{"id":68516,"date":"2025-12-23T14:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/68516\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T14:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:03:10","slug":"christians-in-bethlehem-face-existential-threat-under-israels-occupation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/68516\/","title":{"rendered":"Christians in Bethlehem face existential threat under Israel’s occupation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas should be the busiest time of the year for the shopkeepers of Manger Square, but the birthplace of Jesus is now a ghost town<\/p>\n

Christmas has been the beating heart of the Giacaman family\u2019s Bethlehem business for generations.<\/p>\n

The Giacamans own Christmas House, one of the main shops on Manger Square selling Nativity figurines, festive ornaments, rosaries, crucifixes and other religious paraphernalia, all ornately carved in their nearby workshop from local olive wood.<\/p>\n

But for the past two years, the doors of Christmas House have remained closed, Jack Issa Giacaman told Middle East Eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t see anybody around. Unfortunately during the last years Israel<\/a> converted Bethlehem to be a big prison,\u201d said Giacaman, who currently manages the company.<\/p>\n

Days before Christmas, Manger Square is almost deserted, with only a few locals taking photos of the star-topped Christmas tree decorated in red and gold baubles.<\/p>\n

New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch<\/p>\n

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Shops are shuttered and tour guides mill about, touting desperately for non-existent business in front of the Nativity Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Saturday a few Filipinas and Indians<\/a> come – they work in Israel. But it\u2019s not enough. Everything is closed,\u201d said Asaad Jaqaman, the owner of another local souvenir shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cClosed, because why would we open? There is no one coming in, no people, nothing. What are we going to do? Sometimes I open out of boredom. The situation is pitiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the economic malaise that has gripped Bethlehem since the coronavirus pandemic is now accompanied by a graver threat.<\/p>\n

Pressed up hard against the separation wall between Israel and the occupied West Bank, corralled on surrounding hills by settlements, and choked by a network of dozens of checkpoints and security gates, Bethlehem\u2019s Christian and Palestinian<\/a> identities exist under an ever-tightening siege.<\/p>\n

Christians accounted for 85 percent of the population of Bethlehem governorate when Israel was created, but by 2017 that figure had collapsed to about 10 percent.<\/p>\n

The Israeli assault on Bethlehem has accelerated at a blistering rate since February 2023, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handed Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Jewish ultra-nationalist Religious Zionism party and a settler himself, authority over the West Bank.<\/p>\n

\"Bethlehem<\/p>\n

Most shops remained shuttered and padlocked on Manger Square this month, even at what is usually the busiest time of year (MEE)\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"\"Since then, the situation has continued to deteriorate as the economic devastation of coronavirus was followed by the war in Gaza<\/a> and the brutal Israeli crackdown in the West Bank that accompanied it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe say goodbye to another family every other week or so,\u201d Reverend Munther Isaac, for many years a prominent local pastor before his own move to Ramallah, told MEE.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristian\u00a0families are leaving. People have given up on the prospect of life with dignity in\u00a0their homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shepherds’ field seized by settlers<\/p>\n

This week brought foreboding news of a further land grab as Smotrich on Sunday announced<\/a> the legalisation of 19 previously unauthorised settlements across the West Bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of Israel are returning to their land, building it and strengthening their hold on it,\u201d Smotrich wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

What are Israeli settlements and why are they illegal under international law?<\/p>\n

Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n

These included Yatziv (which means \u2018Stable\u2019 in Hebrew), a few kilometres east of Bethlehem in the Palestinian village of Beit Sahour, one of only a few Christian communities left in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Bulldozers arrived in Beit Sahour last month to prepare the ground, triggering panic and fear among local residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a sense of terror. A big spirit of sorrow and grief. The wound is still open. We are actively losing our land. We cannot conceive the idea,\u201d said Dalia Qumsieh, a human rights activist and local resident who spoke to MEE before Sunday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

For anyone familiar with the Nativity story, Beit Sahour holds significance as the place where angels brought the news of Jesus\u2019s birth to shepherds \u201ckeeping watch over their flock by night\u201d.\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"But every Palestinian knows what the arrival of settlers portends.<\/p>\n

The destruction of an ancient way of life. The building of new \u201cApartheid\u201d roads that carve through the landscape and redraw the map. Farmers – and shepherds – driven off their land. The smashing of agricultural equipment. Settler pogroms and daily intimidation.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An Israeli military gate blocks the road connecting the village of Dar Salah to Bethlehem (MEE)<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe shepherds\u2019 field is now situated between two settlements. We are trapped,\u201d said\u00a0Qumsieh.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur ancient presence as indigenous people in this land is basically threatened,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen our family members emigrate one after another. And I\u2019m careful when I say the word emigrate because they\u2019re responding to a deliberately made coercive environment by the Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not immigration out of choice if you are living in a setting where there is no dignity, no safety, no freedom, no rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Christmas tree but no tourists<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, crowds gathered in Manger Square as Bethlehem celebrated the traditional lighting of the Christmas tree for the first time since before the start of the Gaza war.<\/p>\n

The event drew international coverage<\/a> and, speaking to MEE in his office, Bethlehem\u2019s mayor, Maher Nicola Canawati, is still cheered by the occasion.\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that night, celebrating together, we felt the Christmas vibes that we missed for two years and definitely this is helping the local economy and giving the people hope,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"But Canawati\u2019s warm words sit uncomfortably with his own recognition of the desperate situation facing his town and its people.<\/p>\n

Ten percent of Bethlehem\u2019s population – 4,000 people – has left in the last two years, according to the mayor\u2019s own reckoning.<\/p>\n

