Clare College Choir have withdrawn their offer to perform at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem this Christmas after the Palestinian Authority forbade them entry into the city.

The Choir’s tour to Israel and Palestine, including the cities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Karmiel, provoked outcry from pro-Palestinian groups after it was announced earlier this year.

Dr Raymond Deane, an Irish composer and and member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, referred to Israel as a “rogue state” who would “exploit” the Choir’s tour to prove their “normality” and “acceptability”.

Bethlehem lies in the centre of the West Bank and therefore falls under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), formed in 1994 to govern parts of the Palestinian territories.

The Choir, which also toured Israel in 2009 and in September 2000, had planned to perform Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve before travelling to St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem for Midnight Mass until the PNA made it clear that they would not be allowed into Bethlehem.

Speaking to Varsity, Director of Music at Clare Tim Brown said: “Once it was made clear to me by the Bishop of Jerusalem's Chaplain that Clare Choir would be prevented from entering Bethlehem by the Palestinian Authority I immediately withdrew the offer by Clare Choir to participate in the Cathedral's Christmas worship, in order to save the Anglican Church in Jerusalem any embarrassment.

“There is of course sadness on both sides that the choir is unable to lead the singing at either the Christmas Eve service in Bethlehem or at Midnight Mass in the Cathedral, especially given the prime purpose of Clare's chapel choir, which is to lead liturgical worship.

“On the other hand, it is a fact of life that politics and religion are intertwined in the Middle East, and demonstrating some sensitivity to this is only common sense.”

However Jake Witzenfeld, President of Cambridge University’s Israel Society, expressed concern over the development and the role played by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign: “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign's logic seems warped. I assumed that the Israelis would be the subject of a PSC cultural boycott, not the Palestinians.

"For all of the PSC's petitioning and badgering, they have deprived the citizens of the West Bank from hearing Bach's Christmas Oratorio, which Israelis will still enjoy.

"It is deeply saddening that the Clare Choir have been robbed of their opportunity to perform in the birth place of Jesus on Christmas Eve. I wish them the best of luck and an enjoyable, albeit limited, trip of the region with their most commendable inter-faith and co-existence project; a project that anyone who truly cares about real peace would be backing."