Palestinian director Leila Sansour has made a fierce, poignant film about her family and her hometown of Bethlehem, now in Palestinian territory but progressively stifled by the Israeli government’s anti-terrorist barrier; that huge, ugly wall with which Benjamin Netanyahu apparently wishes to be remembered as the Erich Honecker of the Middle East. At the moment, tourists can only visit Bethlehem for brief periods by means of an intensely policed system of state-approved minibuses. This film shows how Sansour comes to Bethlehem with her husband, novelist Nicholas Blincoe, with a bold, imaginative plan in mind: her Open Bethlehem campaign. It’s an attempt to marshal a rainbow coalition of prominent international Christians, Muslims and Jews to persuade Israel’s government to open up Jesus’s birthplace in the simple interests of commerce and ecumenical tourism, and let people visit the city freely and for as long as they wish. Now, Open Bethehem is hardly apolitical, but it has the support and good wishes of many, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Jimmy Carter. But the grim reality is … are those giant concrete blocks going to be removed? The answer appears to be no. Yet Sansour soldiers on. Her Open Bethlehem project is the kind of first step on which peace processes are built. It deserves to succeed.
This article was amended on 6 December 2014 to remove an incorrect reference to Benjamin Netanyahu’s title.
