In Bethlehem, a Soft Stirring of Optimism

In this Christmas season of hopes and fears, the little town of Bethlehem finds itself suspended somewhere between the two.

With lamplight glowing softly on ancient stones and the musty fragrance of incense penetrating the damp winter chill, Palestinian Christians, foreign dignitaries and a smattering of tourists celebrated midnight Mass on Friday in the basilica built on the spot where tradition says Jesus was born.

The holiday is marked by its usual disorienting Holy Land melange of army roadblocks and candlelight carols, twinkling lights and olive-drab armored vehicles.

But there has been some cause for tentative optimism this year: the dramatic easing of the day-to-day violent conflict with Israel, coupled with greater Palestinian aspirations to democracy in the wake of Yasser Arafat’s death.

Even so, Bethlehem, battered by more than four years of bitter fighting between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops, wonders whether it can ever revitalize a tourism industry that was once its lifeblood. And city fathers sadly concede that the long-standing exodus of Palestinian Christians, a living link to Bethlehem’s place in the Biblical canon, is probably irreversible.

Still, the city was able to conjure up something of its centuries-old holiday spirit, even on a cold and drizzly Christmas Eve. Festive crowds packed Manger Square the day before Christmas, with Santa-shaped balloons bobbing in night air scented with the deep-fried aroma of falafel, the quintessential Middle Eastern snack food.

Most of the celebrants were local Palestinians, including throngs of young Muslim men and boys seeking any excuse for a night out from one of the city’s grim Palestinian refugee camps.

The few foreign tourists were mostly organized church groups, rather than the travelers who could commonly be found venturing to the West Bank on their own in the years before the second intifada, or uprising, broke out in September 2000.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestine Liberation Organization chief who is favored to win the Palestinian Authority’s Jan. 9 presidential election, attended midnight Mass in the chapel adjoining the nearly 1,500-year-old Church of the Nativity, in what aides said was a message of interfaith solidarity.

But Abbas’ attendance pointedly revived a long-held tradition. Arafat, before Israeli troops confined him to his Ramallah headquarters, was an enthusiastic adherent of the annual Bethlehem festivities. He and his Christian-born wife, Suha, sometimes would dress up their young daughter, Zahwa, in Santa-style garb.

The Israeli army said it had done all it could to ease the passage of foreign pilgrims and Palestinian Christians to the Bethlehem festivities, but Bethlehem’s governor, Zuhair Manasra, said free access should have been provided days earlier, rather than on Christmas Eve.

At the army’s Checkpoint 300, set amid rocky hills and olive groves on the outskirts of Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers greeted arrivals with “Merry Christmas!” before demanding to see identity cards or passports.

Beneath a sign with the usual roadblock salutation of “Stop And Wait For Instructions -- Prepare Documents For Inspection,” Israel’s ministry of tourism had placed a makeshift notice board emblazoned with cheerily beribboned Christmas bells. “Happy holidays!” it read.

Israel, eager to capitalize on a climate of reduced tension in the wake of Arafat’s death, ceded full security control of Bethlehem to Palestinian forces for the duration of the holiday and permitted the town’s Palestinian police, for the first time in several years, to carry arms in public.

Israel’s local liaison commander, Lt. Col. Aviv Feigel, pointedly handed off his automatic rifle to an aide before facing television cameras to talk about the holiday’s significance. He said that about 4,000 visitors were expected Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and that the loosened travel restrictions would apply until mid-January, after Eastern Rite churches’ Christmas celebrations.

“We very well understand the great importance of this occasion to the Christian world,” Feigel said.

Bethlehem tourism has been flattened by the intifada, and merchants acknowledge that, though violence has fallen off dramatically, visitors are unlikely to return until there has been a prolonged period of calm.

“We hope very much that things will change,” said George Baboul, proprietor of a souvenir shop just off Manger Square that is full of olive-wood crosses and Nativity scenes. On Christmas Eve, business was so slow that he did not even bother switching on the lights, because electricity costs money.

But there were signs of better times on the horizon. Remodeling of Bethlehem’s landmark Paradise Hotel, wrecked by fighting early in the intifada, was completed in time for it to reopen for Christmas.

“Hope hasn’t disappeared here,” said Mariam Jamal, a Muslim woman toting her 4-year-old son, Ramis, across Manger Square. “But we are still waiting for better times.”

There were reminders, though, of the continuing conflict. In a refugee camp abutting the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem, Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians on Friday.

The Martyr Yasser Arafat Brigade, formerly known as Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said the slain men were fighters from its ranks who had died in an exchange of fire with troops.