wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] For tourists in Bethlehem,

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Note #8884 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05460
Sept. 2, 2005

Fare market economy

For the odd tourist in Bethlehem, it's easier to catch a cab than a cold

by Alexa Smith

BETHLEHEM - Thirty-two-year-old Mahar leans against his yellow taxi, talking.

	The vehicle is spit-shined-spotless. But business is bad.

	In the good ol' days, when tourists jammed the city and flagged down
cabs on its cobbled street corners for trips to archeological sites in the
Bethlehem hills or lifts up the Old City's steep streets to its hilltop
hotels, Mahar made 100 to 150 shekels ($25-$40) a day.

	Now, he's lucky if he gets 50 or 60 shekels.

	 "It's not good. It's not a life," he says, as he watches two
policemen saunter toward three taxis lined up near the marketplace in
Bethlehem's Old City. His car is the last in line. His taxi license is in the
glove compartment.

	"The city is small, closed. There's a closure on Bethlehem," he says,
nodding in the direction of the 30-foot concrete wall that circles the city,
whose purpose, the Israeli government maintains, is to separate Israelis from
Palestinians for security reasons. But it also separates Palestinians from
their farmland. "There aren't jobs. Tourists come by buses ...

	"It is an empty town, just the citizens. How can we work? Now there
are four to five taxis per citizen," he says, visibly agitated. 

	He's got a wife and four kids to support. "They need to stop giving
new licenses for taxis. Just let the old drivers work."

	The police officers are talking to the first taxi driver, moving
slowly along the line, checking identification cards, reviewing permits,
asking questions, trying to keep the cabs from plugging up the street.

	Mahar sighs as he opens his taxi door and slumps back into the
driver's seat.

	Bethlehem's taxi drivers are in a slump, literally. 

	They are competing with new drivers, most of them men who've lost
jobs in souvenir shops, olive wood factories, hotels and restaurants.
Businesses closed gradually as the bottom fell out of the tourist industry
after the second Intifada erupted violently nearly five years ago. 

	In those days, many residents of Bethlehem, essentially a Jerusalem
suburb, worked in Israel; but those jobs disappeared when most non-resident
Palestinians were barred from the Jewish state.

	There also are illegal drivers, some waiting inside the wall for
outsiders who pass through the checkpoint. Then they aggressively pursue
them, scrambling for fares.

	It isn't unusual to see police detaining men whose licenses have
expired, either because they didn't have the money to renew, or were never
licensed in the first place. Residents say it is even worse in Hebron, where
stolen cars are painted yellow and used as taxis by drivers working without
licenses.

	For guys who have worked as cabbies for a decade or more, there is
little but trouble. "Every day," says one indignant driver, "there's a new
car on the street, a new driver on the road."

	The way he sees it, that's money out of his pocket.

	On a side street on Bethlehem's central hill, there's a taxi lot
crammed with yellow vans, shiny cabs and ramshackle ones, some with three
yellow doors and one black door. A few drivers are sitting waiting - and
smoking. That's what they do most nowadays.

	A solitary cop directs traffic up the twisting street into
Bethlehem's Old City.

	"All day, all day, I make only 50 shekels," says an older man who
doesn't want his name used. The last thing he needs, his facial expression
says, is more trouble with the city. "You see how many taxis there are. I
paid for a license. I pay for insurance. I pay taxes on the car. ... From
morning 'til now, I made 40 shekels. Fifty shekels is for the diesel. And
another for the car and for the government. At the end of the day, I have
nothing in my pocket."

	As dusk approaches and taxis line up bumper-to-bumper, another driver
speaks up. 

	He has been carrying locals and tourists around Bethlehem for eight
years. These days, every trip is a short one: From the house to the store.