IN STEREO

Here in Bethlehem, the municipalities also take time to prepare. You see all of Bethlehem is lit up with lights, many lights. That starts around the 1st of November, full lights for all the streets of Bethlehem. It takes time. The three [tree] lightings – Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, Beit Jala – they’re very nice. OK, Bethlehem is more special, because this was the manger for Jesus Christ. The Bethlehem lighting is special from the political side also: the world journalists, the Christmas tree in front of the Nativity Church. Also, politically we have many things [to deal with] like the protocol from the Israeli side and the Palestinian side – how to welcome the Patriarch from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Because of the occupation, we have protocol from… I think hundreds of years ago.

I mean, this is not from [the current] occupation – this is from 500 or 600 years ago, from the Turkish rule here. A whole lot of things in the region – Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq – were set up by the Turkish. And when the British came here for twenty years and then the Israeli occupation, they took the same protocol for how the Patriarch comes from Jerusalem to Bethlehem for Christmas Day. It’s very hard, because of the separation wall, and who to go to Jerusalem for welcoming, who will stay here for welcoming. It makes it a saga of how to prepare this protocol. So this is how the Bethlehem area as a whole prepares for Christmas Day. Scouts, municipalities, and the political side. – Fadi