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• GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- In five years of rule in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has established a functioning, authoritarian mini-state with a strong Islamic flavor, so firmly in control that nothing short of an unlikely Israeli military takeover seems capable of dislodging the militants.
• The Islamists of Palestine were once respected as a supposedly honest alternative to corrupt secular rivals, the Western-backed Fatah group led by the late Yasser Arafat. But that luster has mostly been lost as miserable Gaza becomes even poorer and more aid-dependent. The corruption of the Fatah days is perceived to have persisted into Hamas' rule, as Audis, Porsches and Hummers are driven

around potholed streets by a newly wealthy class of black market traders who benefit from the regime.
• For those inclined to fight Israel, even that appeal was lost as Hamas has mostly stuck to a truce in recent years.
• On the streets of Gaza, bitterness seems prevalent.
• "I am not saying Fatah was better, but when I voted for Hamas I voted for change," said Fahmi Khamis, 42, a vendor who sells made-in-China household goods in Gaza City's outdoor market. "This did not happen. Instead, we lost a lot."
• ___

• PARIS (AP) -- The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is becoming the church of contention, with a bid by the Palestinians to use their position as the newest members of the U.N.'s cultural arm to obtain World Heritage status for the iconic Christian site -- and perhaps boost their own campaign for legitimacy.
• The effort by the Palestinian Authority, like its overall efforts for global recognition for an independent Palestinian state, is drawing resistance. And it may fail at the World Heritage Committee meeting that starts Sunday.
• An experts committee has turned down the emergency bid to quickly confer on the Church of the Nativity, and its pilgrimage route, the status as an endangered

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