No room at the inn: Christmas bonanza in Bethlehem by Jennie Matthew Thu Dec 20, 10:25 PM ET
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) - Hotels booked, parties planned and lights glittering, Bethlehem is preparing for tens of thousands of pilgrims to overcome Israeli occupation and give the town the best Christmas in years. We are hopeful this city will remain peaceful. I'm sure we'll have a wonderful Christmas, says Mayor Victor Batarseh, determined to look on the bright side sitting next to a plastic fir tree near Manger Square.Tourism has grown 60 percent, and he expects 30,000-40,000 tourists -- double the number last year -- to visit the town where the Bible says Jesus was born in a stable after Mary and Joseph found no room at the inn.Hotel occupancy has risen from 10-15 percent to 45 percent in the run-up to the season. Batarseh thinks the 2,000 beds in town will be fully booked this Christmas, reversing a long slump stemming from Israeli-Palestinian violence.Katherine Korsak, a 36-year-old Roman Catholic from Poland admits she was initially scared about coming to Bethlehem, crossing through the towering cement wall separating Israel from the West Bank and passing military security.
But this is such an important place for us. We came with joy. Christmas is so close and for us it's a spiritual experience here, she says, showing the postcards and wooden carvings she bought, feeling sorry for the vendors.On November 27, Israel and the Palestinians formally resumed peace talks more than seven years after they collapsed into a deadly cycle of violence that has killed 6,000 people, sent economies into free fall and hiked emigration.But falling levels of violence, revived peace talks and what Batarseh credits as encouragement from churches in promoting support for one of the holiest sites in Christendom is encouraging the tourists back en masse.I'm very optimistic. We already see the results, says 27-year-old sales and marketing manager Haya Saad, sipping tea in the Bethlehem Intercontinental, the only five star hotel in town and its 250 rooms fully booked.The Intercontinental has doubled room rates this Christmas, capitalising on booming demand particularly from pilgrims from the Far East and Eastern Europe.A fiesta of Christmas carols, Oriental music, parties in the bar with DJs and alcohol every night from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve, and dinners.Two months ago, Israeli soldiers entered the hotel looking for a stone thrower, Saad says. But it's getting much better than before. The presidential suite is being renovated after damage from an Israeli raid in 2001.But peel away the tinsel and walk in the backstreets avoided by the pilgrims bused in and out to the Church of Nativity and the misery is stark.Israel's separation barrier has confiscated farm land, uprooted olive trees, isolated the town from Jerusalem and helped to quicken emigration and keep unemployment at more than 50 percent. Israeli raids are still frequent.
One Bethlehem olive wood workshop is modelling Nativity scenes complete with a replica separation barrier blocking the wise men from getting to the stable. A British charity has virtually sold out its stocks to worried Christians.I hadn't understood to what extent land was taken and freedom of movement curtailed. They are literally imprisoned. It's a horrible thing to see a community aboslutely destroyed, said charity director Gareth Hewitt. Estimates about the proportion of Christians left here vary from 15 to 25 percent. Batarseh says they were 92 percent before Israel was created in 1948.Samir Qumsieh, general manager of Nativity TV Station, which broadcasts religious services, said the nightmare in my head is emigration. It's deadly. Fifteen years from now, you will not find a Christian.World churches should finance building projects to provide jobs and give young men a reason to stay. Instead he bemoans a shameful default by Christians in the world and growing secularism in Europe and the United States. Exhausted Polish pilgrim Ania Banach changed buses at the checkpoint, was herded around by a guide in a frenzy and hounded by Palestinian vendors, angry that her frenetic timetable was eating into their profits. It's too fast, too crazy and too many people asking me stupid questions, she said after a Palestinian accused her of supporting Israel. You live in Israel, you eat in Israel. For me it's like where am I? I don't support anyone. I came just to see the holy place. I cannot enjoy it how I would like to. I would like to spend one day.Israel says 2.3 million tourists are expected this year, close to the bumper year 2000 -- when Pope John Paul II visited and Israel and the Palestinians came close to an agreement at Camp David -- and will next year smash records. The country expects around 60,000 Christian tourists this Christmas, up more 50 percent on last year, said tourism ministry director general Shaul Tzemach. At nightfall, buses queue up outside the trap door in the separation barrier to return to Israel, waved through by armed soldiers ordered to ease the restrictions this Christmas as a sign of confidence in a better year to come.
