Summary
West Bank city a few miles from Jerusalem that Chapter 3, “Outside In”, of Palestine Inside Out presents as turned outside in: surrounded by nine Israeli settlements, a stretch of the Barrier, Israeli-only roads and approximately 78 physical obstacles, and cut off from Jerusalem, its ancestral olive groves and all open green space (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.253-255).
Details
- A U.N. report quoted in the work holds that Bethlehem’s “spiritual, cultural and economic lifeline” was traditionally tied to Jerusalem, a few kilometres away, and that “this centuries-old link is being undermined” by the Barrier and the wider Closure system (PDF p.254).
- The wall and obstacles run along the very edge of the built-up communities of Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, separating them from their agricultural land, whose lack of development then provides for further settlement expansion (PDF p.254-255).
- Israel imposed 156 days of 24-hour curfew on Bethlehem in 2002; 10 percent of its Christian population has emigrated in the past few years; of the eighty Palestinian businesses around Rachel’s Tomb in 2002 only 10 percent survive; monthly tourists have fallen from almost 100,000 before 2000 to barely 7,000 (PDF p.255).
- The U.N. report concludes: “Bethlehem has become an isolated town, with boarded-up shops and abandoned development projects.” (PDF p.255)
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Separation wall, Closure system, Gaza, Nablus