Christmas Eve here was the most unsilent of nights Sunday as joyful and triumphant Palestinians celebrated their first Christmas under self-rule.
Nothing was calm. All was bright. And few, if any, slept in heavenly peace. From Manger Square to the biblical Field of the Shepherds, Christians and Muslims marked the birth of Jesus Christ with prayers, hymns, services and carols amid a nationalistic extravaganza of fireworks, marching bands, singing and dancing.
After 28 years of Israeli occupation, engendering many a somber Christmas in this Arab city, Sunday’s festivities had Bethlehem’s dark streets shining with light from street-lamp angels and laser shows. There were tinsel-draped Christmas trees on Manger Square and a “Merry Christmas” neon sign adorning City Hall in blinking orange and green. Atop the building was a flashing red star.
The politics of liberation vied with Christmas celebrations Sunday as the Palestinian Authority labored to play host to the first Christian holiday held under its auspices after Israeli troops pulled out Thursday night. Celebrations have been held around the clock since then, punctuated by the sounds of bagpipes and church bells.
Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, who called Jesus a Palestinian this weekend, attended the traditional midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity, built on the site Christians believe was the birthplace of Jesus.
On Sunday, the Greek Orthodox patriarch of the holy land, Deodorus I, gave custody of the Christian churches in Jerusalem to Arafat, the Muslim head of the autonomous Palestinian Authority.
This gives Arafat symbolic control over holy sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and strengthens his claim to predominantly Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
But in Bethlehem, a city of 45,000 and the sixth town in the occupied West Bank to be turned over to Palestinian self-rule under a peace plan with Israel, the nationalistic euphoria still did not obscure the principal theme of the day.
The faithful came for services of at least eight Christian denominations–Presbyterian, Lutheran, Maronite, Anglican, Syrian, Roman Catholic, Baptist and Latin– held throughout the day in languages ranging from English and German to Arabic and Aramaic.
The Latin pontifical high mass in the Church of St. Catherine, connected to the Nativity Church, was televised to a worldwide audience and broadcast closed-circuit to a 30-foot-by-45-foot TV screen outside the church on Manger Square.
The square was wall-to-wall people as thousands gathered in the hours leading up to the mass, and a rock concert atmosphere prevailed as sporadic fireworks lit the sky. The giant TV screen played advertisements in Arabic and English for cars and other products promoted with pitches like “Buy one, get one free.”
But inside the darkened Byzantine 6th Century church, small groups of foreign tourists managed to find the Christmas message still commemorated, as pilgrims have for centuries.
In the Grotto of the Nativity, once a cave beneath the church and now a tourist attraction, pilgrims streamed through all day to pray, sing hymns, touch the 14-point star marking Jesus’ birthplace and photograph the alcove where the manger is believed to have been.
“O, come let us adore hIm,” sang a group of 22 Christians from various parts of England packed into the grotto to hear their director read from the Bible and direct them in caroling.
“I love Israel. I love the people. I don’t honestly see how giving Palestinians these lands is going to fulfill Scripture,” remarked the group leader, Albert Mosedale, 68, of London, lapsing into a common Christian anxiety about Arab self-rule as he emerged from the grotto.
Bethlehem is now 60 percent Muslim and 40 percent Christian, and members of the dwindling Christian Arab population have expressed fears that they may face discrimination under the rule of a predominantly Muslim Palestinian Authority.
“I hope it will bring a measure of peace,” Mosedale added. “Jesus came to bring peace, not just between people, but between us and God. The world is in such a mess; we are gathering at a time when Jesus needs to come again.”
In the apse of the church, three Christian tourists from New Zealand also dwelled as much on Christmas as on the political transfer of power from Israeli to Arab control.
“The handover to the Palestinians–that’s the twist this year,” remarked Sandra Fischer, 27, of Dannevirke, New Zealand. “You wonder if Yasser Arafat is going to show up in a Santa Claus suit.
“Tonight is going to be special,” she added. “I feel more Christmasy here in the holy land. It’s not just Christians. It’s all the different religions and seeing all the faith here–Jews, Muslims and Christians. It’ very strong.”
Her husband, Brent Burson, 28, was less enthusiastic about the Palestinian-hosted celebrations, complaining, “There’s a heavy Arab presence out in Manger Square, and that’s not the kind of thing I’m used to. It doesn’t feel like Christmas to me.”
“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” remarked one British tourist who was being squashed in a crowd bottlenecked at the small door at the church’s entrance, where Palestinian Authority police were gamely trying to control the jostling crowds.
Down the hill from Bethlehem, on a rocky hillside in the Christian Arab village of Beit Sahour, where sheep graze the bare hills of the West Bank, one of the many services held Sunday was at Shepherds’ Field. This is one of the traditional sites commemorated in the Gospel of Luke as the place where “shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night” when Jesus was born.
Some 200 Christians gathered for the service, complete with readings from Luke and Christmas carols, as the Anglican bishop in the holy land, Samir Kafity, mixed politics and religion in his sermon.
“We sing as Palestinians for the first time on all our own soil,” he told the gathering around a hillside cave like the one where scholars think Jesus may have been born.
“But we also sing for Jerusalem. We celebrate in Bethlehem, but the ceremony is incomplete and will only be complete when we can all sing in the mother city of Jerusalem,” he added.
Palestinians hope to establish their own state, with its capital in East Jerusalem, but Israelis claim Jerusalem as their eternal, undivided capital.