BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Thousands of pilgrims and dignitaries crowded into Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity for a Christmas Mass, where Latin Patriarch Fuad al-Tuwal urged visitors to return home bearing a message of peace for the Holy Land.

Entertaining crowds outside, bagpipers played carols and whirling dervishes danced, unfurling giant white skirts embroidered with the word peace in various languages.

Some 15,000 visitors packed into the stone flagged square opposite the small Door of Humility where pilgrims stoop to enter the multi-denominational church, built above the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

While much of North America and Europe were gripped in winter’s icy embrace, visitors to Bethlehem were buying chilled fruit juice in Manger Square and stripping off sweaters in the mild weather.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Thousands of Christians crowded into Bethlehem on an unseasonably warm Thursday evening, before celebrating Christmas midnight mass in the Church of the Nativity at the birthplace of Jesus.

While much of North America and Europe shivers in the grip of winter, visitors to Bethlehem were buying chilled fruit juice in Manger Square and stripping off sweaters in the mild weather.

Bagpipers played carols for some 15,000 visitors packing the stone flagged square opposite the small Door of Humility where pilgrims stoop to enter the multi-denominational church, built above the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

“It’s about 20 degrees (68 Fahrenheit) and it’s a little hard to get that Christmas feeling I’m used to having,” said Phillip Well, 22, from Germany.

Hamas has kept a pretty low profile in the West Bank recently–when will that change?According to recent polls in both Israel and the West Bank, both Israeli and Palestinian populations are looking to see Hamas step up to the plate in negotiations. But that might not be enough to make Hamas willing to resurface in the West Bank just yet.Two days ago, the Israel Dialogue Institute released a poll saying that over half of the Israeli public wants to see Hamas brought into negotiations if it recognized Israel (See Reuters’ story here).A Ha’aretz article said, “it turns out that the majority of the public – 57% – supports the view of (Knesset member) Shaul Mofaz of (Israeli centrist party) Kadima, who published a plan earlier this week, in which he called for dialogue with Hamas under certain conditions. Inside Kadima the idea has tremendous support by some 72 percent of the party’s voters.”Even more surprising is that among supporters of Likud, Israel’s right-wing political party, 53%  of the public approved of negotiating with Hamas.But according to a recent report in the Carnegie Endowment’s Arab Reform Bulletin, Hamas plans to keep lying low in the midst of the West Bank political storm between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American negotiators (original Arabic here).”Hamas has also gone to ground on the West Bank because it is convinced that the current situation will eventually redound to its benefit,” says Palestinian writer Omran al-Risheq–especially given Abbas’ refusal to restart peace talks with Israel, the US reluctance to demand a total settlement freeze, and Abbas’ recent announcements that he won’t run for re-election. (Read Reuters’ latest story here.)Palestinians, it seems, may be more divided than Israelis about their interest in seeing Hamas rebound in the political arena.  