| Beit Sahour | |||
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| Other transcription(s) | |||
| • Arabic | بيت ساحور | ||
| • Also spelled | Beit Sahur (official) Bayt Sahoor (unofficial) |
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| View of Beit Sahour | |||
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Beit Sahour
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Governorate | Bethlehem | ||
| Government | |||
| • Type | Municipality | ||
| • Head of Municipality | Hani al-Hayek[1] | ||
| Area | |||
| • Jurisdiction | 6,945 dunams (6.9 km2 / 2.7 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2007) | |||
| • Jurisdiction | 12,367 | ||
| Name meaning | "House of the night watch" | ||
| Website | beitsahourmunicipality.com | ||
Beit Sahour (Arabic: بيت ساحور pronounced ) (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,[2] is Christian and Muslim.[3]
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.
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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.[4]
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.[4]
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."[5] 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'".[4]
In 1596, Beit Sahour appeared in Ottoman tax registers as two villages in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. Beit Sahour an-Nasara had a population of 15 Muslim households and 9 bachelors. Beit Sahour al-Wadi (identified as Beit Sahour al-Atiqa[6]) had a population of 40 Muslim households. The two villages paid taxes on wheat, barley, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives.[7]
The town's economy is largely based on tourism and related industries, such as the manufacture of olive-wood carvings. Agriculture and work in Israel 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.[8] 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,[9] where the olive harvest is used as a backdrop for showing the effects of the Israeli occupation and land confiscation on the Palestinian population.[10]
In 1989, during the First Intifada, the Palestinian resistance (Unified National Leadership of the Uprising, 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.[11] “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?”[12] 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.”[13] 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.[14] 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.[15]
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.[11] 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.”[16]
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.[17]
‘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.[18]
In the 2005 municipal election, 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.[19]
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