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Israeli settlement hotel plans 'threaten West Bank tourism'
Published Tuesday 01/05/2012 (updated) 02/05/2012 17:26
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli plans to build nine hotels in a settlement neighborhood in East Jerusalem aim to undermine tourism in Bethlehem, a Palestinian researcher warned Tuesday.

Israel on Tuesday pushed forward with plans to build 1,100 hotel rooms in Givat Hamatos, a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem close to Israel's checkpoint to Bethlehem.

Khalil Tufakji, a Palestinian expert in settlement affairs, told Ma'an that an Israeli committee had approved the plan, which includes nine hotels.

The Israeli government is hoping tourists will stay in the hotels and make day trips to Bethlehem rather than stay in the West Bank city, Tufakji said.

He said Israel was also creating employment opportunities to encourage Jewish settlers to move to East Jerusalem as part of a wider push to alter the city's demographic reality and drive Palestinians from the occupied city.

Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state but Israel insists the whole city is its "eternal, indivisible" capital.

Tufakji also linked the hotels to upcoming Israeli elections.

"(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is trying to gain support as Israeli elections are nearing. He has repeated several times that construction in Jerusalem is similar to construction in Tel Aviv."

Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, a move never recognized by the international community.

Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in Jewish-only communities on Palestinian land. Last week the Israeli government sanctioned three Jewish outposts, a move rights groups said created the first new settlements since 1990.

Palestinian leaders say settlements and their related infrastructure and roads networks prevent the viability of a Palestinian state.
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1 ) Colin Wright / USA
01/05/2012 22:08
It really is sickening to contemplate the Zionists' completed Palestine. Everything in the hands of Jews. The Palestinians brutalized and herded into walled ghettos -- perhaps a few let out to add color to 'traditional' festivities. The end product should be some ghastly combination of a Hawaiian tourist Luau and Auschwitz.
2 ) Tibi / Tubas
01/05/2012 22:18
The Jewish hotels will be built, and if
the Palestinian can't compete with them for business,
which should be easy given our relative cost of living,
then our hotels deserve to be undermined and closed.
3 ) mohamed / somalia
01/05/2012 22:21
IN TUNIS/TUNISIA Netanyahoo i choose you as a peace partner says mrABBAS, while ethnic cleansing is continue east jerusalem . so what is the territorial left to you mr.abbas?
4 ) Nour / One State
01/05/2012 22:21
Zionists have defacto annexed the West Bank. The Puppet Association's response to Millikovsky? Send him condolences for the loss of his racist father who likened Arans to camels and locusts!! The people of the West Bank, rise up and demand your full rights in the One State!
5 ) Mark of Lewiston / USA
01/05/2012 23:14
Border crossings can be moved. But it is time that Palestinians put their own border crossing/inspection station next to the Israeli one. This can signal to the tourists from the Israeli side that they are entering a different country when they come to Bethlehem. And just make clear that Netanyahu's new East Jerusalem construction will have to be erased before talks can be successful.
6 ) Joe Fattal / USA
02/05/2012 02:36
The areas a settlement or in Ramallah or in Tel-Aviv itself are not a favorite spot for tourism unless they come from a neighbor Arab country. Israel retaliation in Gaza or rockets fire from Gaza make the whole area unstable. Even Israel is warning visitors not to go in the Sinai. So Israel move to build nine hotels not only one is to strengthen their occupation of East Jerusalem an investment that lacks strong foundation. I would go personally to Beirut than risk it all in Israel.
7 ) Yehuda Solomon / Israel
02/05/2012 03:25
We're also selling naming rights to these hotels. Here are some suggestions: Yasser Arafat's Lost Lair; Palestinian Palace of the Israelites; Hotel Ha-tikva (all guests who correctly sing our national anthem get in free); King Solomon's Empire; Theodore Herzl's House of Zionism; Palestinian Home of Hopeless Unification (all proceeds go to Jordan/Palestine to foster Palestinian unification there); The Happy Hamas Suites of Greater Israel and The Fabulous Fatah Freezer (fully air-conditioned).
8 ) southparkbear / usa
02/05/2012 05:48
actually, if France builds hotel next to Italy it will hurt tourism there. How dare Frace build hotels to begin with?
9 ) Brian Cohen / Israel
02/05/2012 08:43
The number one issue that prevents the viability of a Palestinian state is the Palestinian leadership. Or lack of leadership. The truth is that if Abbas was offered the 1967 lines and a total withdrawal of Jews from the west bank, he would not and could not sign a peace treaty anyway. Hamas rejects any idea of peace with Israel, and Abbas does not control Gaza, and he will not sign on Palestinian state in the west bank only. The Palestinians are their own worst enemy.
10 ) Emile / USA
02/05/2012 09:32
A shame these Zionist can not seem to get enough of what does not belong to them. Their greed demands "all or nothing", like a drunken gambling addict. In the end their greed will cost them everything. Unfortunately it will likely cost an unspeakable number of innocent lives on all sides.
11 ) Outsider / EU
02/05/2012 11:06
Hotels as political tools now as well. Any opportunity to stick the boot in, eh? I wonder what euphemistic name they will come up with?
12 ) Mel / USA
02/05/2012 16:27
Nazi Zionists shame global Jewry this way! 'Ya tourists! Come to our best hotels on militarily-occupied Arab land.You vil get a nice balcony overlooking ze wall,checkpoints,barriers &daily policy of ze "most moral" IOF,brutalizing,humiliating,oppressing ze native Palestinian Arabs!Our unter menchen! Ya? Unt ve'll escort U,round ze fine Jewish-only colonies,unt Arab POW camps'.Zey are 4-star,unt ALL very "humane"! WW2 Gestapo/SS liked showing off THEIR stolen Jewish property too!BOYCOTT ISRAEL!
13 ) @ Mark #5 / USA too
02/05/2012 16:48
You are NOT being REALISTIC about anything:
- Talks will NOT be successful, and
- Neither "putting Palestinian border crossings next to the Israeli crossings,
Nor "signalling tourists that they are entering a different non-state country",
will NOT make it "clear that East Jerusalem construction must be erased."

