evanoff
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No room at the inn, the shop or café in stranded Bethlehem
From Ian MacKinnon in Bethlehem
SHAME is writ large on Sameh Yateem’s face. The Palestinian Christian from a wealthy family that ran one of Bethlehem’s most popular restaurants is reduced to filling grocery bags at a supermarket checkout.
A few days before Christmas, Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, has an air of despair as Christian families flee and the economy is strangled.
Mr Yateem’s father pulled the shutters down on the failing Abu Sameh restaurant seven months ago and flew to America in search of work, unable even to find a cut-price buyer for the business. Mr Yateem’s mother followed four months ago and his sister and brother will be off shortly. Only the lack of a visa prevents him from doing the same.
“I used to be a restaurant owner with my Dad,” Mr Yateem, 23, said. “Now I work in a supermarket lugging people’s groceries. It’s very lowly work and the pay is terrible. It’s only pocket money but there’s nothing else.”
The Yateem family’s plight is all too common in Bethlehem where the number of Christians, once equal to Muslims, has fallen by a tenth since the start of the Palestinian uprising four years ago. But the pace of migration has jumped dramatically in the past year as the West Bank town has found itself increasingly cut off by Israel’s separation barrier.
Few Christmas decorations adorn the streets and many shops that once bustled with Christian pilgrims remain firmly shuttered. Tourism has collapsed and the economy is in ruins because of the town’s growing isolation.
Continue story at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1411661,00.html
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Lisa Evanoff
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Christian Activism News
ChristianActivism-subscribe@topica.com
Posts: 63 | Registered: Dec 2004
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