\u201cBethlehem is depending on tourism and since the war, tourism stopped and all the hotels and the industry was shut down completely. This resulted in many Bethlehemites selling their businesses and leaving Bethlehem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Maher<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Mayor Maher Nicola Canawati says that 10 percent of the town’s population have left in the last two years (MEE)<\/p>\n

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\"\"Grim-faced shopkeepers and desolate streets confirm the bleak picture. Giacaman said his own brother was among those who had left the town and moved abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe media try to give a different picture that everything is normal. They put up a Christmas tree but 80 percent, even 90 percent of the hotels are empty.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it is not just tourists who are absent.<\/p>\n

Deterred by a dense ring of Israeli military checkpoints and security gates, often opened and closed at the whim of the soldiers stationed there, many Palestinians from nearby villages risk getting stuck overnight if they visit the town.<\/p>\n

Giacaman said: \u201cYesterday, a girl was telling her mum: \u2018Hurry, hurry, they are going to close the gates. We have to get back to the village before they close the gates.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Giacaman said that the main entrance to Bethlehem, known as Checkpoint 300, had remained closed for much of December, even though the month is the busiest time for the town\u2019s businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something illegal, killing the economy in Bethlehem completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christians ‘under attack’<\/p>\n

It’s not just in Bethlehem where Christians are under threat.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s occupation, and above all its building of the separation wall, has severed the umbilical cord which for almost 2,000 years linked Christians in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Like Jerusalem\u2019s other sacred spaces, Christianity\u2019s holiest sites are located within the ancient walls of the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Here, Christians are targeted, assaulted – and frequently spat on by ultra-extreme settlers.<\/p>\n

The Religious Freedom Data Centre reports a surge of hate crimes against Christians, with the police taking little interest.<\/p>\n

Attacks on Jerusalem\u2019s 3,000-strong Armenian Christian population have rocketed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Settlers regularly vandalise the area with graffiti, for instance, \u201cDeath to Arabs and their Armenian Friends\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Crucifixes<\/p>\n

Crucifixes and other Christian paraphernalia on sale in a souvenir shop in Bethlehem in December 2025 (MEE)<\/p>\n

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\"\"Posters commemorating the Armenian genocide have been ripped down or defaced. One recent poster put up read: \u201cThe time has come to settle in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kegham Balian, a spokesman for Save the ArQ, a campaign to protect the Armenian quarter, told MEE how locals have been manning barricades for more than two years to prevent settler incursions after protests against a leasehold deal agreed by\u00a0the Armenian\u00a0Patriarchate.<\/p>\n

Balian recalled how \u201cabout 20 to 30 armed thugs came here with electric chainsaws, with batons, with full aggression trying to intimidate us to kick us off our land\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back at least 1,700 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Christian presence in Jerusalem is under attack,\u201d said Balian. \u201cIf we don’t stand united we will lose it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christians are under threat everywhere in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

At the Church of the Flagellation, located within the Muslim quarter, settlers attacked a statue of Jesus with a hammer.<\/p>\n

A threatening poster appears on a wall of the Anglican cathedral on Nablus Road. A shop worker in a Christian bookshop gets spat at.<\/p>\n

One leading Christian minister, speaking on condition of anonymity, told MEE that \u201ceverybody feels that we are on the absolute edge of our ability to exist here\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pastors for Israel<\/p>\n

Christianity, in short, is under state-sponsored attack in the land of its birth.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a mystery about all this because Netanyahu loves to boast that\u00a0Israel is the \u201cguardian of Christianity\u201d in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Earlier\u00a0this month, the largest ever delegation of Christian leaders arrived in Israel on a week-long trip.<\/p>\n

‘There is no protection for us, as Christians, from the Christian countries’<\/p>\n

– Jack Issa Giacaman<\/p>\n

All expenses were paid by the Israeli state, supervised by Israel\u2019s foreign ministry and personally approved by Netanyahu himself.<\/p>\n

On their journey, they were addressed by President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, and the US ambassador Mike Huckabee.<\/p>\n

Huckabee urged\u00a0the delegation\u00a0to return home with \u201cthe fire of God burning in your bones\u201d, so that they might be \u201cpro-Bible<\/a>\u201d\u00a0and therefore \u201cpro-Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

Christian evangelicals have long been cherished political allies of the Israeli state. Yet the Christian heritage of Palestine is under just as much peril as its Muslim heritage.<\/p>\n

The Christian leaders were bussed deep into the West Bank to witness archaeological excavations at Shiloh, supposedly the Old Testament site of the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, the centre for worship for Israelites before the building of the first Temple in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

They also visited Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met with some of them,\u201d said Canawati.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is our duty to tell the just story of Palestine and to talk to people who may have been told different ideas by the Israelis.\u201d<\/p>\n

He firmly rejects Netanyahu\u2019s claim that Israel is the guardian of Christianity in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

Jack Issa Giacaman’s family has owned a wood-carving business on Manger Square for generations (MEE)<\/p>\n

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\"\"\u201cThat\u2019s definitely a wrong statement. What drove the Christians out from Bethlehem is the occupation and all the hardships that we as Palestinians face, Christians and Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giacaman is still unsure when Christmas House will reopen but, standing in the empty shop, he has more on his mind than the shelves of unsold figurines and icons of saints that stare back at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is crying about the Christians, but we are killed by the knife of the Christians of Europe and America. There is no protection for us, as Christians, from the Christian countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t see any hope or any future for the Christians in the Holy Land anymore. In the next 20 years, I think you will come and visit Bethlehem, maybe you will see one or two families left.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christmas should be the busiest time of the year for the shopkeepers of Manger Square, but the birthplace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-68516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}