© Popular Committee Against the Wall and settlement of Bil’in via europalestine.comSanta Claus in Bilin, 2011
Israel's large Palestinian minority is often spoken of in terms of the threat it poses to the Jewish majority. Palestinian citizens' reproductive rate constitutes a "demographic timebomb", while their main political program - Israel's reform into "a state of all its citizens" - is proof for most Israeli Jews that their compatriots are really a "fifth column".
But who would imagine that Israeli Jews could be so intimidated by the innocuous Christmas tree?
This issue first came to public attention two years ago when it was revealed that Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, had banned Christmas trees from all public buildings in his northern Israeli city.
"Upper Nazareth is a Jewish town and all its symbols are Jewish," Gapso said. "As long as I hold office, no non-Jewish symbol will be presented in the city."
The decision reflected in part his concern that Upper Nazareth, built in the 1950s as the centrepiece of the Israeli government's "Judaisation of the Galilee" programme, was failing dismally in its mission.
Far from "swallowing up" the historic Palestinian city of Nazareth next door, as officials had intended, Upper Nazareth became over time a magnet for wealthier Nazarenes who could no longer find a place to build a home in their own city. That was because almost all Nazareth's available green space had been confiscated for the benefit of Upper Nazareth.
Instead Nazarenes, many of them Palestinian Christians, have been buying homes in Upper Nazareth from Jews - often immigrants from the former Soviet Union - desperate to leave the Arab-dominated Galilee and head to the country's centre, to be nearer Tel Aviv.
The exodus of Jews and influx of Palestinians have led the government to secretly designate Upper Nazareth as a "mixed city", much to the embarrassment of Gapso. The mayor is a stalwart ally of far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman and regularly expresses virulently anti-Arab views, including recently calling Nazarenes "Israel-hating residents whose place is in Gaza" and their city "a nest of terror in the heart of the Galilee".
Although neither Gapso nor the government has published census figures to clarify the city's current demographic balance, most estimates suggest that at least a fifth of Upper Nazareth's residents are Palestinian. The city's council chamber also now includes Palestinian representatives.