Israel's Tourism Industry Suffers Longest Crisis Ever
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Israel’s atrocities in the West Bank and Gaza driving tourists away |
JERUSALEM,
July 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel's
once lucrative tourism industry sent reeling by almost two years of
Palestinian resistance of Israeli occupation, has pinned its hopes on
a rescue by the Jewish state's diehard supporters coming to tour the
country.
Describing
the tourism crisis as “the longest crisis ever,” Ari Sommer, the
tourism ministry's pointman, lured visitors in an “emotional”
message to “support” Israel.
Israel
now counts on a limited number of foreign groups to come from abroad
on a mission of support.
“Today
it is mostly groups within the Jewish community or pro-Israeli
Christians who make a point to come and to show solidarity,"
Sommer said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
After
22 months of Intifada against Israeli occupation and daily attacks, Israel
has low expectations for the industry, once considered the third major
source of the state's revenue.
Now,
where a record two million people visited Israel
in 2000, the government hopes at best to attract between 900,000
and one million people in 2002.
Likewise,
where Israel
generated 4.5 billion dollars in tourism revenue last year, now it
is struggling to raise 1.5 billion dollars in 2002, according to AFP.
The
numbers offer a bleak picture. Only 399,700 tourists visited Israel
in the first six months of this year, down 42 percent from the
same period in 2001.
About
50,000 people have lost their jobs in the tourism industry since
September 2000 when the Palestinian
Intifada broke out, AFP reported.
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Israel’s attack on the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, one of Christianity's holiest sites, has offended Christian visitors |
Beside
Jewish backers, the few tourists who still venture to the war-struck
land are generally devout Catholic pilgrims from Europe and Asia.
And
Israel's
military actions are threatening that potential source of revenue.
Since
March 2002, Israel has
launched a deadly offensive on the Palestinian Territories, reoccupying
the entire West Bank, thus blocking visits to a main draw for
Christians, the holy city of Bethlehem, which is revered as the
birthplace of Jesus Christ.
Israel’s
atrocities and war crimes in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, and
recently in Gaza have further drawn worldwide condemnation and several
calls for boycotting Israel as a terror state.
In
a move blasted by the international community, including the United
States, Israel used a U.S.-built F-16 warplane to drop a one-ton bomb
on a building in densely-populated Gaza City late Monday, July 22,
killing 18 civilians, eleven of them children, including a
two-month-old infant.
Israel's
official tourism web site now tries to attract visitors by giving tips
for people wishing to organize their own trips, and posting a list
showing the tours to Israel
that are planned for the coming months.
Hundreds
of Israeli representatives have been dispatched to Jewish temples in
the United States to line up people for solidarity visits, Sommer
said.
In
turn, Israel
has tried to target niche communities, rather than simply launch
massive campaigns to attract the general public with posters lining
the metro stations of Western capitals.
Despite
such efforts, few tourists can be seen venturing out on the streets of
Jerusalem's Old City.
Even
with an infusion of diehard supporters, hotels are banking more on
Israelis taking vacations at home this summer to help lift them
through the fallow period.
At
the Red Sea resort of Eilat, hotel owners even voiced optimism about
the summer.
“In
the global context, with the worries about international terrorism and
economic difficulties, most Israelis prefer to spend their vacations
inside the country,” said Yael Edrey, head of the Tourist
Association of Eilat.
Nonetheless,
the horizon remains bleak for hotel owners, with dozens of hotels
having closed over the past two years, according to Sommer.
The
Olive Tree, a hotel in occupied west Jerusalem, says when it opened in
1999, it was running at 80 percent capacity, but now its occupancy
stands only at between seven and eight percent.
Closed
for two months, it decided to reopen in July because it was more
expensive to keep its doors shuttered.
The
hotel's clientele is 95 percent Israeli and five percent foreign, the
flipside of two years ago, said its director Motty Nammer.
And
Nammer fears the hotel will be unable to recoup its investment and
keep afloat for more than a few more months. He has already had to let
go three quarters of the staff.
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The Palestinian Intifada has had a severe impact on the Israeli economy |
Meanwhile,
prominent U.S. biblical archaeologist Jim Strange said Thursday, July
25, he canceled an annual field trip to Israel
for the first time in 33 years because of ongoing violence, and said
several of his colleagues had taken similar measures.
“We
always heard gunfire way in the distance when we worked, but this time
the violence is just too close,” he told AFP.
“Buses
are being blown up less than five miles (eight kilometers) from where
we dig,” he said in reference to Seporis, the ancient capital of
Galilee in northern Israel.
Strange,
a professor of religious studies at the University of South Florida in
Tampa, is best known for his research of a first century civic
building in Seporis, and his studies of the socio-political climate in
Biblical times.
He
said several of his colleagues, including Laurence Stegar of Harvard
University and Israel
Finklestein of the Hebrew University in Israel
and Andrew Overman, also decided to cancel digs in Israel
this year.
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