This appears to have been done by the city, which has Muslim rulers, not by the Church, although the Church no doubt agrees wholeheartedly and would have done the same thing if the municipality hadn’t. Christian Arabs generally identify fully with the Muslim majority and share their perspectives. This is a lingering legacy of centuries of dhimmitude.
“Jesus’ birthplace removes all Christmas decorations in honor of Hamas ‘martyrs,’” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, November 16, 2023:
The West Bank city of Bethlehem, famous for being the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, has declared that they will be removing all decorations celebrating the annual holiday of Christmas.
“Bethlehem Municipality crews announced the dismantling of Christmas decorations installed several years ago in the city’s neighborhoods and removing all festive appearances in honor of the martyrs and in solidarity with our people in Gaza,” the municipality wrote on Facebook.
A spokesperson for the city also told the Telegraph “The reason is the general situation in Palestine; people are not really into any celebration, they are sad, angry, and upset; our people in Gaza are being massacred and killed in cold blood.”…
________________________________________________________
No Christmas Celebrations In Bethlehem This Year
SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/no-christmas-celebrations-in-bethlehem-this-year;
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Bethlehem, believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Christ, is a city that lives in large part on the revenues from Christian tourists, especially those who come during the Christmas season. They stay in local hotels, eat in Bethlehem’s restaurants, and buy olive-wood crucifixes and tiny statues of Jesus and Mary. More than a third of the annual revenues of the city’s shopkeepers come during the weeks preceding Christ’s nativity and from Christmas to Epiphany. Now the city fathers have decided to destroy that essential part of their economy, by decreeing that there will be no Christmas lights or decorations this year, out of solidarity with the fanatical Muslim terrorists now under relentless attacks by the IDF in Gaza. Any Christian who dared to object to this policy of not permitting the Christmas decorations would face the wrath of local sympathizers of Hamas; the Christians are keeping mum. .
All of the people in Bethlehem will now suffer economically because the Muslim-dominated Municipality has decided on an act — removing all Christmas decorations and lights — that will certainly discourage Christian tourism. Christians were 86% of the Bethlehem population in 1950, but there has since been a steady pressure on local Christians from their Muslim neighbors, that has led many Christians to leave, Only 18% of Bethlehem’s current population is Christian, and every year that number decreases further. This quiet but relentless war by the city’s Muslims against its Christians — of which the prohibiting of Christmas lights and other decorations is just the latest installment — needs to receive much more attention from the world’s media, as a way to possibly persuade the officials of the Bethlehem Municipality to reverse that decision.
Robert Spencer wrote about this here, and more on this story can be found here: “Jesus’ birthplace removes all Christmas decorations in honor of Hamas ‘martyrs,’” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, November 16, 2023:
The West Bank city of Bethlehem, famous for being the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, has declared that they will be removing all decorations celebrating the annual holiday of Christmas.
Bethlehem Municipality crews announced the dismantling of Christmas decorations installed several years ago in the city’s neighborhoods and removing all festive appearances in honor of the martyrs and in solidarity with our people in Gaza,” the municipality wrote on Facebook.
A spokesperson for the city also told the Telegraph “The reason is the general situation in Palestine; people are not really into any celebration, they are sad, angry, and upset; our people in Gaza are being massacred and killed in cold blood.”
The IFD campaign against Hamas murderers in Gaza is simply the excuse being used by the Bethlehem Municipality to pull down the Christmas decorations that were put up several years ago, and that it has long wanted to get rid of, but needed an excuse: the bloodshed in Gaza provided the perfect one. The decorations represent a spirit of celebration and even gaiety; this is not a time for anyone to expect the “sad, angry, and upset” Palestinians in Bethlehem, to want to take part in Christmas celebrations. So this year the Christmas decorations and lights will no longer be in evidence in Bethlehem during such a sad period of brutal oppression by the IDF. As always, blame the Jews.
How many of the shopkeepers, and hotel and restaurant owners, in Bethlehem, who depend for so much of their annual revenues on the influx of tourists in the weeks just before and just after Christmas, will now find those revenues cut because, by turning off the Christmas lights, and pulling down the decorations, the city will no longer invitingly sparkle, but be plunged instead, into darkness on its streets, all as a sign of solidarity with Hamas combatants that the Muslim-run municipality has forced on them? What Christian shopkeeper would dare to protest, by claiming that the Bethlehem Municipality, by taking such measures, is simply damaging the well-being of residents by making their city less inviting to the traditional Christmastide tourists? But why should Hamas sympathizers in Bethlehem care what the Christians think? Like the Jews, the Christian Infidels are “the most vile of created beings.” As far as the fanatical Muslim supporters of Hamas are concerned, the Palestinian Christians are both a nuisance and a foreign body and if they are made to suffer an economic loss in Bethlehem as the result of turning off the Christmas lights and pulling down the Christmas decorations, then so be it.
