Beit Sahour
Encyclopedia
Beit Sahour (lit. Place of the Night Watch) is a Palestinian
town east of Bethlehem
under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority
. The population of 12,367, is Christian
and Muslim
.
There are two enclosures in the eastern part of Beit Sahour which are claimed by different Christian denominations to be the actual 'Shepherds Field': one belonging to the Greek Orthodox
Church and the other, the Catholic
site, to the Franciscan
Custody of the Holy Land.
Beit Sahour is reputed to be close to the place where, according to the New Testament
, an angel
announced the birth of Jesus
to the shepherds. According to tradition, Helena
built a convent at the site, which is today known as the shepherd's cave.
The name Beit Sahur belongs to two places in the vicinity: Beit Sahur al-Atiqah ("ancient Beit Sahur") and Beit Sahur an-Nasara ("Beit Sahur of the Christians"). 16th century Arab
geographer Mujir al-Din mentions the former in a biography of a Muslim scholar Sha'ban bin Salim bin Sha'ban who died in the town in 1483 at the age of 105. The former was noted by French geographer Guerin as being 40 minutes away from Jerusalem, a short distance south of the Qidron Valley.
Beit Sahur al-Atiqah surrounded the tomb of Sheikh Ahmad al-Sahuri, a local saint to whom the local Arab tribe of al-Sawahirah attribute their name. The Sawahirah originate from the Hejaz
and entered Palestine through al-Karak. The Survey of Western Palestine describes the town as "Ruins of a village with wells and a mukam." The modern Beit Sahur was described by the same survey as "sort of a suburb of Bethlehem, situated on the same ridge, with the broad plateau east of it known as the 'shepherd's plain'".
In 1596, Beit Sahour appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa
of Quds. It had a population of 6 Muslim households and 2 bachelors. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives.
also play a significant role. The town had a prominent role in the Palestinian national "Bethlehem 2000" project, as extensive renovations of tourist sites, hotels and businesses, and historic sites were carried out prior to the millennium celebrations. Social and economic development were disrupted by the Al-Aqsa Intifada
.
Beit Sahour is a center of Palestinian political activism. The town played a key role in the First
and Second Intifadas, with local activists pioneering nonviolent resistance
techniques. During the First intifada and the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples
(PCR) based in Beit Sahour encouraged non-violent activism under the aegis of the International Solidarity Movement
. George Rishmawi is director of PCR. During the First Intifada, the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples issued an invitation to Israelis of goodwill to come and spend a weekend (Shabbat) in Palestinian homes using the slogan “Break Bread, Not Bones”. The Alternative information centre
is also partly based in the town. Elias Rishmawi, a member of the Beit Sahour council is co-founder of the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG), a non-governmental organisation specializing in tours of Israel and the Palestinian Territories
, where the olive harvest is used as a backdrop for showing the effects of the Israeli occupation and land confiscation on the Palestinian population.
, UNLU) and Ghassan Andoni
, urged people to stop paying taxes to Israel, which inherited and modified the previous Jordanian
tax-collection regime in the West Bank
.Baxendale, Sidney J. “Taxation of Income in Israel and the West Bank: A Comparative Study” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Spring, 1989), pp. 134-141 "it retained the Jordanian tax law" “No taxation without representation,” said a statement from the organizers. “The military authorities do not represent us, and we did not invite them to come to our land. Must we pay for the bullets that kill our children or for the expenses of the occupying army?” The people of Beit Sahour responded to this call with an organized citywide tax strike
that included refusal to pay and file tax returns.
Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin
responded: “We will teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel.” The Israeli military authorities placed the town under curfew for 42 days, blocked food shipments into the town, cut telephone lines to the town, tried to bar reporters from the town, imprisoned forty residents (among them Fuad Kokaley and Rifat Odeh Kassis) and seized in house-to-house raids millions of dollars in money and property belonging to 350 families. The Israeli military stopped the consuls-general of Belgium, Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Sweden when they attempted to go to Beit Sahour and investigate the conditions there during the tax strike.
Israel’s military occupation had the authority to create and enforce taxes beyond the baseline Jordanian code enacted in 1963 in areas formerly administered by that country, including Beit Sahour. During the Intifada, they used that authority to impose taxes on Palestinians as collective punishment measures to discourage the Intifada, for instance “the glass tax (for broken windows), the stones tax (for damage done by stones), the missile tax (for Gulf War damage), and a general intifada tax, among others.”
The United Nations Security Council
considered a resolution demanding that Israel return the property it confiscated during the Beit Sahour tax resistance. The United States vetoed the resolution, which was supported by the other eleven council members.
