To Bethlehem and back
On Dec. 19, my wife, Nina, and I embarked with eight other persons on a pilgrimage to Bethlehem, where we were to celebrate Christmas in the birthplace of Jesus. When we arrived at our hotel, we discovered that President Donald Trump’s unilateral designation of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel had frightened off all the other guests, who worried about reports of Palestinian clashes with the military. It turned out we were never in harm’s way.
Christmas in Bethlehem is a happening not to be forgotten. Churches in the region sponsor marching bands that make their way to Manger Square on Christmas Eve. We stood along the main thoroughfare and were treated to young people drumming their way to the Church of the Nativity, accompanied by lots and lots of bagpipes. Nina and I thought we were back in Edinburgh, not the Holy Land. While the crowd of pilgrims was smaller than the usual 10,000 who gather in Manger Square, the Christmas spirit was palpable. At the same time there was a mood of unease in the air.
In 2013, the acclaimed Israeli writer Ari Shavit wrote in My Promised Land that settlements and occupation had created a calamitous reality for Israel. A two-state solution would require “Israel as a Jewish-democratic state retreating with much anguish to a border dividing the land.”
If this were not to happen, then Israel becoming an apartheid state is among the possible outcomes Shavit lists. In some quarters in Israel, there is a growing conviction that when push comes to shove, Israel has a divine right to all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. I’ll illustrate the ethical and spiritual problems with this outlook in my tale of two toilets.
One day, we visited a Palestinian farmer from Al-Khader village southwest of the Bethlehem area. Several of us were part of a group that assisted him and his family in planting 400 olive trees three years ago and were curious to see how the trees were faring. They were planted to meet the requirement of the Israeli government that Palestinian farmland be cultivated or face confiscation and transfer to neighboring settlements. The trees looked splendid.
While there, the farmer showed us his new bathroom, and told us that he had been informed that his indoor toilet violated a rule against making any additions to his home and that the bathroom was slated for demolition. Separate rules govern his life and his settler neighbors, even when it comes to indoor plumbing.
The second toilet is in the Old City of Jerusalem. We visited a Palestinian family living in a maze of very small houses reached by a network of alleys and stairs. Four or five homes adjoin a courtyard that contains a communal bathroom and kitchen.
Recently, settlers were able to move into one of the houses, and then locked the bathroom so only they can use it. And a guardhouse was placed on the rooftop to keep the other residents in line. After I took photos of the guard and the locked bathroom, soldiers were alerted, and I slipped out of the area as they rushed in.
Apartheid — unequal worlds for peoples inhabiting the same land — is a dark outcome, but recent events make clear that this may be what is unfolding in Israel and the West Bank unless radical changes take place. I invite earnest and civil conversation about the current crisis in the Holy Land and what it will take for a just peace to be secured for Israelis and Palestinians in the face of the calamitous reality highlighted in this tale of two toilets.