World Affairs

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

These words are as true now as when Rector Phillips Brooks of Philadelphia jotted them down in 1868. He had made a journey to the Middle East, to see the sights of the Bible, and drew inspiration for his words from the view of Bethlehem from a nearby hill. His lines were set to music by the organist at his church for the Sunday school to sing. They have since become universally recognisable, and rightly so, for they aren’t just melodic, they have also proved themselves to be an accurate reflection of Bethlehem’s impact on world affairs.
Brooks was, I imagine, impressed by how ordinary Bethlehem appears, and by how meagre it looks when compared to the splendid Jerusalem, a mere five miles away - and by how humble it seems despite the exalted status that it shares with Jerusalem, as a town several times holy. As the song says, by night the little town does indeed lie still, and the streets are dark. Certainly not the classic home of Kings
Yet, the mighty King David, the Peeper, a character of immense importance in Jewish history, was at home here. Furthermore, as we all know, it is the birthplace of Jesus, the carpenter King. The prophet Muhammad knew it too, and en route to Jerusalem, was, according to legend, escorted to Bethlehem by the Angel Gabriel, and told to pray, for his brother Jesus was born there. In the centre of the town, at Manger Square, surrounded by small shops selling all manner of religious kitsch, is one of the oldest churches in the world: the church of the Nativity (339AD, in the custody of Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian).
Even the most important of visitors will have bow low to get through the tiny door of humility that forms the entrance to this church. The tour then takes the visitor down a flight of steps on the right hand side of the alter and into a rather homely subterranean grotto, a place that has been honoured since the second century as the site of Jesus’ entry into this world. A silver star is nailed onto the floor below, to mark the supposed spot of the birth. It is a symbol of the hope that Jesus on earth represented, the hope, as the song says, that shines in the dark streets of Bethlehem, the hope of all the years, relevant, I think, to all the Abrahamic religions. But what has become of such bright, shining hope?
This ‘hope’ for the world has bred the strongest of fears in the land of the Bible. Rector Brooks may have been thinking of the theft of that very star from the grotto floor in 1847 that contributed to an international crisis, and became a factor behind the outbreak of the Crimean war (1854-56). Now he would probably be looking at the wall that cuts the hometown of King David off from the rest of Israel, twice the height of the one that ran though Berlin, and manned, as was the one on Berlin, by tough looking guys with machine guns. All performed for the protection of the Israelites - that’s irony. A resident of Jerusalem, who had family members killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber at a bus stop will tell you it is there to protect him and his family. A resident of Bethlehem, who has been brutally interrogated by the Israeli police, will tell you that the wall, and all the attached, are there to persecute him and his family, and if possible to drive them out. Tensions run deep.
Neither do the Christians of Bethlehem have a particularly easy time. Despite the town’s being the birthplace of Jesus, tales of hardship, of murders, beatings and land grabs, are not uncommon. It was an act of remarkable bravery a few years ago to open a single Christian bookshop on the main road of Bethlehem. Some residents object to its presence still. The shopkeeper spoke with amazement that it has survived thus far, overcoming the opposition, but worries that it will have to shut when the rent becomes due.
Many of the people there talk of feeling cut off from the rest of the world. A once flourishing tourist trade has been strangled by politics, as the notion that it is a dangerous part of the world puts people off. Yet, though it feels uncomfortable going past the border checks at the wall, the town itself is perfectly safe. The tourist industry there has begun to pick itself up again in recent years, but progress remains uncertain.
Yet the struggles in Israel, and the West Bank, such a precious place, seem to be, despite their fairly recent political framework, emblematic of the wider hostility between the Abrahamic faiths that has manifested itself throughout history and in every part of the world, in spite of, or perhaps, rather, because of, the things that unite them. The problems in Israel have arisen, because we all hold the land to be holy. Truly, Bethlehem, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight and every night.

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