Doubts and doughnuts

It seems that Christmas cheer is hard to come by in Bethlehem.

The tourist industry, which was hard hit during the Intifada years, suffered a further setback following the recent recession.

However according to a Bethlehem tourist industry spokesman the real reason for the decline is (you guessed right) Israel's security barrier.

Christian tourists who do manage to visit the Church of the Nativity are probably unaware of another blight that afflicts the site.

Earlier this year journalist Abigail Tucker reporting for the Smithsonian magazine, told of an age-old dispute. "Feuding monks at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem don't just cast the first stone—they stockpile rocks in anticipation of future altercations. Several holy men landed in the hospital two Christmases ago after a fight broke out over the dusting of church chandeliers."

The problem has been worsening for decades, but the resident clerics—from the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox churches and the Franciscan order of the Roman Catholic Church—are jealous of each other's claims of custody and have been unable to reach an amicable solution.

There's some sort of verbal status quo which stems back to Ottoman times, which mandates that things be done as they were always done. Anyone who has previously walked in a procession down a certain aisle, used a particular cupboard or hung a given tapestry has exclusive rights to that task or item.

However, if priests of another denomination manage by guile, subterfuge or other foul means to do the job first, then that particular chore, use or care for an object or ownership, passes to them.

Tucker elaborates "The highly publicized fight at Christmas two years ago was essentially a territorial dispute. The Greeks were cleaning an Armenian-controlled part of the church, and custom dictated that they could dust the chandeliers by standing on a ladder set up in an appointed place. But the Greeks tried to move their ladder, encroaching on Armenian turf."

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, another shared holy site is also the scene of petty disputes over brooms and who sweeps what and where.

I don't delight in these holy woes, but mention them to add some local colour to the Christmas narrative. After all we have plenty of our own internecine feuding.

Sadly the Church of the Nativity is badly in need of urgent repairs which are held up by Christian interfaith bickering.

Reading this you probably think I'm doing my Christmas shopping a bit early this year. Well I've started with Christmas in order to arrive at Hanukah which we celebrate on Friday night.

Before lighting our first Hanukah candle I want to deal with a matter at hand which also has a bearing on the festive season.

While the German intermediary tries one more time to bridge the gap between the demands made by Israel and Hamas in the negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit, the “not at any price” opinion is gaining ground.

Nevertheless, the possibility/likelihood of releasing a large number of unrepentant terrorists requires an imaginative approach in order to bring Shalit home and at the same time safeguard the lives of all Israelis.

The option of exiling terrorists has been considered again. Obviously Gaza is a close and convenient possibility. The security fence surrounding the “Strip” is effective in preventing infiltrators reaching Israel. Other more distant places have been suggested. In the past Italy, Spain and Ireland have accepted a few released terrorists, now this option is being considered again.

Our T.V. channel 2 sent one of its Arabic speaking investigative reporters to Ireland to interview two Palestinians that have been languishing there for the past seven years.

Jihad Jaara, a former Bethlehem commander of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades and one of his lieutenants Rami Kamel are lonely, bored, and more recently, they have become two very frightened men .

The two have been interviewed on a number of occasions by Joshua Hammer the author of “A Season in Bethlehem: Unholy War in a Sacred Place.”

A few months ago Hammer wrote a particularly revealing article in the New York Times recounting his encounters with the two exiles since the siege at the Church of the Nativity,

In April 2002 Israel embarked on Operation Defensive Shield , the Israel Defence Forces occupied Bethlehem and tried to capture wanted Palestinian terrorists. Dozens of them fled into the Church of the Nativity and sought refuge there. After 39 days, an agreement was reached, whereby the terrorists surrendered and were exiled to Europe and the Gaza Strip .

A few weeks before the siege, Hammer who was Newsweek's Jerusalem bureau chief at the time, met both Jaara and Kamel in Bethlehem. He was gathering material on the murder of Avi Boaz.

In mid-January 2002 Avi Boaz, a 71-year-old New York-born émigré to Israel who had never given up his American citizenship, was stopped at a checkpoint inside Palestinian-controlled territory near Bethlehem. Palestinian gunmen climbed into Boaz’s car, drove him around the city, then took him to a deserted soccer field. There, as he sat behind the wheel of his car, they shot him.

Later on when Joshua Hammer interviewed Jihad Jaara in Dublin he implicated himself in the murder of Avi Boaz. Palestinians murdering Israelis don't really concern the F.B.I, however when the Bureau realised that one of the victims was an American citizen its agents started to take an active interest in Jihad Jaara.

Jaara and Kamel have been plagued by bad luck. Early in 2002 Rami Kamel miscalculated while throwing a hand grenade and blew his arm off. Later during the fighting that preceded the church siege. Jihad Jaara was accidentally shot in the leg by one of his own men. The wounded Jaara was carried by his men into the Church of the Nativity. Jaara, Kamel and about 200 others took refuge inside the 1,700-year-old basilica’s walls, living off macaroni and cans of meat and tuna stockpiled by priests.

