Since then, I have pictured Bethlehem to be a quaint town that is always merry for Christmas. A town where every family recreates the manger scene for Christmas, lights up the home and joins the Christmas procession to the Church of the Nativity on the eve of Christmas. This year I visited Bethlehem to witness the merriment I had always imagined Christmas to be.

 
A bus dropped me off around two kilometers from the Church of the Nativity. Ridding myself of persistent cabbies, I joined Christmas revelers donning Santa hats who were walking down to the church. I had pictured a sea of red hatted people making merry on the streets. Here, I was mistaken. I saw three groups of 4-5 people each. The number of Palestinian cops manning the street outnumbered the tourists/pilgrims. The street was decorated for Christmas but it looked like the town was downplaying the festival. Ornamentation was skeletal and posters and banners at frequent intervals called for a peaceful Christmas.

 
The West Bank has been going through a phase of unrest since September and Bethlehem has been no exception. In the middle of the high season here in Bethlehem hotels are not even half full. Christmas fireworks were cancelled and only a few streets have been decorated for the festival. Pilgrims and tourists like me are scared to travel to the West Bank. I too was undecided about visiting Bethlehem until I woke up last morning and was on the bus to Jerusalem. Though my trip was without incident, unrest continued in towns and cities neighbouring Bethlehem. One of the cabbies in his appeal to me said, “This is Palestine, we don’t have business like in Israel, come with me. This is the season for my business.” He was right. It is only tourists like me who come on our own and not with pre-booked tours in big buses who are his potential customers.

While a big tree sparkled at the centre of the square, at the back of the square an uprooted olive tree joined the festivities albeit on a somber note. “This tree we decorate today has come all the way from Beit Jala after it has been uprooted by the occupation forces a few months ago, from its land in Beir Auneh to build the apartheid wall and expropriate Palestinian land for the interest of illegal settlements,” read the note about the tree. The tree was decorated with barbed wire, tear gas canisters were nailed into it. This alternative resistance Christmas tree is set up by a group that identifies itself with the Committee of Popular Resistance in Palestine. The group began the tradition three years ago.

 
If you have been to the West Bank you will know that conversations here can easily turn political. Everyone wants to tell you their story because they know you must be coming from Israel, the country that is eating into their land everyday and smothering their lives. The cabbie attributes traffic jams to the IDF check posts. “Israeli,” he says as we slow down near a check post. That is all he needs to communicate to me and the rest is left unsaid. As we drive past Herodian, I notice the star of David fluttering above the entrance gate. “Israeli,” the cabbie points to the flag. Indeed, it is the flag of Israel flying high in Palestine. Somehow an archaeological site inside the Palestinian Territories is part of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. The shop keeper in a souvenir store while explaining the significance of a particular image makes sure he tells me that the Church where the particular image is from was torched by Israeli vandals in June 2015.

 
Before I knew anything about Israel and Palestine, I associated just one thing to Bethlehem – the birth of Jesus. Then I learnt about the the conflict and there more I learnt the more curious I got. Now Bethlehem for me is a city with immense history but more importantly it is like any other West Bank city surviving the Occupation in hope for sustained peace.