Al-Risheq says that recent opinion polls show Hamas as increasingly popular in the West Bank at the same time that it’s reputation is plummeting in Gaza.”West Bank Palestinians view Hamas as symbol of resistance to Israeli and U.S. domination, whereas Gazans –who have had a chance to test governance by Hamas –see its performance as similar to, if not worse than, that of the corrupt PA leadership (led by the Palestinian Fatah party).”Rivalry between Islamist Hamas and the Western-backed Fatah movement grew after Hamas won a 2006 parliamentary election. The rift deepened in 2007 when Hamas forces wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.Ultimately, al-Risheq argues, Hamas thinks that the longer it waits in silence, the better chance it has of seeing conditions turn in its interest: from seeing the complete collapse of the Palestinian Authority, where Hamas can become the feasible alternative, or to an Egyptian-brokered Palestinian election in June 2010, where Hamas can garner popularity by successfully doing a prisoners exchange with Israel.Do you think Hamas can wait out the storm, or will it have to act soon?PHOTO: Hamas police officers march in front of Yasser Arafat billboard. Gaza city, 25 Oct 2009. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Today marks the 14th anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination on Nov. 4, 1995, a day that many Israelis consider a stark reminder of political and religious fissures that have yet to be healed.Rabin was shot in Tel Aviv at a rally to garner support for the Oslo Accords. His assassin, Yigal Amir, had a religious and right-wing background and rejected Rabin’s peace initiatives.Today, Israeli papers are filled with reminders of the contentiousness that the death of one of Israel’s  historic figures symbolizes.In a commemorative posting on the Israeli blog Israelity, writer David Brinn notes that Rabin’s assassination is “not a holiday that brings the country together.”"The Right blames Rabin and his followers on the left for the failed Oslo process and the Left blames the right for the environment that enabled an Israeli to take the life of a prime minister.”Today’s Haaretz reported that right wing-groups were calling on students in Jerusalem to boycott Rabin memorials. Activists said they planned to pass out flyers alleging the remembrance day was being used by the Left to demonise Jewish settlers and their supporters.The Israeli daily also released an editorial noting that while Rabin had set into motion the creation of a Palestinian state, he was effectively following a course charted by his influential foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.”Rabin founded Palestine-in-the-making without resolving the conflict between that act and his stated opposition to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, the division of Jerusalem, and the handover of the Jordan Valley,” the editorial said.In the Jerusalem Post, columnist Liat Collins, criticized the use of Rabin’s legacy as a political yardstick, and a rallying cry against right-wing politicians: “They also judge whether the [religious and settler] communities (which probably account for half the Jewish population of the country) are remembering him in a suitable fashion, with sufficient soul-searching and pain. They usually find the accused guilty.”As Israelis struggle over their own divisions on this anniversary, Barak Obama will try to address the rift that opinion polls show has opened between the U.S. president and the Israeli public.  Obama, who addressed Muslims worldwide in a fence-mending speech in Cairo in June, plans to pay tribute to Rabin in a videotaped speech that will be played at a memorial for Rabin on Saturday at the site of his assassination in Tel Aviv. It will be the latest in a series of Obama recordings targeting the Israeli public. Opinion polls put his popularity rating in Israel at between 6 and 10 percent.PHOTO: Israeli soldier lights candle at the spot where Rabin was assassinated. Tel Aviv, Israel. November 4, 2008. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen

