tolerance

today I visited the Nativity church in Bethlehem.

Leaving from Ramallah, I took a taxi van to the Kalandia checkpoint.
then I went through the checkpoint on another bus, just me and one other Palestinian women. We surprisingly weren't hassled and went right through.
Then I got to Jerusalem and took another bus to another checkpoint, then had to take a ride from a random stranger, then finally got to the Bethlehem checkpoint leaving Israel.

the trip took about 2 hours, but the distance couldn't have been more than 40 km.

I walked around the Wall. It is covered with graffiti.
words like 'Viva Palestina"
 "This is not a wall, This is apartheid"
"The maker of this wall is human. The breaker of this wall is human"
 "A country is not only what is does. It is also what it tolerates"
"Love wins"
"For He himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility"
when you walk around the wall, you come across a Palestinian cemetery. The Wall cuts right through it.
It cuts right through peoples' lives and histories and doesn't make sense.
It cuts right through decency.


after that walk, I went to the church of the Nativity. Sort of a surreal experience for one who has grown up with very Western ideas and images of Jesus' birthplace and the whole Bethlehem narrative.
I had images of a very rustic old farm-like manger scene, maybe some goats walking around, and perhaps a holy plaque or something.
but no.

Its really quite the opposite of what I imagined.
Its a huge almost empty cathedral with loads of Polish and Italian tourists taking pictures of a small hole in a marble inlay. lots of chandeliers.
there are no goats.
 
and next door is a beautiful renovated Italian chapel.

But what I was struck with in general, with all of this was that The holy site for Christians, the place where their Saviour was supposedly born, is right in the heart of what many Westerners, and all too many Western media outlets, deem terrorist territory. How calm and respectful and peaceful the whole scene was. and it was in an area that normally gets portrayed as suicide-bomber riddled mayhem.

Who is telling the official story?
I think most people reading this know who.
But why are so many others silent?

I was just amazed when I realized that this would definitely not be the case in many other parts of the world.
But here is was, and I wanted to tell you about it.