Writing from Bethlehem isn't easy, even if the absence of Christmas lights in the streets is an element of consistency, which allows to live in not too strident a way the contrast between reality on one side, good sentiments and unlikely pious pilgrims' dreams on the other.

The major has declared (so I read on "The Jerusalem Times", a Palestinian paper) that this year the only Christmas celebrations will be the religious ones. The town can't afford anything else. Some restaurants try to cover the total absence of customers with a tiny tree, the Peace Centre - the municipal centre of cultural and tourist services - sports a small Father Christmas in the lobby.

If any pious pilgrim, maybe thinking he's brave (because so our reckless media made him believe), came to Bethlehem with an organized trip, he would know nothing about how difficult it is to enter this besieged town. Distant images of a pregnant woman, forced to give birth to her child in a cave warmed by two quadrupeds (local legends have it that she was denied even water in Bethlehem), are more meaningful than organized pilgrimage trips to understand what happens today.

To enter Bethlehem (except for organized tourists) one must leave any motorized means (usually taxis, don't be fooled by the word: they're big old cars, which constantly go back and fro a border that doesn't respect the legendary Green Line, but breaks in it like many others), follow a path rendered even more squalid by the spectral Har Homa settlement, and then arrive to a covered tunnel. Then his fate depends on a soldier's order, an arbitrary order conceded without following any procedure.

When I go to Jerusalem or come back from it, I have to go through this passage, which is a torture for me (and clearly not just for me): I often happened to be treated in a different way than normal Palestinians. After seeing useless and wicked humiliations imposed on these people in silence (if I had talked, the situation could only have got worse), I was told - and not just once - "Welcome" by the policeman or policewoman on duty, whose primary characteristic seems to be the lack of professionalism.

If they distinguish between me and Palestinians (and this happened even when I was with local people), this means they act assuming that a particular group must be excluded: and this, whether they are aware of it or not, is a racist principle. It would be nice if somebody told the poor creatures, who have been given just weapons and uniforms. I think they don't understand it, because they are blind with fear of a suicide bomber: they aren't European naziskins, but something else that I'm not able to describe. The only thing I know is that I refuse to be identified just because I belong to a race.

I think people now know that the "wall" is a project that doesn't just want to cut off the West Bank, but also to reduce it to a kind of Bantustan, as South Africa used to be, leaving it only the 42 per cent of the territory occupied in 1967 during the "Six Day" war. And a West Bank in pieces is well visible in the map (Affected Palestinian Population and Localities by the Wall), published on the site "Stopthewall".

I think it's impossible to understand this situation, unless you've seen it. Being besieged isn't something many of us have experienced, it's better to rely on maps and accept boring detailed descriptions typical of hundreds of similar situations. The most upsetting thing I found here, helped by maps, is that obstacles don't hinder just those who want to get out of a cut-off territory blocked by check-points, but also inside the territory itself.

If you look at the second map, taken from the site "Stopthewall", you'll be able to clearly distinguish the names of some villages north of Bethlehem: Battir, Husan, Nahallin, and we can add Wadi Foqin, far western and not visible on the map. Who wants to get out of these villages must enter Betlehem area through Al Khadr check-point, where soldiers are there only when the passage is forbidden.

When the check-point is open, this is the procedure to follow: go out of a village by taxi (for those who can afford it, although it's cheap) up to some hundreds metres before the check-point, leave the taxi and walk on along a road - and this show the contrast between two peoples who live side by side - that skims the main road used by Israeli settlers, going from Hebron to Jerusalem. The road for Palestinians is a sort of dirt floor path, where asphalt has been removed, where humps prevent the passage of any vehicle. At a certain point, the path is interrupted by a small ditch that one should jump, if nobody had created a pedestrian crossing using a pile of stones and an old shower.

When I followed this path and I arrived at this crossing, less uncomfortable then jumping the ditch, I burst out laughing. I remembered an Israeli friend who used to tell me: "This situation will end only when Palestinians take their responsibilities". Here mine and their responsibility is to cross this passage quickly and without stumbling, so that the two queues - of people coming and going - go on smoothly. Certainly, when that woman talked about responsibility, she wasn't thinking about the daily one assumed by those who are forced to walk carefully on an old shower.

After the ditch you are on the main road, which must be crossed on foot. The cars of the settlers go past quickly, and the sight of children coming back from school, waiting to find the right moment to cross, upsets me. Beyond the main road it's the same story, until it's possible to reach the place where you can get a taxi for Bethlehem. From those villages (surmounted by a huge settlement, where new sewers which aren't used yet hang over crops, that will soon be buried with sewage) you can exit along a pedestrian road.

The check-point is near Beit Jala village, where there is a big hospital belonging to the Palestinian Authority (it's the so-called zone A, whereas the villages in Bethlehem district are part of zone C, directly rule by Israel). And one of the many absurdities is right here: who leaves those villages to go to this hospital, as almost all the ambulances at almost all the check-points do, must be searched, sometimes for long. Cases of deliveries at checkpoints - sometimes with irreversible damage to both the mother and the child - are well documented . It would be nice to forget that even king Herod, a puppet monarch that served the occupiers, was a protagonist of a far Christmas. But we can't afford it.