On both sides of the conflict, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian economy has been put in the spotlight.Fayyad says a state could be ready by 2011 if Palestinians started developing it now, instead of waiting for a final peace agreement. Fayyad has recently released a plan laying the groundwork for a Palestinian state through economic and infrastructural development. (Read more here).And since his election this March, Netanyahu has pushed his plan for “economic peace,” saying he will boost the Palestinian economy as a way of working towards peace. His orders to remove several checkpoints throughout the West Bank is touted by supporters as a boon to economic development. But Netanyahu’s plan is criticized by skeptics for measures that may turn out to be temporary and reversible. (Read more here)So how is the West Bank doing?We sent reporters around the West Bank to get a sense of how the push for economic development is being felt on the ground, from Jenin in the north, to Hebron in the south.Click here for an overview of the West Bank’s economic development, where “Palestinians looking through the prism of 42 years of occupation are suspicious even of supposed ‘good news’.”And if you’re thinking of investing in the West Bank–think again, say foreign born Palestinian businessmen who argue that economic conditions in the West Bank, for them, are worse than ever.

Months on, and the buck still stops with the settlements.Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is now in Europe to meet in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today and US peace envoy George Mitchell on Wednesday. He will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Thursday.According to our latest article , the settlement freeze controversy  will dominate discussions, though Netanyahu is also keen to coordinate with Britain and Germany on opposition to Iran’s nuclear program.   (For more information on Netanyahu’s Europe trip, check out our factbox.)In the midst of the debate, some organizations say that settlements continue to grow.”On the eve of the visit,” says Reuters Allyn Fisher-Ilan, “Peace Now, an Israeli group opposed to Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory, said on Sunday that despite a government moratorium announced last week on approving new housing in the West Bank enclaves, more than 40,000 more homes could be built under plans already ratified.” Settler groups complain that families living there are being constrained by hindrances to building.Even touchier than the settlement issue in the West Bank has been settlement building in East Jerusalem. An article in Ha’aretz says that Israel’s Jerusalem municipality is reviewing plans to construct 104 apartments there.The report comes in the wake of rising tensions in East Jerusalem after the eviction of some Palestinian families from their houses. (See our report on that here, and a blog with video clips of protests against the evictions here.) Israel captured East Jerusalem along with the West Bank in the 1967 war. Palestinians want the capital of a future Palestinian state to be in Jerusalem.Despite such reports, Netanyahu said last week that there was “significant progress” in US-Israeli negotiations.  “We are not there, but we are getting close,” an Israeli official said.As of now, Israeli is hoping to set a 6 month freeze, while the US is demanding a two year freeze. Yet pressure from right-leaning Knesset members remains, such as this video from the Jerusalem Post of one MK pushing the prime minister to keep settlement construction moving.Aaron David Miller, a Middle East advisor for six US secretaries of state, is also weighing in on the ongoing settlement controversy between the United States and Israel. He says an agreement will probably be finished by September or October. But Miller also argues that from this point onward, Obama’s course will be more difficult than other US predecessors in the peace process: “Kissinger, Carter and Baker weren’t dealing with matters that were nearly as consequential – like Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, refugees – as Barack Obama is going to have to deal with.”Miller suggests it will be important for Obama to foster better ties with Israel while maintaining a firm stance. “In each of [the previous cases], they were plenty tough in asserting America’s national interests. They also found ways to work with their respective Israeli prime ministers.”For now however, the question remains about whether all sides, US, Israeli, and Palestinian, can get over the settlement impasse. Last week, Reuters reported on lots of blame traded between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators over who is responsible for stalled talks.As the settlement stumbling block remains, the biggest US-Israeli rift in a decade lingers on. Do you think the coming talks in Europe can cool down the summer’s hot-button issue?PHOTO: Benjamin Netanyahu and George Mitchell in Jerusalem. July 28, 2009. REUTERS/Dan Bality/Pool

The elections for Fatah’s sixth conference, which just ended in Bethlehem, had an unusual first: their first Jewish Israeli member elected to the 120-member Revolutionary Council. Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen living in the West Bank, has been a member of Fatah for 25 years.Here are some excerpts from Reuters correspondent Ali Sawafta’s article on new council member Uri Davis for Reuters Arabic-language service:

Uri Davis, who calls himself a “Palestinian Hebrew”, joined the Fatah movement in 1984, and told Reuters he plans to work in the Council’s committee for foreign relations.”I am of Jewish descent, and was born in Jerusalem in 1943 before the establishment of the racist State of Israel. I oppose Zionism.”Davis hopes to work towards restoring Fatah’s relations with foreign volunteers who worked with Fatah over the years to fight Israeli occupation.”I spoke at the sixth conference and said there are hundreds of non-Palestinians who served Fatah and there are thousands who volunteered in all parts of the resistance and the International Solidarity Movement. They worked to defend the rights of the Palestinians, educationally and socially, politically and even militarily. But these reserves have returned to their countries. In the past years Fatah has neglected to connect with them.”Davis, who lives in Ramallah with his Palestinian wife, is currently a lecturer at Al-Quds University, and was a friend of the late Yasser Arafat, and used to frequent the Palestinian leader’s headquarters.Davis is one of the 81 members just elected to the Revolutionary Council (the rest will be appointed by the president.) The election results were considered promising for reformists, as 70 of those elected were new faces, including 11 women.Many believe that members of Fatah movement, which has the support of the West, will be in a better position to seek reconciliation with the Islamic Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, and to restore of a degree of unity among Palestinians.”The movement will come out of this conference more powerful and united,” said Davis. “Some believed that the conference would lead to a split in the movement, but Abu Mazen (PA and Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas) succeeded in choosing the right time and place. It was a brave decision.”

