Email from Bethlehem

Feature | brendan, January 28th, 2006

Fatah, Hamas, and PFLP supporters celebrate together on Wednesday night. [Dave Berger / Flickr]

Dave Berger is in Bethlehem; we ran one of his pictuers in Thursday night’s show on the Hamas victory. Dave followed up with an email this morning, tracking the descent from a cross-party celebration in the streets to what he describes as an “0h s***” moment.

Just a brief note on developments in the Bethlehem area since the completion of the elections. Wednesday night, people were euphoric. The results had yet to be announced, and Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, indepedents were all celebrating together in the streets. The celebrations centered around a feeling of pride that the elections were carried out in such an open, responsible way without any interference from armed groups or blatant fraud.

Thursday morning, to put it crudely, the city let out a collective “oh s***” as the results came in. Bethlehem, having a large Christian minority, was afraid that Islamic laws (pertaining to standards of dress, etc) would be imposed on this rather liberal city. Friday was much of the same.

Saturday morning, gunfire rang out throughout the city. Hundreds of Al Aqsa Brigades (Fatah-aligned) members marched through the streets firing into the air. The occupied Fatah’s main office building in the city, forced officials to leave and blamed the old guard for Fatah’s poor PLC showing. Lots of different opinions; some calling for no cooperation with Hamas, some for limited cooperation. Some calling for Abu Mazen’s resignation.

It still remains unclear what the effects will be, but Fatah is in a state of internal unrest throughout the West Bank.

Dave Berger, from an email to Open Source on 1/28/06

For a longer description and explanations of some of what you can see on the street in Bethlehem, check the Flickr page for Dave’s photo.