Israelis, Palestinians Scramble to Prepare Christian Sites for Millennium

At one end of Manger Square, near the venerable Church of the Nativity, workers scurried back and forth, constructing a mammoth sound and light stage. At the other, Paul VI Street looked like a battle zone, with dust flying and men shouting above the noise of stonecutters and concrete mixers.

And in between, sprawled on a shady bench, Scottish tourists looked on in amazement this week as Palestinian workers buzzed about, setting paving stones, repairing walkways and painting shop doors on Milk Grotto Street a uniform shade of grayish-green.

This little town, revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, is anything but peaceful these days as its governing Palestinian Authority prepares to mark the 2000th anniversary of his birth with concerts, church services and more than a year of celebrations.

But with only a few weeks left before Christmas and the advent of 2000, many in this region wonder whether the Palestinians and Israelis can be ready in time for the millennial festivities--or for the expected influx next year of more than 3 million visitors, including Pope John Paul II.

Israeli and Palestinian authorities alike insist that they can, saying that the largest and most visible improvement projects are nearing completion at Christian pilgrimage sites across the Holy Land.

But some observers, including longtime Jerusalem resident and biblical scholar Father Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, remain deeply skeptical that the millennium will amount to anything other than a mess.

“It’s a completely new version of Armageddon,” the Catholic priest said of the chaos and construction engulfing numerous Christian shrines as the new year approaches. As a consequence, he recently canceled for this year a popular lecture tour he leads each December to Bethlehem.

For Israeli and Palestinian officials, who are eager for the flood of tourists and the economic boost it will bring, the logistical challenges are daunting. They include potentially horrendous parking problems and congestion along narrow streets that date to biblical times.

Officials for each side also acknowledge that some of their multimillion-dollar infrastructure projects--in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem and elsewhere--cannot be completed on time.

“We’ve had some delays, and maybe we did not start as quickly as we should have,” said Itai Eiges, director general of Israel’s Tourism Ministry. “But as much as we know right now, most of the projects will be finished by the end of December.”

The work has included making major infrastructure improvements at the Christian churches around the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee; easing traffic bottlenecks in Tiberias, Jerusalem and Nazareth; and adding parking spaces for tourist buses at numerous sites.

Israel faces additional headaches because of a bitter dispute between Christians and Muslims in Nazareth, the northern city that will be a focal point for pilgrims as the spot where Jesus was believed to have spent his childhood. Christian churches in Israel closed in protest for two days this week and Israeli officials were harshly criticized by the Vatican after the government approved plans to build a mosque near Nazareth’s Basilica of the Annunciation, one of Christianity’s holiest sites.

Israeli officials and hoteliers also have struggled with the awkward issue of how to allow Christians and other millennial tourists to celebrate the Christmas and New Year holidays without offending Jewish hotel guests, especially in conservative Jerusalem. Under a recent compromise, the Jewish rabbinate--the country’s Orthodox religious authority--agreed to allow celebrations and Christian observances in hotels, even on the Jewish Sabbath, as long as the gatherings are held in private rooms.

Nonetheless, in contrast to the Palestinians, who have embraced the millennium as a chance to garner tourist dollars and international recognition for their fledgling government, there is ambivalence among some Israelis at the prospect of the millions of Christian visitors poised to descend on the Jewish state.

Ultra-Orthodox politicians have strongly criticized the rabbinate’s decision to allow Christmas and New Year’s festivities in the hotels. And though government officials recently sought to reassure Christian tourists that they are eagerly awaited in Israel, others here are clearly uncomfortable with the coming invasion.

“The ultra-Orthodox world would prefer that the year 2000 did not exist,” said Rabbi David Rosen, the director of the Anti-Defamation League in Israel and a frequent participant in interfaith dialogue groups. “It just increases their fear of the ‘other’ and the outside world. But the more modern segments of our society are very positive about the opportunities that the year 2000 provides.”

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, one of Israel’s two chief rabbis, embodies the ambivalence. He told foreign reporters Wednesday that the pilgrims and tourists will be “welcomed and blessed,” but he also cautioned that they should be aware of Jewish sensitivities and limit their celebrations accordingly. Any public displays of the Christian cross except at religious sites would be considered offensive, he said.

