Leading the way into the Bethlehem Peace Center, Hatem Abu Tarboush, a wiry, 30-year-old tourism agent, remarks: “They're talking about peace. But I don't think there's any peace to talk about.”

The center, housed in the old British headquarters on Manger Square, is outfitted with brochures in different languages and a bored young receptionist.

The hall is bright and organized.

The floors and windows are clean.

There is only one thing wrong: There are no visitors.

As Christmas nears in this city of 40,000 known as the birthplace of Jesus, it is hard to find signs of holiday spirit. On the square, the city's famous Christmas tree is unadorned, as it has been since 2002. Tourist shops that line Milk Grotto Street, which runs alongside the Church of the Nativity, have not bothered to open for the holiday season.

Once a prosperous town that buzzed with the brisk trade and enthusiasm of religious tourism, four years of the latest intifada have rendered Bethlehem a tourist wasteland.

Before the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising against Israel in October 2000, some 20,000 tourists visited Bethlehem every month. Today, with numbers improving slightly after more than a year of relative calm, the mayor said the city sees about 7,000.

Outside the crowded city center, houses lay demolished as a vivid reminder of past military operations. Unemployment here is 65 percent and per capita income is less than $400.

“Everyone is singing O Little Town of Bethlehem and everyone forgets about the real Bethlehem,” said Andrew White, the canon of Coventry in Britain, whose diocese has a formal link with the Syrian-Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. “Bethlehem is dead.”

Religion News Service

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