Dear friends in Bethlehem,

witnesses to the manger where Christ, the heart of Creation, was born.

You are surrounded on three sides by the Israeli Apartheid Wall.

Your land is robbed, your olive trees are uprooted, your economy is

strangled by the occupation and further destroyed by the Corona virus.

But you are there, celebrating Christmas with stubbornness and soumod,

with rootedness in Palestinian land and history, participants in the two

thousand years of Church history, enabling liberation for the world.

Here in the tiny villages, towns and cities of Sweden we pray and

celebrate with you, that Christ is born and Peace and justice are given in

our hands.

With Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, BDS, we join the struggling

movement of human rights defenders around the world and we cry out

for international law to be embraced by the people of Israel in power in

Israel. We plead with the prophets of old Israel: let justice roll down

like water! Plant the trees of peace with roots of justice.

Give the Palestinian people their freedom. And your wounds will heal.

Merry Christmas!

Anna Karin Hammar