, two lists gained seats in the municipal council. 8 seats went to 'United Beit Sahour' and 5 to 'Sons of Beit Sahour'. The most popular vote was for Hani Naji Atallah Abdel Masieh of United Beit Sahour with 2,690 votes, followed by Elen Michael Saliba Qsais of Sons of Bethlehem with 2,280 votes.
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
town east of Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority
Palestinian National Authority
The Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
. The population of 12,367, is Christian
Palestinian Christian
Palestinian Christians are Arabic-speaking Christians descended from the people of the geographical area of Palestine. Within Palestine, there are churches and believers from many Christian denominations, including Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholic , Protestant, and others...
and Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
.
There are two enclosures in the eastern part of Beit Sahour which are claimed by different Christian denominations to be the actual 'Shepherds Field': one belonging to the Greek Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
Church and the other, the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
site, to the Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
Custody of the Holy Land.
History
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, an angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
announced the birth of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
to the shepherds. According to tradition, Helena
Helena
-First name:*Helena , Roman mother of Emperor Constantine*Helena, wife of Julian , Roman daughter of Emperor Constantine*Helena...
built a convent at the site, which is today known as the shepherd's cave.
The name Beit Sahur belongs to two places in the vicinity: Beit Sahur al-Atiqah ("ancient Beit Sahur") and Beit Sahur an-Nasara ("Beit Sahur of the Christians"). 16th century Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
geographer Mujir al-Din mentions the former in a biography of a Muslim scholar Sha'ban bin Salim bin Sha'ban who died in the town in 1483 at the age of 105. The former was noted by French geographer Guerin as being 40 minutes away from Jerusalem, a short distance south of the Qidron Valley.
Beit Sahur al-Atiqah surrounded the tomb of Sheikh Ahmad al-Sahuri, a local saint to whom the local Arab tribe of al-Sawahirah attribute their name. The Sawahirah originate from the Hejaz
Hejaz
al-Hejaz, also Hijaz is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. Defined primarily by its western border on the Red Sea, it extends from Haql on the Gulf of Aqaba to Jizan. Its main city is Jeddah, but it is probably better known for the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina...
and entered Palestine through al-Karak. The Survey of Western Palestine describes the town as "Ruins of a village with wells and a mukam." The modern Beit Sahur was described by the same survey as "sort of a suburb of Bethlehem, situated on the same ridge, with the broad plateau east of it known as the 'shepherd's plain'".
In 1596, Beit Sahour appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa
Liwa (arabic)
Liwa or Liwa is an Arabic term meaning district, banner, or flag, a type of administrative division. It was interchangeable with the Turkish term "Sanjak" in the time of the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of the empire, the term was used in the Arab countries formerly under Ottoman rule...
of Quds. It had a population of 6 Muslim households and 2 bachelors. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives.
Economy
The town's economy is largely based on tourism and related industries, such as the manufacture of olive-wood carvings. Agriculture and work in IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
also play a significant role. The town had a prominent role in the Palestinian national "Bethlehem 2000" project, as extensive renovations of tourist sites, hotels and businesses, and historic sites were carried out prior to the millennium celebrations. Social and economic development were disrupted by the Al-Aqsa Intifada
Al-Aqsa Intifada
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Oslo War, was the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000...
.
Political activism
First Intifada
The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....
and Second Intifadas, with local activists pioneering nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
techniques. During the First intifada and the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples is a non-profit, non-affiliate, non-religious organization. The PCR is based in Beit Sahour under the aegis of the International Solidarity Movement. George Rishmawi is director of PCR...
(PCR) based in Beit Sahour encouraged non-violent activism under the aegis of the International Solidarity Movement
International Solidarity Movement
The International Solidarity Movement is an organization focused on assisting the Palestinian cause in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using nonviolent protests. It was founded in 2001 by Ghassan Andoni, a Palestinian activist; Neta Golan, an Israeli activist; Huwaida Arraf, a...
. George Rishmawi is director of PCR. During the First Intifada, the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples issued an invitation to Israelis of goodwill to come and spend a weekend (Shabbat) in Palestinian homes using the slogan “Break Bread, Not Bones”. The Alternative information centre
Alternative information centre
The alternative information centres were a feature of the anarcho-pacifist attempt at social engineering from the bottom up which took place from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s and which was referred to as the alternative society...
is also partly based in the town. Elias Rishmawi, a member of the Beit Sahour council is co-founder of the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG), a non-governmental organisation specializing in tours of Israel and the Palestinian Territories
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
, where the olive harvest is used as a backdrop for showing the effects of the Israeli occupation and land confiscation on the Palestinian population.
