas,
is one factor driving Christians away, said Khalid aba Dayyeh, a
Christian who frequents the Arab Orthodox Sports Club in the Bethlehem
suburb of Beit Jala on free nights.
"The time when I will have to leave is coming close," said Dayyeh, 40.
"They are getting stronger, that is the truth, you can feel it, and that
is bad for me, because they get into my life.
"I like to drink beer," he said, "and already you can’t do that in some
places, and they will want my daughters to wear head scarves at the
university. I don’t want them to dress that way. They haven’t asked that
yet, but they will."
Dayyeh said he does not want to leave but soon may take advantage of
family connections in Honduras and the United States to move abroad. He
said many of his Muslim friends, who are often found at the sports club,
also worry about the spread of radical Islam.
Facing all these pressures, a growing number of Christians are giving up
the Holy Land, despite roots that stretch back to the first, defining
moments of the faith.
"It’s heartbreaking," said George Sa’adeh, deputy mayor of Bethlehem.
"I consider this the capital of the Christian world, and I think it’s an
honor to live in the birthplace of Jesus Christ, but we have about
350,000 Christians from the Bethlehem area living in the United States
and Latin America, and only about 15,000 living here. We are all
scattered."
gregory.katz@chron.com
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