While Americans annually bemoan the “commercialization” of Christmas, more commerce is exactly what’s needed in the Palestinian sections of the Holy Land. O Little Town of Bethlehem needs to get out the vote and get in a new administration that will help get the cash registers to start ringing again along with the church bells in the Palestinian territories.

Since the Palestinian “intifada,” or armed uprising, began four years ago, Israeli checkpoints have suffocated the economy of West Bank towns like Bethlehem. As a guide at the Church of the Nativity told the Associated Press, “We hope things will get better and pray every day for tourists to come back. It’s been so hard recently.”