IN STEREO

Bethlehem, particularly in the old city, I feel comfortable in this place. The buildings and the streets and their pavements give a feeling of comfort. Check the difference between this building and the new buildings that are built here by Israel. The life of this stone is longer than the oldest one in the Israeli occupation. The lights, the yellow lights, I like them. I like it in the night, with the sellers and with friends, when everyone is there with their traditional foods like falafel and hummus, and you go there and take your piece. [Visitors] will walk in Bethlehem and see the peaceful city, and see the people, see the Palestinians – how they work. If you have the mind, you can see [a] man who is working to feed his family. He works for his family, he works for his country, he works to get money to help his children to grow up and go to a good university. Bethlehem is a holy place for Christianity, because of the Church of the Nativity.

Because Jesus was born there, a lot of tourists come to these lands for pilgrimage, and to pray. This gives Christian people a place. Israel, if they can capture it, will make the tourists come to the Israeli airport and go directly. But they haven’t been able to capture it, from the beginning. There was a resistance here by the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO came to be a political party; it's called Fatah. They didn't look after mosques, look after churches, look after land. They became coordinators. In old times there were good people who resisted against the occupation. They all have been killed [or] they have been sent to exile. The holy places and the places that visitors come from outside the country to see, [these] are our culture. If we don't take care of them, we will lose our culture. If you don't have a history or a past, you don't have a future. – Nizar