The Christmas carol celebrates ‘Bethlehem Down’ as a place of peace, a beautiful, Anglicised peace, in a place where the world seems to have become kind. But in today’s West Bank, peace is absent, and kindness struggles to survive. The ancient,hilly city of Bethlehem, once a sister to the nearby Jerusalem, is now cut off by the 8-metre-high separation wall, which encloses it on three sides. Above it, where its forests once stood, loom the concrete buildings of the illegal Israeli settlements, Gilo and Har Homa. Land seizures, the wilful destruction of homes, of vineyards and of olive groves, travel restrictions, a collapsed economy and military violence are facts of life in Bethlehem- and have been now for over 60 years.
A place without hope? In August this year, a UN spokesperson reiterated, yet again, a warning against this permanent state of ‘conflict and hopelessness’. But while the international community continues to talk of the problem and yet fails to act, it is left to local people to try to find solutions to this hopelessness. Hampstead Parish Church has the great good fortune to be associated with one such initiative.
The Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation (BASR) is a Christian foundation, which began in 1960 as a Cheshire Home, and has since developed into a centre of excellence in the Middle East for the treatment of physical and psychological trauma. Its innovative, community-based care is available to all, irrespective of gender, age, religion or social class.
The recent targeting of Gaza created a state of emergency in the Bethlehem hospitals. It was agreed that BASR would receive ‘the most complicated injuries among children and adults’ – those in need of reconstructive and neurosurgery. They would include emergency referrals from Gaza as well as from the West Bank. Not only surgery but also physical and psycho-social rehabilitation would be needed for the treatment of ‘a growing number of daily injuries’ from both ‘live and rubber bullets on the upper part of the body.’
Groups and individuals from Hampstead Parish Church have visited BASR in recent years. We support their work through our planned Outreach and Giving scheme. Their need, however is limitless. Donations of money or goods are always needed, and the director Edmund Shehadeh says he is very happy to be contacted for advice about what to donate and how to do so. Email him on [email protected] or visit BASR`s website at www.basr.org. Better still, go to Bethlehem and see the inspirational work of fellow Christians in what Edmund describes as `one of the most troubled areas in the world`.
But we can support BASR with more than money or goods. We need also to express our concerns – if we have them – to the politicians and decision-makers. The injustices of the region can only be addressed by what Edmund describes as ‘robust international action’.
In the carol, we sing ‘here he has peace, and a short while for dreaming’. The city of his birth deserves that peace.
Another Bethlehem
Bill Risebero