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	"But I can't go anywhere," he says. "I can't go to Jerusalem. Or
Ramallah. ... It is all closed. ... Before the Intifada, I had just a little
bit of money. The situation is really bad now."
 
	Other men pitch in. One man says he used to make a good living in his
village, which had only eight taxis for 4,000 people. Now that he's in the
city, he's broke.

	Another says he drives to support his three younger sisters and two
brothers, since his father, also a taxi driver, was shot and killed by
Israeli soldiers four years ago during the siege of Bethlehem, when Israeli
troops enforced a 24-hour curfew and tanks pounded the city in retaliation
for Palestinian militants firing on a nearby settlement. He says he'd rather
be studying accounting at the university, but has put his academic life on
hold: Somebody has to put food on the table.

	Again, the older cabbie speaks: "The easiest way to work now is to be
a taxi driver. There are too many. ... There is no other work to do. What
shall they do? There are no factories here. The easiest thing to do is be a
taxi driver. It's a big problem."

	Down the hill is a long row of taxis parked zig-zag against the curb.

	The cop on the street agrees, saying: "There's too many. Too many."
He faces down the hill, waving at the honking cars crawling past the idle
taxis and idle drivers.

	Despite repeated attempts, the Presbyterian News Service was unable
to find out how many licenses have been issued by the Palestinian Authority's
Ministry of Transportation. Bethlehem's chief of police was not available for
comment.

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