Post by Murph on Dec 17, 2007 10:59:51 GMT -6
How still we see thee lie.
Here it is almost 2000 years later. But it is anything but still and quiet.
This is from National Geographic. Hope the links all work.
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Bethlehem 2007 AD
The birthplace of Jesus is today one of the most contentious places on Earth. Israelis fear Bethlehem's radicalized residents, who seethe at the concrete wall that surrounds them.
This is not how Mary and Joseph came into Bethlehem, but this is how you enter now. You wait at the wall. It's a daunting concrete barricade, three stories high, thorned with razor wire. Standing beside it, you feel as if you're at the base of a dam. Israeli soldiers armed with assault rifles examine your papers. They search your vehicle. No Israeli civilian, by military order, is allowed in. And few Bethlehem residents are permitted out—the reason the wall exists here, according to the Israeli government, is to keep terrorists away from Jerusalem.
Bethlehem and Jerusalem are only six miles apart (ten kilometers), though in the compressed and fractious geography of the region, this places them in different realms. It can take a month for a postcard to go from one city to the other. Bethlehem is in the West Bank, on land taken by Israel during the Six Day War of 1967. It's a Palestinian city; the majority of its 35,000 residents are Muslim. In 1900, more than 90 percent of the city was Christian. Today Bethlehem is only about one-third Christian, and this proportion is steadily shrinking as Christians leave for Europe or the Americas. At least a dozen suicide bombers have come from the city and surrounding district. The truth is that Bethlehem, the "little town" venerated during Christmas, is one of the most contentious places on Earth.
ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/bethlehem/finkel-text.html