In an interview with Reuters, Davis said that there may be more Jewish Israelis who would participate in Fatah in the future. It used to be illegal, he says, but since the mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the Oslo Accords, it is now permissible. He hopes to be the first of a more substantial presence in future Fatah conferences,, which could be similar to “the small minority of white members in the ANC when South Africa was an apartheid state” .Check out the clips from our interview with Davis above, where he discusses his personal background and his political stance on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.You can learn more about Uri Davis and his political and academic work at his website.

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Driving from Ramallah to Bethlehem for the Fatah conference, you can’t miss the countless images and posters of deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the founder of Fatah.The Fatah conference’s own publicity campaign has itself capitalized on Arafat imagery in its advertisements, from posters with the aging leader waving in the background, to TV advertisements with emotional music and Arafat’s image lightly transposed over footage of current leaders meeting. Old clips of Arafat and his followers, huddled together during the Israeli siege the Palestinian Authority headquarters, are being played now and then on the Palestinian TV station Al-Quds.Arafat’s larger-than-life presence haunts the Palestinian street’s views on Fatah. Talk to Palestinians lingering in the square outside the closed conference proceedings, the conversation quickly turns to Arafat.He was “part of the people, modest, and he listened to the average Palestinian’s concerns,” the narrative goes. Asked for an opinion on the conference, and most give apathetic responses, as if Fatah has nothing to do with them. More than one person responds by saying “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”Whether it’s true or not, Palestinians remember Arafat as representing their needs, which many say they don’t see in Fatah anymore. It will be important for that feeling to be rekindled in light of the goals of the Palestinian Authority, made up mostly of Fatah members, to push on toward a two-state solution.A recent article in the New York Review of Books sounded the death knell of the two-state solution, because under Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah and the president of the Palestinian Authority, that solution had morphed from what Palestinians saw as a national cause under Arafat, to a “foreign” (i.e. an Israel and Western-backed) idea that no longer represented Palestinian interest.”If [Abbas'] actions are to be seen as legitimate and his endorsement of an agreement is to carry weight, he cannot appear as the president of only some Palestinians but must appear as the president of all… [the politicians ] currently speak and act as if they are at the head of some Palestinians-the more respectable ones-while leaving it to others to handle the more troublesome lot. All of which diminishes the PA’s standing, even in the eyes of many otherwise most prone to support its program, and inflates its opposition, even among many who share nothing in common with the Islamists’ agenda.”Driving to the Intercontinental hotel, where most conference delegates are staying, one cab driver ( Christian) mocks the media focus on the Fatah conference: “And they still wonder why we voted for Hamas?”He points to a large poster of Arafat, plastered to his cab’s ceiling: “He’s the last person in Fatah who was interested in us,” he says.(See Reuters coverage of the conference here. Also check out our Q&A for background information on Fatah and its long awaited Sixth Conference) PHOTO:Palestinian President Abbas sits in front of a banner depicting Arafat at Fatah conference in Bethlehem. August 4. 2009. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun.

When I was studying Arabic, my teacher insisted on using newspaper articles from the 80s about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The students would always complain–they were studying Arabic to be in touch with the pulse of the Arab streets. They wanted to read articles from today’s news, not twenty years ago.  She would always joke, “and you think the news here changes?”Glancing through the Palestinian daily paper, Al-Quds each morning, I’m reminded of that her cynical stance.Printed daily in the corner of Al-Quds’ Op-Ed page, is a copy of an old front page. The front page of that same date twenty years ago, to be exact.Here’s a copy of the front page from a few days ago:

And here’s a copy of the front page on the same day, twenty years ago:

Can you guess which year these headlines are from?