Following their surrender Jaara and Kamel were sent to Dublin. Throughout most of their exile in Ireland they have tried to maintain a low profile.

However, in August of last year, Jaara gave a plaintive interview to a Dublin journalist, lashing out at the Irish government for refusing to provide him with a job and for not trying hard enough to send him back to the West Bank.

Jaara, who is 37, said he was lonely, living in limbo, unable to see his family (including his youngest son, born the day he was dispatched to Ireland) and bored. Along with the boredom there are moments of terror: In 2005 The Irish Evening Herald reported that the Irish police intercepted a Mossad team that was trying to kill Jaara. Last summer, reports surfaced on Middle Eastern Web sites that shots were fired at him in a Dublin street and that Jaara’s car was forced off the road into a ditch, leaving him slightly injured. The Israeli government, the Irish police and the Palestinian Authority all called these reports baseless. Hammer quoted a senior IDF officer who said it was unlikely that Israel was hunting Jaara, “but if he’s worried, let him be worried,” he said.

Following the publication of his book and his articles about the exiles in Ireland, Hammer was asked to appear before a Grand Jury in Washington and give evidence concerning Jaara’s involvement in Avi Boaz’s murder.

Since then the investigation has dragged on but is still active.

A few months ago Hammer managed to track down Jaara and Kamel in a hideout near Dublin. Jaara knew about the ongoing investigation and had heard the rumours about the Mossad

“They want to kill me.” Jaara told Hammer.

“I looked at him,” Hammer recalls ”sweating, sucking on a Marlboro, eyes wide with fear. I supposed he spent most of his exile holed up like this, watching bad movies and smoking Marlboros, waiting for the day when the Mossad or the C.I.A. will burst through the door.”

What can I say; it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

Back to Manger Square, Bethlehem not to watch the preparations for Christmas but to consider whether the Nativity mentioned in some of the Gospels refers to this Bethlehem.

Many archaeologists and theological scholars believe Jesus was actually born in either Nazareth or Bethlehem in Galilee, a town just outside Nazareth, Aviram Oshri, a senior archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, says, “There is surprisingly no archaeological evidence that ties Bethlehem in Judea to the period when Jesus was born.

“If the historical Jesus was born in Bethlehem,” claims Oshri, “it was most likely the Bethlehem in Galilee." The archaeological evidence certainly seems to support this claim." Bethlehem in Galilee was a busy centre just a few miles from the home of Joseph and Mary, as opposed to an unpopulated spot almost a hundred miles from their home in Nazareth. In the Galilee Bethlehem, Oshri and his team have uncovered the remains of a later monastery and a large Byzantine church, which raises the question of why such a huge house of Christian worship was built in the heart of a Jewish area. Oshri believes it’s because early Christians revered Bethlehem of Galilee as the birthplace of Jesus. “There is impressive and important evidence that a strong Christian community existed in the northern Bethlehem a short time after Jesus’ death,” he says. Oshri, however, doubts that Bethlehem of Galilee will be recognised as the birthplace of Jesus any time soon. “Business interests are too important,” he says. “After all this time, the churches do not have a strong interest in changing the Nativity story.”

Episcopal priest and professor of theology Bruce Chilton also has doubts.

"The question isn't whether Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but rather which Bethlehem."

While I'm in an iconoclastic mood I might as well tackle Hanukah.

I mention this every year, so this year too I won't let the oil mongers off the hook. The Hanukah theme "A great miracle happened there/here," as we know refers to that miraculous cruse of oil which was normally enough to light a temple lamp for one day and managed to last for eight days.

The story is a later Interpolation first mentioned in the Talmud. It seems the authors of the Books of Maccabees forget to mention it. Contemporary and later writers found no reason to praise the miraculous cruse of oil. Hundreds of years after the rededication of the Temple a brief mention in the Babylonian Talmud added a whole new dimension to Hanukah. Now it's too late to correct the narrative even if we were to consider this "mission impossible," we would have to forfeit all those fattening gastronomic delights and the "Feast of Lights" would be a dimmer, poorer festival.

The heroes of Hanukah- the Maccabees, founders of the Hasmonean dynasty were short lived heroic figures. The second generation were a pack of cutthroat intriguers, who murdered their brothers and mothers in their relentless quest for power. Nevertheless, we continue to sing their praises and join sports and social clubs called Maccabeans.

This year, the much toned down US presidential Hanukah celebrations are compensated for by Senator Orrin Hatch's addition to our rich repertoire of Hanukah songs. Although Hatch's lyrics leave a lot to be desired the tune is catchy. If you are brave enough, try accessing it at http://vimeo.com/7971216

Happy Hanukah –

Chag Sameach.

Beni 10^th of December, 2009.