with seth in bethlehem...

seth and i went to bethlehem.
here we are in the church of the nativity...
built on the traditional site of Christ's birth

outside the church there was a demonstration going
on protesting the israeli zionist movement...

the sign reads
"the land of the Orthodox Church must serve
the interests of the Arab Orthodox community
and not the Zionist movement..."

bethlehem is governed by the
Palestinian Authority.


here palestinian police direct traffic

in the bethlehem street market...
which has VERY good, cheap prices!

a woman's clothing store...

more women's clothing for sale...

some beautiful scarves ~

israeli license plates are yellow,
in contrast to palestinian ones which are green.


here, a palestinian soldier stops a yellow plated
car to check i.d.

israeli's are not allowed into areas governed by the
palestinian authority, so any yellow license plates
are subject to investigation...


seth and i standing by part of the wall
(also called 'the fence')
built a few years ago by the israeli government
to make it more difficult for suicide bombers and other
terrorist activity to access nearby jerusalem...

a watch tower...

here you can see different parts of the wall
as it curves around, separating bethlehem
from jerusalem...

behind seth and i is the drive-through check-point
through the wall, between bethlehem and jerusalem...

this is as close as we could get since we were walking.
there is another check-point that you can walk through,
but this was the drive-through one...




the road leading to the check-point was named
for Yasser Arafat...

signs at the check-point....

"Passengers must dismount for inspection"
"to transit check point, please prepare documents"
"welcome to Jerusalem"

all signs are in hebrew, arabic and english...

a guard checks a citizen's documents...

notice the machine gun in the guard's hand

bethlehem bill boards...

the top bill board is advertising a raman noodle type food,
the second is for the bank of Jordan,
the third is an energy drink,
and the fourth, i can't tell...

behind me is bethlehem and other palestinian
authority areas...

a shepherd and his sheep standing on the side of the road...

a fountain outside of a restaurant that was actually
a big, bedoin tent that i didn't get a good picture of  :(