Israel looking at Hamas truce idea By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer Thu Dec 20, 8:05 PM ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel is examining a Hamas truce proposal delivered by Egypt, defense officials said Thursday after at least six Palestinians were killed in a day of Israeli air and ground strikes aimed at stopping rocket salvos from Gaza. The Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Hamas proposal was limited to stopping the rocket fire in exchange for a halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza. They said Hamas gave assurances it could impose the truce on the militant groups that are firing the rockets — Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian government. Despite the tentative contacts, there were more Palestinian rocket barrages Thursday. One rocket fired by militants in Gaza exploded next to an Israeli school, terrifying children. Late Thursday, Hamas said it fired three rockets at Israel, its first such claim in weeks, putting the truce talk in doubt.Hamas first floated the idea of a truce earlier this week when its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, called an Israeli TV reporter. Israel rejected the advance, saying there was no need for a truce because if the rocket fire stopped, Israel would have no reason to attack.
Israel refuses to deal directly with Hamas because the militant Islamic movement rejects the existence of a Jewish state in the Islamic Middle East and routinely calls for its destruction. Previous truces have been negotiated through Egyptian mediation, but none has held for long.Vice Premier Haim Ramon said the overture was proof that Israel's strategy of blockading Gaza and battling militants there is working.All of these ... comments, and the messages coming in all kinds of strange ways, all of these things are a kind of smoke screen that just shows that Israel's recent policy toward Palestinian terror is bearing fruit, Ramon told Army Radio.In amateur video of the Thursday rocket attack on the battered Israeli town of Sderot, taken from inside the school, the sound of the explosion is clearly heard. Children scream and cry as a teacher tries to round them up and guide them to a safe location.No one was hurt, but Israeli officials said about a dozen children suffered panic attacks, and one was taken to a hospital for shock.Pictures such as those from Sderot, a favorite target of rocket squads just half a mile from the Gaza-Israel border fence, have increased pressure on Israel's government to take action to stop the rocket attacks.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said repeatedly that a large-scale invasion of Gaza is nearing, but experts and officials acknowledge that such invasions have not stopped the rockets in the past.Instead, the military is using pinpoint strikes to try to deter the militants, such as those on Thursday. Troops entered central Gaza and withdrew after nightfall, the military said.Israel said its forces killed seven Palestinian gunmen in four clashes Thursday. Palestinians confirmed six dead and 20 wounded.Israeli ground forces in central Gaza killed two approaching gunmen, the army said, and later shot dead two more militants. Palestinians said five militants were killed. Two of the bodies were recovered after nightfall.Hospital officials said another person was also killed in the clash.A Reuters soundman was shot in the leg while covering the clashes. It was not clear whether he was wounded by Israeli or Palestinian fire, the news agency said. A photographer for Hamas television was also slightly injured.Israeli infantry and armored troops were in the area conducting a routine operation against militants who fire rockets and mortar rounds, try to infiltrate into Israel, and plant bombs along the border fence, the military said.
Palestinian gunmen launched mortar rounds at troops and fired at Israeli aircraft with machine guns as Israeli snipers took up positions on the roofs of homes in the area, witnesses said. In the afternoon, the military said militants fired an anti-tank weapon, seriously wounding a soldier. The Israelis fired back, killing a Palestinian. Later, Israeli ground and air forces clashed with militants, and two were killed, the military said.
Palestinians said in that incident, a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft hit a house. Two people were apparently killed, they said, but ambulances could not approach the area.
Rice welcomes good step from Israel on settlements Thu Dec 20, 5:58 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Israel took a good step when it dropped plans for a new Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday, adding it would have undercut new peace talks. I think it's a good step, Rice said in an exclusive interview with AFP after Israel's housing ministry abandoned the plans for the Atarot area in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.I don't know the calculations that went into it, but obviously it's helpful that you don't have that decision to contend with, she said, noting such moves undermine confidence.Rice did not say whether or not she had talked to Israeli government officials after Housing Minister Zeev Boim mentioned the plans on Wednesday, but suggested that they took heed of previous criticism over similar moves.I think that the Israelis understood that what had happened with Har Homa had had an effect of undermining the confidence in the very fragile and brand new peace process, Rice said.Two weeks ago, Israel invited bids for more than 300 new housing units in another settlement of occupied and annexed east Jerusalem, known as Har Homa to Israelis and as Jebel Abu Ghneim to Palestinians.
The expansion came a week after Israelis and Palestinians revived peace talks at a conference in the US city of Annapolis. It sparked criticism from the Palestinians, the European Union and the United States.Rice said after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Brussels on December 7: I made it clear that we are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties. This is not going to build that confidence.During the international conference in Annapolis, Maryland on November 27, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to revive their frozen peace process and set the goal of a peace deal and a new Palestinian state by the end of 2008.Israel does not consider construction in east Jerusalem -- which it captured in the 1967 Six-Day war -- as settlement growth because it annexed the Arab part of the Holy City shortly after the conflict.
