What to expect in coverage of Bethlehem
Last year’s week-long travelogue by Aleem Maqbool for the BBC, which featured daily on BBC Breakfast, as well as receiving regular coverage on Radio 4, was an example of reporting which concentrated on the Biblical story of Jesus’ birth, touching tangentially on the political issues of the day. Travelling by donkey in an attempt to recreate the journey by Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, Maqbool’s coverage focused on the experience of travelling in another part of the world on an arcane form of transport. For example, in this Q and A article on the BBC News website, Maqbool answered questions such as “Would Joseph and Mary recognise anything along the route in 2008?”
Other coverage, however, has tended to concentrate more on the problems faced by the Palestinians in the town. In particular, the decreasing size of the Christian population in Bethlehem is often portrayed as resulting from Israeli security measures in the West Bank. Writing in The Independent last December, Donald Macintire and Kim Sengupta listed a string of difficulties experienced by a local priest, which he believes causes Christians to leave Bethlehem: ‘the occupation; the loss of agricultural land swallowed by neighbouring Jewish settlements; and the barrier encircling much of the city… and Israel's denial of permits to most of Bethlehem's citizens who want to work in Jerusalem’.
Since last year, however, there has been a notable upswing in the economic fortunes of Palestinians living in the West Bank, due in part to the easing of security measures such as checkpoints. Writing for the Guardian’s Comment is free site, former Jerusalem correspondent for the Daily Telegraph Tom Gross recently noted that it is ‘difficult to turn on a TV or radio or pick up a newspaper these days, without finding some pundit or other deploring the dismal prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace or the dreadful living conditions of the Palestinians.’ He contrasted this with the scenario in Nablus, which he found ‘bursting with energy, life and signs of prosperity, in a way [that he had] not previously seen in many years of covering the region.’ It will be interesting to observe if coverage of Bethlehem in 2009 reflects these positive changes.
On the issue of the often strained relationship between the Christian minority and Muslim majority in the area, some reporting has addressed the impact of the growth of radical Islam on the town’s Christian population. The Independent piece featured Muslim radicals being accused of ‘taking over Christian lands with the Palestinian authorities turning a blind eye’. However, as Just Journalism observed in May during Pope Benedict’s visit to the town, the issues of Christians’ freedom to practice their religion, and the overall diminishing numbers of Christians in the Middle East are often downplayed in reporting. It will again be interesting to see how journalists allocate blame for the shrinking Christian community in Bethlehem in this year’s reporting.