{"id":175869,"date":"2020-12-28T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=175869"},"modified":"2020-12-26T08:00:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T08:00:43","slug":"christmas-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/12\/christmas-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

25 Dec 2020 – <\/em>Christmas Eve was always special. Despite the difficulties we tried to enjoy the night of 24 December 2020 at the nativity square. I spoke live with a US audience (some of my remarks are below). To reflect on this Christmas is to expand on my previous reflections on Christmas in these (un?)holy lands: http:\/\/qumsiyeh.org\/christmasunderoccupation\/<\/a> &
\nhttp:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/christmas-bethlehem<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But then we are not just contending with colonial occupation but also a pandemic, see this Poem by Samia Khoury<\/p>\n

The Little Town of Bethlehem is not celebrating
\nIt was the first to be hit by a virus so invading
\nTourists carried it during a flourishing season
\nCausing a complete lockdown of all the region<\/em><\/p>\n

Easter has gone and now its Christmas time
\nIt\u2019s getting worse and the virus is in its prime
\nThe Christmas tree stands lonely in the square
\nNo choirs or pilgrims, a scene so sad and rare<\/p>\n

With the news of the vaccine, hope is rising
\nHolding onto hope for us \u00a0is not surprising
\nHope has been the secret of our surviving
\nDespite the occupation ever so brutalizing<\/p>\n

As we face this monster of a pandemic altogether
\nThe least we can do is to \u00a0be kind to each other
\nMay \u00a0the spirit of Christmas continue to prevail
\nAnd may \u00a0justice, \u00a0peace and liberation tip the scale<\/p>\n

2020 has been an amazing tumultuous year for us in Bethlehem and the rest of Palestine. Palestine is the bottleneck from which people migrated out of Africa to the rest of the world. It is the western part of the Fertile Crescent where humans first domesticated plants and animals. Hence we are in the cradle of civilization. Jericho just 40 miles away from here is the oldest continuously inhabited town on earth. It is the cradle of languages. Our Canaanitic\u00a0ancestors invented the alphabet that evolved right here in the Eastern Mediterranean Region to become the Arabic alphabet and the Latin alphabet that\u00a0you use. The first letter is the aleph, alpha and we are told that God is all encompassing from the first the alpha to the last the omega. Our region is also the cradle of religions. Less than half a mile away\u00a0down the hill is my village of Beit Sahour, where the shepherds\u00a0heard the angels sing telling them of the birth of Jesus, the prince of peace.<\/p>\n

The Palestinian Jesus (yes he was born in a country then called Palestine and has been called Palestine for four millennia) went on to challenge the occupation of his time and the hypocrisy of the local and foreign \u201cleaders\u201d. We thus recognize Him as the first Palestinian martyr. This happened right here. Just five miles away is the church of the Holy Sepulcher and the third holiest site in Islam: the Haram Alsharif with the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the rock. Palestine has holy site for Jews, Samaritans, Baha’i’s and others. We love this diversity. Despite attempts to destroy this diversity and erase our history to bolster a racist chauvinistic state, we the native endogenous people of this land Christians and Muslims and others stay united in our resolve to get to justice, freedom and peace. For that we need support from all people of conscience. This is especially crucial now that corrupt leaders make effort to erase us. Education plays a key part. That is why I came back from the US in 2008 and started the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability<\/a> at Bethlehem University. A vast majority of the Palestinian people is young and they are the future and we are grateful to you as donors of UHLF for helping our students.<\/p>\n

From this holy place where the prince of peace gave humanity hope, let us remember\u00a0his message of love and kindness. Let us follow in his footsteps. Despite all the oppression of the Israeli occupation and the pandemic and the economy, this place, Bethlehem as you see gives us the courage to work and hope for a better future. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you. May the coming year 2021 bring us closer to freedom, justice, and peace.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East.<\/em> Qumsiyeh is a member of the<\/em> TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, author of <\/em>Sharing the Land of Canaan and <\/em>Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem.<\/em> http:\/\/palestinenature.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 popular-resistance.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the<\/em><\/strong> BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS <\/em><\/strong>campaign<\/em><\/strong> <\/span>to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Dec 2020 – Despite the difficulties we tried to enjoy the night of 24 December 2020 at the nativity square. We are not just contending with colonial occupation but also a pandemic. The Palestinian Jesus (yes he was born in a country then called Palestine and has been called Palestine for four millennia) went on to challenge the occupation of his time and the hypocrisy of the local and foreign \u201cleaders\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":67527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[2272,2273,532,405,1829,1868,2271,88,427,85,1864],"class_list":["post-175869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-bethlehem","tag-christmas","tag-colonialism","tag-colonization","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-holy-land","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-palestine-israel","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}