Technically, Simon Musleh will be able to reach Jerusalem's Mount of Olives for Palm Sunday and Church of the Holy Sepulcher for Easter Mass.

But the 39-year-old Palestinian Catholic will need to make a 40-minute detour by car past the Jewish settlement city of Ma'aleh Adumim. Or, after he returns home from work on Fridays, he may leave his car on the Jerusalem side of the Israeli-built security wall, just behind the Franciscan housing compound where he lives. Then on Sundays, he can cut through the unfinished security barrier and cross properties belonging to the Comboni Sisters and Passionist Fathers to get to his car.

Either way, his family will have to pass through one, if not two, Israeli military checkpoints.

Before the intifada, or Palestinian uprising, began more than four years ago, getting to Jerusalem involved only a five-minute drive. Now Musleh said, the travel time has increased fivefold to the point where once he is home in Bethany he prefers to stay there.

Even on the weekends his family mainly stays home. Planning to visit family or friends in other nearby villages can take days of working out logistics and requires the family to wake up close to dawn in order to reach their destination by mid-morning because of the detours and checkpoints they will encounter, he said.

The security wall cuts off the main road between Bethany --- known as Alazzaria in Arabic --- and Jerusalem, preventing cars from driving from Bethany straight up the hill to Bethpage on the Mount of Olives.

For now, there is still uncertainty about the continuing route of the wall because it is under legal dispute since it cuts through church property.

If Jesus were alive today, he --- like today's Palestinians --- would have to crisscross these checkpoints, travel through detours and circumvent the wall to enter Jerusalem from Bethany, as he did in the procession now celebrated on Palm Sunday --- though, perhaps as a Jew, the soldiers would just wave him through.

"If Jesus were here, he would talk to us of hope and of not giving up," said Musleh, the father of four children and a cook at the French consulate in East Jerusalem. "He would make the detours and cross the checkpoints and tell us to continue with our struggle. He taught us forgiveness, and he would tell us to let it go, that time will heal (all things.)"

Musleh said that on holidays he does not want to go to church in a frustrated state of mind. Instead, he chooses to stay home, attend Mass at the St. Lazarus at Bethany Church just down the road and play the organ for the small congregation.

His wife, Sahar, said she still prefers to take her chances; she said she will go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for Easter Mass.

"It is difficult going through the checkpoints, so I prefer to go without the children," she said. "I like to celebrate the Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross). Jesus had to suffer pain for us. I like to think of this as giving this pain to God for Jesus and think maybe we will have peace in this land."

About 70 Catholic families live in largely Muslim Bethany. Most of them, like Musleh, moved to this village to escape overcrowding in East Jerusalem before the intifada. As former East Jerusalem residents, they retain blue Israeli identity cards that assure them relatively free passage through the checkpoints.

Reports have circulated that this summer East Jerusalem residents will be forbidden to go into the West Bank, and many East Jerusalem Palestinians will face a difficult choice: remaining in the West Bank villages and losing their Israeli identity cards or moving back into East Jerusalem with its congestion and expensive housing. Jewish residents of Jerusalem will still be able to move freely between Jerusalem and the neighboring settlements, say the reports.

Possession of a blue identity card allows East Jerusalem residents to receive health insurance, unemployment insurance and, until now at least, more freedom of movement.

Twenty of the Catholic families in Bethany used to live in the Franciscan housing compound, but since the intifada and the construction of the wall almost half of them have moved back to East Jerusalem, said David Siniora, 29, a logistician with the European Commission in Jerusalem. Siniora lives in the compound with his parents and three younger siblings.

"We have to go to Jerusalem to visit our relatives. Sometimes we bring sweets we made at home. Inside we feel happiness because of the feast (but then) we have to go through the detours and spend more time (reaching) the relatives, and you begin having different feelings," he said.

---CNS