Every year at Christmas, the hilltop town of Bethlehem comes alive with holiday cheer. Parades light up the cobblestone alleyways around the Church of the Nativity, built over the grotto where Jesus is said to have been born. Restaurants fill with locals and tourists as revelers toast Jesus’s birth with araq, a Levantine anise liquor, and Arabic Christmas songs by Lebanese singer Fairuz resound through the streets.But not this year.“Bethlehem is a ghost town,” said Zarzar, who works in the touri
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