July 25, 2003

We met up with the other PAS students, all Americans and Europeans, and began our travel to Bethlehem. We caught the shared taxi in Birzeit, one additional passenger filling it up in addition to our six. Once at Qalandia, we parted ways - she, too, was headed to Bethlehem, but because she was a West Banker, she couldn't travel through Jerusalem and thus had to go around on a several hour trip.

We passed through by way of Damascus Gate, catching a taxi to the outskirts of Beit Jala. We walked through a simple checkpoint and caught our fourth taxi to the Church of the Nativity. On the way, we saw Palestinian police who had returned to seemingly impotent patrols of the city there, mere yards from the Israeli checkpoint.

Once in Bethlehem, we were met by a Birzeit alum who took us on a brief tour of Bethlehem's Old City. We were also met by dozens of freelance tour guides who wanted to take us on tours of the Church. "It's only twenty shekels (five dollars)." The tourist industry has a long way to go to recover here.

We visited the church and the grotto for the first time in a long time. It brought back memories of celebrating Christmas 2000 here, a joyful time for us as Elizabeth's mother came to visit and we were able to attend the Roman Catholic midnight mass (feet away from Arafat). But it was a desperate and somber time in many ways; so many hopes (and investments) were pinned on throngs of pilgrims coming for Christmas 2000, and of course they, the lifeblood of Bethlehem, didn't come, and still haven't.

Skulls amid the catacombs beneath the Church of the Nativity.

Then we climbed down under the church into a series of caves which are the purported burial site of the Innocents, the infants slaughtered by King Herod in an effort to kill Jesus. As many times as we've been here, this was the first time we had seen the catacombs. Supposedly, the mothers of the Innocents are buried here too, an early Christian marker of their suffering. Secret worship services were also held here in the early years of Christianity.

Artwork depicting the Nativity of Jesus.

After a short visit to the Bethlehem Peace Center, it was off to the nearby Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Badil was created to address the recommendations of several popular conferences held among Palestinian refugees in 1995 and 1996 in response to a growing sense of alienation from the Oslo process, which refugees considered undemocratic and unresponsive to their concerns. As with the current "road map," Oslo put aside any discussion of refugee rights as a final status issue, which (in the perspective of our host), meant that not only was there no common language or framework for considering rights of refugees, but also they came to seem like no big deal to the Israeli contingent. And so, when the issue did come up, the two sides were at widely different places, such that even beginning dialogue was nearly impossible.

Of 9.3 million Palestinians worldwide, it is estimated that 75% are displaced or refugees (4 million from 1948 who remain registered with UNRWA; 1.5 million from 1948 who are not registered; 3/4 million displaced in 1967; 3/4 million displaced after 1967; 300,000 internally displaced - i.e. fled in 1948 but at the end of the war were in the new state of Israel, but never allowed to return to their villages and many of whom live in unrecognized villages; 20-100,000 displaced during the current intifada). One especially interesting thing Badil has been doing is building connections among refugee communities around the world; last year they sent a delegation of Palestinian refugee leaders to Bosnia to see how refugee issues were being handled there. Soon they hope to take a group to South Africa for more of the same and also to examine their Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Dheisheh Refugee Camp takes the usual Palestinian crowded housing situation to a new level.

From there, it was off to view the refugee situation through our hosts at Ibda'a Cultural Center in nearby Dheisheh Refugee Camp, population 11,000. We visited the Center two years ago with a group from Peachtree Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. In that time, though the Refugee Camp's situation remains one of relative squalor and overcrowding, the Center has expanded. It now has in internet cafe as well as a top-floor restaurant and a guesthouse which puts European youth hostels to shame. Much of the funding for the Center initially came from its Palestinian dance troupe which tours regularly and widely.

The Center's Director spoke to us as graphic images of Saddam's two sons lingered on the TV over his shoulder, interspersed with footage of President Bush meeting with Mahmoud Abbas. Interesting.

One of the original shelters built in the 1950s to replace the refugee tents.

Dheisheh was one of 59 camps founded in response to the 750,000 Palestinian refugees fleeing the war in 1948. From 1952 to 1956, the UN built shelters for the refugees to replace the tents. These shelters measured 3 meters by 3 meters; our host talked about how crowded these shelters were, especially since the average family size was 6.3 members. He also told us about the long waits he and his family had to use the toilet; for every 25 families, there were two toilets (one for men, one for women).

As people managed to get their feet on the ground in the mid-70s, they began to build onto their shelters, and get indoor plumbing and electricity in their homes. A seat of resistance to Israeli occupation, Dheisheh was subject to stiff suppression. Between 1979 and 1995, residents spent an average of 4 months a year under curfew. There and throughout the Occupied Territories, schools and universities were required to get approval from the Israeli military for all books used. Titles about liberation or democracy or justice (not to mention Palestine) were forbidden in schools, and also for people to have in their homes.

Refugees in West Bank camps have been under Jordanian, Israeli, and now Palestinian regimes in the past half century. Our host said, "For us refugees, the Palestinian Authority is not home - it is another host country. Our homes are on the other side of the border."

We watched a film in the evening. A few children of Dheisheh had been taken illegally into Israel by an American filmmaker to visit the destroyed villages of their ancestors, most of them piles of stones sitting among fifty year-old pine trees. In one case, the village had been replaced by an Israeli one. The kids were deeply moved by these visits, rare chances for them to connect with their roots, their identities. The refugee story seems to have been forgotten among all of the morass of political debates and negotiations. And it also seems to be the one in which desperation and fundamentalism are most likely to find a home. But as the Director of the Center said, "We want our children to love life. Not to destroy it." Amen.

Marthame met up with friends from Zababdeh we had seen earlier in the day for a late meal at Ramzi Burger (tm).