West Asia’s conflicts have not only halted the flow of tourists to Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, but also to the relatively peaceful Holy Land of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Consequently, now is the time to visit religious and historical sites normally overwhelmed with pilgrims and tourists.
Navigating West Asia’s Holy Land can be both religiously satisfying for pilgrims and stimulating for history buffs, particularly those travelling to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers keep the gate to Bethlehem, swallowed by Israel’s 21st century wall where, according to tradition, Jesus was born. On the other side of the gate, one enters Palestine, the virtual state recognised by 136 countries. Just inside the gate the concrete slab wall is covered with graffiti, condemning the occupation of 62 per cent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967.
Door with a difference
Cobblestone-paved Manger Square lies empty in front of the squat Church of the Nativity. Visitors bend low when entering the church through the ‘Door of Humility’, which some say is meant to make pilgrims bow before a miracle and others claim was intended to prevent Ottoman soldiers from riding their horses into the church.
Inside the church, visitors pause until their eyes adjust to the dark interior. On either side are stout columns encased in wood, to the right at floor level boards have been pulled aside to reveal the delicate mosaic floor of the original fourth century basilica constructed by Helena, the mother of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine the Great. The original church, built on a site dedicated to Adonis, the Greek god of beauty, was destroyed in the 6th century and rebuilt by another Byzantine emperor, Justinian.
Today Italian engineers shore up the columns while Orthodox and Armenian Christian priests carry on with scheduled services at the altar and groups of pilgrims make their way down narrow steps to the grotto where, it is said, the babe was delivered by his mother Mary and laid in a manger, the place marked by a 14-point silver star set into a marble slab surrounded by the dim light of silver lamps.
The adjoining 15th century Catholic Church of St Catherine, a Crusader building with high Gothic arches constructed on the site of a 12th century Franciscan monastery, is known for the crowds attracted by the December 25 midnight mass celebrating Jesus birth. These days, there is only a trickle of visitors. Streets, shops, cafes and restaurants are empty.
A 15-minute drive away from Bethlehem lies East Jerusalem, also surrounded by a barrier Israel erected to keep out Palestinians from Bethlehem and the West Bank. East Jerusalem was annexed 48 years ago by Israel along with its Palestinian inhabitants who have a tentative right of residence but not Israeli citizenship.
Foreigners walk comfortably through Jerusalem’s Old City, stroll along Khan al-Zeit Street, photographing colourful displays in the shops before turning right down an alleyway to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, venerated as the site where Jesus was crucified and buried. The church, where Christian Orthodox and Catholic rites are celebrated, was a Roman temple dedicated to the love goddess Aphrodite before being transformed into a church by Byzantine Emperor Constantine. The church is a huge, gloomy building, consisting of numerous chapels, illuminated by scores of chandeliers and lamps.
While Christian clerics of competing sects occasionally indulge in fisticuffs over prayer times and rituals, the main dispute in Jerusalem is between Muslims and Jews over possession of the summit of Mount Moriah, the location since the 7th century of the Haram al-Sharif, the ‘Nobel Sanctuary’, where stands golden-domed Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest in Islam after the mosques in Mecca and Medina, and the magnificent Dome of the Rock, its exterior walls decorated with blue and white Persian tiles, and its dome also clad in gold.
Claims on a compound
The compound is claimed by Jews as the site of the First and Second Temples, the latter destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. The western wall shoring up the compound is revered by Jews as a remnant of the Second Temple and is a main place of prayer for the faithful. Visits to the Haram al-Sharif by Jewish zealots who seek to replace the Muslim shrines with a Third Temple have sparked riots in the streets of the Old City but tourists enter daily outside Muslim prayer times.
There are, of course, many other Holy Land sites to visit: Jericho, Hebron, Nablus and the Dead Sea, the lowest place on the surface of the globe. East Jerusalem hotels currently give large discounts for those who book and pay ahead by credit card. Both religious and “alternative” political tours are available at modest prices.