“Why should we, because of one evening, destroy all that we [Jews and Christians] have built together,” Lau said. “They [the pilgrims] can celebrate as they understand they should, but hotels should explain that there are limitations. . . . We ask them to give honor and respect to our religion and our heritage.”

But it is the dispute between Christians and Muslims in Nazareth that has been the major factor in creating the bitter atmosphere that threatens to sour Israel’s millennium party.

It also has exacerbated political tensions in Nazareth between its traditionally powerful Christian Arab minority and an increasingly outspoken Muslim majority.

The problems began two years ago when Mayor Ramez Jeraise, a secular Christian, announced plans to build a plaza next to the basilica to make the scruffy downtown area more appealing to millennial tourists. In response, the local Islamic Movement--a fundamentlist Muslim organization--seized the half-acre plot intended for the plaza and erected a protest tent that quickly became a makeshift mosque. The tensions erupted into rioting on Easter Sunday this year and have festered ever since.

Several Christians in Nazareth said this week that they are bitter over Israel’s decision to permit a mosque to be built on part of the disputed land. They say the outcome rewards those who occupied the site illegally.

And after years of peaceful relations between the town’s Muslims and Christians, one local Christian said the situation may never be the same in Nazareth. “We are afraid now,” said shopkeeper Ghatib Mazzawi, 50, who spoke only when his small grocery was empty of customers. “We are afraid of our neighbors.”

Inside a nearby butcher’s shop, Mohammed Khatib, 64, said no one needed to fear Nazareth’s Muslims. “We don’t want to hurt anyone. We just want to have our mosque, here in the center of Nazareth,” he said.

With construction on the mosque formally launched, Jeraise and other city officials say they hope that the tensions will subside and they can begin to repair the torn social fabric of the community. And they insist that even though Nazareth looks like a giant street project, most of the work will be finished in time for Christmas celebrations.

But Jeraise said the tensions also mean that his town has lost a major opportunity to market itself to the world and gain overseas investments. Just before the struggle broke out in earnest this spring, he said, the city had reached agreement with an international group that included Planet Hollywood to organize and stage Nazareth’s millennium events. The group was to pay $3 million in advance to the municipality but backed out, loathe to risk the investment, the mayor said.

“It is so frustrating,” Jeraise said. “We had great hopes for the millennium year, but the celebrations will be much smaller now.”

In Bethlehem, meanwhile, Palestinian officials concede that they too are behind schedule in preparations. But they point with a measure of pride to the frenzied activity at Manger Square and inside the modern headquarters of Bethlehem 2000, the ministry set up by the Palestinian Authority to oversee millennium projects and celebrations.

Sleek brochures, funded by the United Nations, list the events planned, beginning with a Vienna Boys Choir concert Monday and the official opening of the Bethlehem 2000 celebrations next Saturday. The opening will include the lighting of a giant Christmas tree and blessings from the patriarchs, archbishops and bishops of Jerusalem’s 13 churches. The millennial events, which include concerts, parades, films, food festivals, craft markets, a “peace run” and nature walks “through the Bethlehem wilderness,” continue through Easter 2001.

Nabeel Kassis, director of the Bethlehem 2000 project and a former nuclear physics professor, said 50,000 to 60,000 tourists are expected to pour into the town of 35,000 on the night of Dec. 24 alone.

“It’s a very serious thing, but we know there’s no point in panicking over all this,” he said. “We’ve tried to do a lot of thinking about the areas that need to be addressed. We’re aware of the possible snags, and we’ll try to avoid them. We’ll see.”

But he and other Palestinian and local officials said two recent events have cast a pall over the preparations. One was the shooting of a Palestinian last month by an Israeli soldier at a military checkpoint just inside the city. The circumstances are disputed: The Israeli army says the man had threatened a soldier with a knife, while Palestinians deny the claim. But the violence, and several days of clashes that ensued, reminded Palestinians that their preparations may mean little if tourists cannot reach the celebrations.

The other is a controversy over a new Israeli army checkpoint under construction on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, which Israel says will ease traffic but which the Palestinians believe will hinder millennial visitors.

Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser said, however, that he and other Palestinians have great expectations for the millennium, hoping that it will mark the beginning of a major boost for tourism and investment throughout the Palestinian areas. Pulling off a successful celebration also will help put the Palestinians and their government on the map, he made clear; television images of Bethlehem beamed around the world certainly won’t hurt.

“We want to show the world what we can do,” he said.