Remembering visiting Bethlehem

Here's something from CNN News tonight. It brought back memories.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) --To get to the West Bank town, Michel Sabbah, the Roman Catholic Church's highest official in the Holy Land, rode in his motorcade through a huge steel gate in the Israeli barrier that separates Jerusalem from Bethlehem.

Israel says it built the barrier to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching Israeli population centers. Palestinians view the structure, which dips into parts of the West Bank, as a land grab.

The robed clergyman was led into Palestinian-controlled territory by a formal escort of five Israeli policemen on horseback. Two officers of the Israeli Border Police closed the gate behind him.

Bethlehem's tourist industry has been hit hard by six years of Israeli-Palestinian violence, construction of the barrier and internal Palestinian fighting. This Christmas was the first under a Palestinian Authority controlled by the militant Islamic group Hamas.

There were fewer Christmas decorations than in the past, and for the first time no Christmas carols were piped over the loudspeaker system.

Standing outside his empty souvenir shop, George Baboul said it was the "worst Christmas" he had seen in more than 30 years. His Bethlehem Star Store is in a prime location, at the side of the Church of the Nativity, but he said there is no business.

"No tourists are coming," said Baboul, 72, who opened the shop in 1967.

Mayor Victor Batarseh said the city would celebrate Christmas despite the hardship.

"With all this oppression, this economic stress, physical stress, psychological stress, we are defying all these obstacles and we are celebrating Christmas so that we'll put joy into the faces of our children, joy to the citizens of Bethlehem," Batarseh said.

Israel's Tourism Ministry forecast 18,000 tourists would visit Bethlehem during the holidays, up from 16,000 last year, but far below the tens of thousands who thronged Manger Square at the height of peacemaking in the 1990s.

But most of those in Manger Square on Sunday were locals. The sprinkling of foreign tourists included a Polish choir and a handful of South Korean pilgrims who gathered to sing carols in a corner of the square, interrupted briefly by the call to prayer from a nearby mosque.

"It's exciting. I can feel that Jesus was here," said Jae Hwan Kim, 29, of Seoul.

I remember that long steel gate, don't you, Annette? It was a little scary in Bethlehem, since it was Palastinian-controlled, but I was glad our guide was Palestinian so we got to go there. (Most tourist groups skipped it.)

It was cool being in the Church of the Nativity, knowing that's the church that's shown on TV all over the world celebrating Midnight Mass. Remember that we walked through the back of the church and down a little into the cave? I hated it that they had that gaudy altar with all those incense lamps over the spot where they think Jesus was born.

OK, reminiscing is over. Merry Christmas to all!