Bethlehem: Safe for Tony Blair and Israelis, too
BETHLEHEM, Palestine (eTN) - Last Tuesday, Bethlehem received a distinguished guest at one of its hotels, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was on his first night in Bethlehem.
Blair declared the little town safe for tourists and pilgrims. He urged Israelis to cooperate in facilitating the access to Bethlehem in an attempt to revive the tourist movement and the development of the city.
On Wednesday evening, a group of 20 Israeli high-level businessmen from across the economic sectors of Israel dined with their Palestinian counterparts and Palestinian Tourism Minister Khouloud Daibes at Jacir Palace Intercontinental Hotel before a tour in the city.
That event was unprecedented and the first attempt by Israelis and Palestinians to show determination in grabbing the opportunity to start a new era of cooperation and mutual interests in peace. The initiative came under the support of the Swedish government and its sponsored partner, the Palestine International Business Forum chaired by the prominent Palestinian businessman Zahi Khoury and vice-chairman Amiram Shore, a pioneer in the Israeli Information Technology sector.
At the same time, though separately, church leaders from Australia are spending two nights in Bethlehem and have called for increase in the pilgrimage visits to Palestine by not limiting the visits to the sites but also to the Living Stones, the inhabitants.
By December, the number of tourists arrivals in Bethlehem reached half a million, showing a substantial increase in incoming movement compared to the last five years. The average room occupancy reached its highest mark since the beginning of the Intifada in 2000.
Bethlehemites and the tourism private sector say they are looking forward for a prosperous holiday season and have expressed that they are very appreciative of the significant visits that they consider signs of peace and stability
Comments
One gets the impression from reading the recent spate of positive headlines that Israeli and Palestinian leaders are moving towards some sort of resolution of the intractable issues prohibiting the development of tourism and ordinary life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. However, as Rami Kassis of the Alternative Toursim Group has argued in these pages, the reality for ordinary Palestinians is in fact much more grim. As the headline states, Bethlehem might be 'safe' for Tony Blair and Israelis but is it so for the residents of Bethlehem and the West Bank, which continue to be 'locked down' under the draconanian gaze of the IDF?
As Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and many other close observers of the Occupation argue on a regular basis, unless, Israel is willing to engage in genuine negotiations regarding an economically viable, politically secure future for Palestine involving a territorially contiguous state free from Israeli military and settler presence, such 'cooperation', whilst perhaps a small step forward, will make little difference to life on the ground for ordinary Palestinians. Anything less is a charade designed to defuse critics of the Occupation and massage Israel's image to a wider global public whilst it quietly continues to pursue 'facts on the ground' making any eventual resolution on terms favourable to the Palestinians, all but impossible.
However, the key questions remain unanswered: Will Israel respect the decision of the International Court and pull down the apartheid wall? Will Israeli forces stop their daily harassment of Palestinians at check-points? Will they refrain from continued house demolitions (27 demolitions of Bedouin Villages in the Negev on Wednesday) and land annexations? Will they freeze further settlement construction as stipulated in Phase 1 of the 'Road Map'? Will they pull down the military fortifications around Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and allow Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, to visit the site unmolested by the IDF? Will it allow Palestinians regular and unhindered access to East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank - a simple fact of life denied them since Oslo? Indeed, most foreign travellers trying to enter the West Bank are subject to such a level of hostility (and on occasion, detention) during interrogation at airports and checkpoints (unless of course they choose to visit with Israeli-based tour companies) that it takes considerable determination to enter. And what of the reluctance of insurers to grant travellers full travel insurance? Will they be dealing with this significant impediment? Until these and many more substantive issues are confronted and effectively dealt with, no amount of platitudes from either Olmert, Blair or Bush will alter the 'facts on the ground' as the Israeli government often refers to them.
Finally, it comes as no surprise that Blair et al are so favourable towards 'opening up' Bethlehem (to outsiders). As Kassis points out, Bethlehem and Jericho are integral to Israeli tourist promotion. Ultimately the (discredited) free enterprise model propogated by Tony Blair as a solution to the Palestinian 'problem' can only be designed to bolster the Israeli tourist industry, albeit extending a modicum of opportunity to the embattled businesses of Bethlehem, whilst continuing to deny the Palestinians full, democratic freedoms (not least the freedom of movement as stipulated under Article 13 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, 1948), and a clear vision towards a viable sovereign state.
Dr Raoul Bianchi
London
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