Aleem Maqbool is retracing the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem that was made by Joseph and Mary in the New Testament story of Jesus’ birth. In order to make this journey, he must travel through Israeli occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, crossing through Israeli military checkpoints, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugee camps.

Many Americans are unaware of the fact that the present day West Bank territory of Palestine is the birthplace of Jesus, and that Christian communities have existed here for the last two thousand years, living in peace alongside their Muslim neighbors.

Yes Virginia, there are Christians in Palestine. It isn’t just Muslims suffering under a brutal and illegal occupation. Christians also are subjected to the same indecencies and inhumanities as Muslim residents. Bethlehem itself has been walled in by the Israeli “security fence” to the point that it has strangled the once booming tourist industry as well as the local economy.

Here is an excerpt from Aleem’s journal that illustrates the difficult and increasingly tragic situation in Israeli occupied Palestinian territory:

“If people think my views are extreme, then fine, I’m an extremist,” said Batya Medad. “I have no problem with that.”

Batya lives in the Jewish settlement of Shilo, in the middle of the “West Bank” (though Batya does not use that term, instead calling it by the Biblical regions it covers, Judea and Samaria). Every country around the world, except for Israel, considers settlements like Batya’s illegal, built on occupied Palestinian land. When I put that to her, she responded angrily.

“We (Jews) are the only ones with history here, we were here first and we should be here now. It’s totally immoral to say we can’t be,” she says. Batya instantly felt at home when she moved from New York to Shilo. “I don’t care what the world thinks. They didn’t care when the Nazis started against the Jews and when Jews were murdered. So why should I care?”

Batya and her husband, Yisrael, were both born and raised in New York, but moved in 1970. She says she never had a feeling of belonging when she was in the United States, but that when she moved here, she instantly felt at home. Israeli and Palestinian politicians, supported by the international community, are meant to be working towards an end to the Israeli occupation here and the creation of an independent Palestinian state. However, Batya says she thinks that the peace process will go nowhere, and that her future in Shilo is not under threat at all.

From Shilo, I continued south along a route through a valley it is believed Mary and Joseph, and indeed many prophets (including Abraham) before them, may have travelled. Even in the past few decades, this landscape has changed considerably. Like many other Jewish settlements, Shilo occupies a hilltop. On many of the hilltops were the gleaming, red-roofed homes of Jewish settlements. Down below them, the more haphazard, organic-looking, Palestinian villages. There is almost no interaction between the two sets of communities, only tension.

It was an uncomfortable walk, as I received suspicious looks from both settlers and Palestinians. The settlers I passed, one or two of them armed, seemed to assume I was Palestinian, and so, perhaps, a potential attacker. “Assalamo alaikum,” one settler said as he approached me, in what I felt was a test. I decided a “hi” might be better than the traditional Muslim reply in these circumstances. He relaxed and walked away. The Palestinians, who heard me speaking English on my phone, seemed to assume I was an immigrant settler. “Mustoutan, mustoutan” (“settler, settler”), I heard a young boy shout as he ran into his house after clocking me.

I decided to quicken my pace and walk close to the main road.

Donkey number four was waiting for me further down the trail. She was white from head to tail, except for a dark, rough patch on her right flank – I asked her owner what it was. He told me that the donkey came from the Kalandia Refugee Camp, close to Ramallah. A few years ago, he said, when there were frequent clashes between young people from the camp and Israeli soldiers, the donkey had brushed against a pile of burning tyres which set her hair alight. He said there had thankfully been no lasting damage.

The donkey seemed to be very well-behaved. It was only once I starting walking with my new companion that I realised that we did have a problem – she was extraordinarily slow. We called the owner again, who explained that she was now in her mid-twenties, so there was nothing we could do about her speed. I persevered.

By evening, I eventually reached the village of Bir Zeit where I was to stay with the Christian Kassis family (roughly half of the village is Muslim, the other half Christian). Over the traditional Palestinian dish of Maklouba (which means “upside-down” and is wonderful mix of rice, meat and yoghurt), I spoke to Mrs Kassis and the older of her two sons (the other was out with university friends). I was told that the family’s former house, and the land around it had been confiscated by the Israeli army as it was next to the checkpoint to the north of the village (which I had entered earlier). There had been no compensation, they said.

See more about the journey to Bethlehem here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7795809.stm

Video from Aleem’s journey showing Israeli Jewish settlement:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7794678.stm

Notice how the news commentator deftly steers the conversation away from the issue of settlements.