Lynch mobs run wild on Bethlehem's streets

Wars breed hate, inhumanity and lawlessness. And this degrading trinity was on full display in Israeli-occupied Bethlehem yesterday outside the ancient church marking the place of Christ's birth.

Manger Square has become a wild, blood-drenched place, the scene yesterday of a lynching. Two years ago, the Pope shuffled across its flagstones, blessing Catholic pilgrims who had come by the thousand from across the globe to glimpse him.

This is where the BBC broadcast the turning of the millennium live to the world which – labouring under the illusion that the Middle East was making peace with itself – watched contentedly as a flock of white doves crashed into the corporation's cameras, before reeling up into the midnight sky.