If you are a Christian - and even if you are not, you may well be attending a carol service this Christmas to take in the heart-warming carols of old like "Silent Night" or "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing". There is one Christmas carol, however, which is rousing less comforting sentiments among some Christians - "O little town of Bethlehem".
The carol is an unchanging favourite among Christians, yet those who have seen what the town of Christ's birth is like today would prefer not to sing it this Christmas.
Bishop Michael Doe of USPG: Anglicans in World Mission was in the Holy Land just last month on a pilgrimage which left him in no doubt that the Bethlehem of today is no longer the still idyll that inspired Phillips Brooks to write the carol after his own pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1868.
"A couple of the pilgrims said that they would not go to carol services this year and sing 'O little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie' because they've actually seen what Bethlehem is really like and have said that this year they will not engage with all that sentimental stuff," says Bishop Michael.The imposing Israeli security wall, supposedly built to prevent Islamic suicide bombers, now runs along the outskirts of Bethlehem. It is a "ghetto", Bishop Michael puts it frankly, and one faced with "real problems for employment particularly among young people".
The security wall only seems to have made matters worse in this regard. "If the only job they [young people] can get is outside of Bethlehem, then they could find themselves spending two or three hours in the morning and two or three hours in the afternoon just getting through the wall," he continues.
"It's like Berlin was in the old days. The people are under siege."
So long as Christian pilgrims are happy to stay in Jerusalem, they can usually enjoy the privilege of being "swept through the gate" of the security wall with only moderate hassle. If, however, pilgrims are bold enough to insist on staying within Bethlehem itself, an experience far closer to that encountered daily by ordinary Palestinians may ensue.
Says Bishop Michael, "We had deliberately chosen to have a Palestinian coach, and we had deliberately decided to stay in Bethlehem - the tourist board like you to stay in Jerusalem in an Israeli hotel which they subsidise, and have you just take a day trip to Bethlehem.
