October 24, 2005: AUDIO
The Mayor of Bethlehem, Victor Batarseh, joins host Jeffrey Callison in studio today to talk about life in Bethlehem and the West Bank, and Middle East politics.
-----------------
O, little town
Nicholas Blincoe
Bethlehem began life as a walled citadel, and will end as a prison town. Beside it looms Israeli Jerusalem, which has redrawn its boundaries constantly since the occupation. As far as Israel is concerned, Jerusalem's borders now encompass all the settlements surrounding the city of Bethlehem.
As an ex-deputy Mayor of Jerusalem has said, the expansion was planned according to Talmudic law which states that a city is defined by sightlines: if a collection of buildings can be seen from another point, then each constitutes a part of the same city. By grabbing the orchards of Bethlehem, Jerusalem has doubled and trebled in size over the past two decades, like a concrete amoeba, whose pseudopodia absorb and digest everything they encircle.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment