It was a trip I will never forget. Amongst the many visits I carried out as Foreign Minister, visiting Bethlehem again in December 2019, with the then Prime Minister, and attending Christmas Midnight Mass in the Church of Saint Catherine.
No experience could be more moving than celebrating the birth of Christ where it happened. Yet, this was also an experience tinged with sadness and concern. For Bethlehem is located in the present-day West Bank, one of the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel.
It is the West Bank that has seen a surge in violence by ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers since the horrific attacks of 7 October 2023. The United Nations estimates that there are an average of four settler attacks every day.
That a place of such spiritual significance should be a place of such bitter and bloody conflict, often in the name of religion, is heartbreaking. International law is clear. The growing numbers of Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, the violence that too often accompanies them utterly unacceptable.
In the decades since the Israeli annexation, the global consensus has been that the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, should form an independent Palestinian state - living peacefully side-by-side with Israel. Today, you could be forgiven for thinking that goal was further away than ever. The situation in the West Bank is bad enough but the situation in Gaza is of a whole other magnitude.
Who's heart can fail to be broken at both the failure to release the hostages taken by Hamas and the humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded as Israel has bombarded Gaza in retaliation for October 7th? Just as the actions of Hamas on that day, and since, have been totally unacceptable, so to are the actions of the Israeli government in denying aid and causing civilian casualties on such a scale.
It is all too easy for the international community to feel it has to focus on the immediate - the need now for a ceasefire, release of all the hostages, aid a step change in the volume of aid getting through. The longer-term can feel like a lost cause.
But those leaders truly committed to a solution that delivers true, ongoing safety and security for both the Israeli and Palestinian people are right to continue to press for a two-state solution.
Malta, like many of our allies, has long expressed support for the concept of Palestinian statehood. When Israel, admittedly with varying degrees of enthusiasm, seemed committed to the peace process it was right to express support for the goal but to be cautious of formally recognising Palestine as a state.
The events now unfolding have thrown that caution to the wind. Urgent and determined action is needed. With the peace process seemingly in a coma, only the strongest of electric shock treatment will see it spring to life.
Recognising Palestine is just such electric shock treatment, I'm proud that our Prime Minister stood this week, alongside President Macron of France and others, and formally expressed Malta's recognition of Palestine.
I hope that the latest recognitions, including Malta's, will provide ammunition for the regional actors trying to bolster both a ceasefire in Gaza and a wider re-start of the peace process.
Yet, while a democratic Palestinian is the right goal, it clearly isn't yet a reality. That is where the states who want to see that state born need to step-up and ensure that their practical commitments match their laudable words.
And that includes Malta. We are and must continue to play a key part in supporting the moderate Palestinian leadership to craft a viable, democratic state that will be a permanently peaceful neighbour to Israel.
That will take political will, but it will also take practical support - including capacity building.
The plan for Early Recovery, Reconstruction and Development set out by the Arab states and the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation is the only realistic blueprint for rebuilding shattered Gaza. The alternative of sitting by and seeing the appalling idea, proposed by Israeli hardliners, of turning Gaza into some sort of property developers' dream is unfeasible and unthinkable.
In New York, Malta has taken the right first step. Harnessing our lived experience of nation and institution building, every part of Maltese society must now be ready to offer advice and support as Palestine develops the structures it needs to be a sustainable state.
Protesting is one thing, staying on the long-hard slog to statehood is another. Here in Malta we owe it to the peoples of both Israel and Palestine, for whom a two-state solution is the only path to true peace, to be with them on that long journey ahead.
Carmelo Abela is a Labour Member of Parliament and a Former Foreign Minister