Happy Christmas, O prisoners of the Little Town of Bethlehem

At this rate, there will soon be no Christians left in the land where Christianity was born...

Salem-News.com

(LONDON) - Happy Christmas, O prisoners of the Little Town of Bethlehem...

O little town of Bethlehem 
How still we see thee lie 
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep 
The silent stars go by 
Yet in thy dark streets shineth 
The everlasting Light 
The hopes and fears of all the years 
Are met in thee tonight

While carving the turkey for your family and merrily quaffing mulled wine ‘midst happy laughter, remember that the romantic Little Town of Bethlehem at the centre of our childhood Christmases is now “an immense prison” in the words of Michel Sabbah, former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and entirely surrounded by Israel’s ugly 8-metre separation wall bristling with machine-gun towers.

The good citizens of Bethlehem are cut off from their capital Jerusalem, only six miles away, the rest of the West Bank and the whole world.

Consider that the United Nations, for obvious reasons, designated Jerusalem and Bethlehem a protected international zone under UN administration. Israeli rule was not to be permitted.

Consider also that when Palestine was under British mandate Christians accounted for 20 per cent of the population and how 63 years of terror, illegal occupation, dispossession, interference and economic wrecking tactics have whittled their numbers down to less than 2 per cent.

Consider that, at this rate, there will soon be no Christians left in the land where Christianity was born… thanks to the cowardice and inaction of our political leaders.

How will the 26 bishops sitting around in our House of Lords, doing nothing, explain that to their dwindling congregations?

As usual, many Palestinians in Bethlehem and the other cities and villages throughout occupied Palestine will be unable to reunite with their families or celebrate Christmas at their holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem due to cruel Israeli-imposed travel restrictions. Imagine for a moment what sort of Christmas the half-starved children in blockaded Gaza are having this year, and every year… and what New Year prospects face all the other Palestinian children struggling to grow up with the Israeli army’s boot on their necks.

Deep down it is not about religion at all. The struggle is between justice and a criminal conspiracy of huge international proportions, the tentacles of which spread far beyond the Holy Land and impact on all of us, even here in the deepest recesses of England’s green and pleasant land.

In the New Year civil society must resolve to DO SOMETHING about it, one way or another, before the evil spins irreversibly out of control.

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Stuart's articles are serious and revealing; they address the pertinent issues regarding Israel and Palestine and sixty years of conflict that have devasted millions of human beings. For further information please visithttp://www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk/

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Palestinians MUST show their ARAB ID's ( ALL ID's identify each persons religion )in order to leave or re-enter Bethlehem, Palestine. http://www.OPENBETHLEHEM.org

I do not know if you realize it, but if you are any kind of religion in Israel, even residing in Bethlehem slightly away from the anti non Jewish league, that blatantly spits in the face of anything that is not swinging on the fence of the Jewish belief, then you are out of luck of any kind of fair change in that areas of the world. This is not not Europe or the United States, where most religious parties live in a tolerated harmonized society...most of the time. You can not keep blaming the British for this forever. Already Britain has showed a more staunch attitude towards Israelis' rather cagy ethics recently, when it comes to Israelis' negative behavior and treatment towards NON-ISRAELIS, when it comes to world wide politics. Even if Britain was not involved on such an act waaaayyy back in the “ye” old days, I think it would have changed to the way it is now anyway. Whether it would have been through war (remember the Israelis did a pincer move on us and kicked us out...slightly two faced, some things never change there then!) ...or some back door policy created inside Americas predominantly Jewish controlled congress.

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