Christmas songs have been blasting out over the sound systems of shops over here in the UK for weeks now. They alternate between gratingly jolly seasonal jingles and, in slightly more upmarket shops, choirs of angelic voices retelling the Christmas story.
The irony of this whole soundtrack to the festive system, and in particular of those carols proclaiming “no room at the inn,” is mostly lost on the customers thronging to fill their shopping bags with seasonal must-haves.
The truth is there would be plenty of room at the inns of Bethlehem for Mary and Joseph today, the hotels of the town being largely empty, its tourist trade, which was already hit hard by coronavirus, is now wholly decimated by the escalation of Israeli violence in the West Bank and its ongoing massacres in Gaza.
Of course, to even knock at the doors of the hotels of the little town would require the young couple to be able to travel from Nazareth and reach Bethlehem in the first place.
Their route by car or by foot would be considerably more complicated today than covering that same distance by donkey over 2,000 years ago. Military checkpoints, forbidden roads and a 270-mile separation barrier – a combination of concrete walls, military-patrolled roads and barbed wire fences due to reach 440 miles in length once completed and illegal under international law – all block the way.
Not only would their journey there be complicated, they would not be guaranteed return. (more...)
Plenty of room at the inn during genocide
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