Colonization and Resistance at Bethlehem's Manger Square

Abstract

This article deals with the intersection of tourism and colonialism in Palestine, using the Nativity Church / Manger Square in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a case study. Looking at the period between 1967 and 1995, the article focuses on the ways the Israeli state strategically used its control over the Palestinian tourism market in the West Bank (1) to colonize and dominate the Palestinian economy; (2) to exert spatial control over the surrounding area; and (3) to surveil and censor the occupied population, repressing local expressions of national identity while promoting for an international audience narratives whitewashing the occupation. It also surveys how Palestinians used tourism and tourist spaces, including the Nativity Church, as staging grounds for resistance to Israel's colonial rule through boycotts and acts of sabotage of Israeli-run tourism operations in the occupied zone.