Tax resistance
In 1989, during the First Intifada, the Palestinian resistance (Unified National Leadership of the UprisingUnified National Leadership of the Uprising
The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising was a coalition of the Local Palestinian leadership during the First Intifada and played an important role in mobilizing grassroots support for the uprising. In 1987 The Intifada caught the Palestine Liberation Organisation by surprise, the...
, UNLU) and Ghassan Andoni
Ghassan Andoni
Ghassan Andoni is a native of Beit Sahour in the Bethlehem area. He is a professor of physics at Bir Zeit University, and a Palestinian Christian leader who advocates nonviolent resistance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
, urged people to stop paying taxes to Israel, which inherited and modified the previous Jordanian
Rule of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan
The West Bank and East Jerusalem were occupied by Jordan for a period of nearly two decades starting from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In 1950, the British extended formal recognition to the union between the Hashemite Kingdom and of that part of Palestine under Jordanian occupation and control -...
tax-collection regime in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
.Baxendale, Sidney J. “Taxation of Income in Israel and the West Bank: A Comparative Study” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Spring, 1989), pp. 134-141 "it retained the Jordanian tax law" “No taxation without representation,” said a statement from the organizers. “The military authorities do not represent us, and we did not invite them to come to our land. Must we pay for the bullets that kill our children or for the expenses of the occupying army?” The people of Beit Sahour responded to this call with an organized citywide tax strike
Tax resistance
Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax or to government policy.Tax resistance is a form of civil disobedience and direct action...
that included refusal to pay and file tax returns.
Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....
responded: “We will teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel.” The Israeli military authorities placed the town under curfew for 42 days, blocked food shipments into the town, cut telephone lines to the town, tried to bar reporters from the town, imprisoned forty residents (among them Fuad Kokaley and Rifat Odeh Kassis) and seized in house-to-house raids millions of dollars in money and property belonging to 350 families. The Israeli military stopped the consuls-general of Belgium, Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Sweden when they attempted to go to Beit Sahour and investigate the conditions there during the tax strike.
Israel’s military occupation had the authority to create and enforce taxes beyond the baseline Jordanian code enacted in 1963 in areas formerly administered by that country, including Beit Sahour. During the Intifada, they used that authority to impose taxes on Palestinians as collective punishment measures to discourage the Intifada, for instance “the glass tax (for broken windows), the stones tax (for damage done by stones), the missile tax (for Gulf War damage), and a general intifada tax, among others.”
The United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
considered a resolution demanding that Israel return the property it confiscated during the Beit Sahour tax resistance. The United States vetoed the resolution, which was supported by the other eleven council members.
Development projects
‘Ush Ghurab, a hill occupied by a military base until 2006, is now the site of a development project. A restaurant, a climbing tower, a football field and a park are being built on the hillside. The municipality of Beit Sahour also has plans for a hospital and a sports center.Municipal government
In the 2005 municipal electionPalestinian municipal election, 2005
Municipal elections were held to elect members of local councils in the Palestinian Territories between December 2004 and December 2005. They were the first local elections held in Palestinian areas in almost thirty years....
, two lists gained seats in the municipal council. 8 seats went to 'United Beit Sahour' and 5 to 'Sons of Beit Sahour'. The most popular vote was for Hani Naji Atallah Abdel Masieh of United Beit Sahour with 2,690 votes, followed by Elen Michael Saliba Qsais of Sons of Bethlehem with 2,280 votes.
Notable residents
- Ghassan AndoniGhassan AndoniGhassan Andoni is a native of Beit Sahour in the Bethlehem area. He is a professor of physics at Bir Zeit University, and a Palestinian Christian leader who advocates nonviolent resistance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
- Rifat Odeh KassisRifat Odeh KassisRifat Odeh Kassis is a Palestinian Christian was born in Beit Sahour, in the West Bank. An active human rights and political and community activist, he was arrested and imprisoned several times by Israel....
- Fuad KokalyFuad KokalyFuad Kokaly is a Palestinian who was born in Beit Sahour, in the West Bank. He was arrested and imprisoned several times by Israel. He was the mayor of Beit Sahour for many years. He is currently the head of the Fatah party in Bethlehem. He is now a member of the Palestinian Legislative...
- Qustandi ShomaliQustandi ShomaliQustandi Shomali , is a professor of history at Bethlehem University.-His studies:He worked as an Arabic teacher in Algeria from 1965–72; received a B.A in Arabic literature from Oran University in Algeria in 1971, worked as editor of the Arab World Review in Canada from 1972 to 1975 and as...
External links
- Beit Sahour municipality
- Beit Sahour City (Fact Sheet)
- Beit Sahour City Profile
- Beit Sahour City Areal Photo
- The priorities and needs for development in Beit Sahour city based on the community and local authorities’ assessment
- Beit Sahour Information
- Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People
- Alternative Information Centre
- Alternative Tourism Group
