Materials

O little town of Bethlehem Cards

Suggested Donation: 6¢ per card (+ postage)
Minimum Order: 50 cards
Description: 4x6 inches, glossy cardstock
Availability: In Stock – Ships in 1-2 weeks (call us if you need them sooner)
Download: Hi-Res Front | Hi-Res Back

Text on Card:

The people of Bethlehem are asking for our help.

Towering walls and militarized fences now encircle Bethlehem, turning the 4,000-year-old city into a virtual prison for its Palestinian Christian and Muslim citizens. Bethlehem has only three gates to the outside world, all tightly controlled by the Israeli army.

Outside the town, the fields where shepherds once watched their flocks are being filled by housing blocs and roads that are barred to the descendants of those shepherds. In the last five years Israel has confiscated almost all the agricultural land in the city and surrounding areas, making it impossible for farmers to access their groves. The people are growing increasingly desperate.

"It is unconscionable that Bethlehem should be allowed to die slowly from strangulation," says South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Bethlehem's residents increasingly are fleeing Israel's confining walls, and soon the city, home to the oldest Christian community in the world, will have little left of its Christian history but the cold stones of empty churches.

Though most Americans don't know it, we are directly involved in Israel's strangulation of Bethlehem and much of the rest of the West Bank. Our government gives over $10 million per day to Israel – more than to any other nation on earth.

The loss of Bethlehem to the world would be devastating. Please help its citizens live in freedom once again.

For more information:
IfAmericansKnew.org / OpenBethlehem.org / StopTheWall.org