ICAHD UK celebrates Bethlehem this New Year

We hope you had a warm and wonderful festive season with family and friends.

At this time of year our thoughts are of Bethlehem where the Palestinians continue to live in an open-air prison under an oppressive military occupation and that is why ICAHD UK has been proud to support the “Bethlehem Unwrapped” festival. It opened on December 23^rd and continues until January 5^th at St. James’s Piccadillyin London. Through music, food, art, poetry, debate and more the festival goes behind the romanticised Christmas card images of the ancient city to highlight today’s reality. You can see the 2minute Youtube trailer here which has had 54,000+ hits already.

The centre-piece of the festival is an eight-metre high installation of ‘the wall’ which has attracted the attention of thousands of people who have passed by. We were delighted that Jeff Halper, Founding Director of ICAHD, participated in the opening ceremony and he will be back again for evening events on the 4^th and 5^th. The ICAHD UK stall, with a whole variety of resources, has proved popular within the church and it has been another place of awareness-raising and discussion.

Tickets for the rest of the programme can be found here http://bethlehem-unwrapped.org/.

As with all events which address realities in Palestine there is the inevitable counter comment. We are keen that all who have put their names onto the programme are supported by sold out events as a positive tonic to some of the vitriol which is being directed at us for participating.

The festival presents renowned musician and composer Nigel Kennedy, chefs Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi, singer Reem Kelani, comedians Mark Steel and Jeremy Hardy, activist and speaker Jeff Halper, actor Adjoa Andoh, film-maker Leila Sansour, video artist Larissa Sansour, writer and speaker Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, slam poets Harry Baker and Rafeef Ziadah and many more.

If you are not able to join us at St. James’s please do join us remotely and add your support:

The Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bethlehem-Unwrapped/481953781920120.

The Twitter link is: @bethlehemfest hashtags - #AtTheWall and #BethFest. Do feel free to tweet any comments, blogs, articles, images which discuss the festival positively.

Below is some of the great feedback, including mainstream press support and interesting tweets:

A few pieces in the 'Guardian' hereand here . A 'New Statesman ' review

We hope to see you at the festival!

With thanks to Stephen Sizer for the use of his photographs.