Realistically everyone should expect things to remain as they are,
with East Jerusalem and settlement construction remaining, and
Palestine never being created !!!
14 ) @ Brian #9 / Promises To The Contrary
02/05/2012 17:04
The Palestinian leadership knows what their people can/will accept, just like
the Israeli leadership.

Even if the Palestinian leadership stopped preventing Palestine's creation, and
Even if they started accepting compromises, like negotiating WITHOUT 1967 border expectations and WITHOUT refugee return expectations, the Palestinian people can/will NOT, NOT after Generations Of Promises To The Contrary !!!!
15 ) Yehuda Solomon / Israel
02/05/2012 17:11
@ 1) Colin Wright/USA, So, in your idea of some type of future "hybrid" Auschwitz/ghettoized/Hawaiian tourist scenario, that you say would also include brutalizing the Palestinians, tell me, have you seen any gas chambers, crematoria, aerial bombings from the IDF or medical "experiments" (Dr. Mengele-style) committed by us on the Palestinians lately ??? ... ATTA BOY, COLIN !!! @ 9) Brian Cohen/Israel, Not really. We have also been equally guilty in blocking the emergence of a (cont.)
16 ) Yehuda Solomon / Israel
02/05/2012 17:22
(second) Palestinian nation, regardless of Hamas' control of Gaza. Translation: We share the No. 1 fault WITH the Palestinians. It would be very easy for us to comply with a settlement freeze (according to how the Palestinians want and intrepret it) but we (for damn good reasons, in my view) won't and never will. What you say about Abbas and Hamas IS totally true. Although it's Palestinian DISunity that makes them their own worst "enemy," even if fully united "peace" would still be far away.
17 ) Yehuda Solomon / Israel
02/05/2012 17:35
(By the way, just for clarification ... @ 1) Colin Wright/USA ... when I previously said, " ... aerial bombings from the IDF ..., " I obviously mean for the purpose of Palestinian genocide, as that WAS the Germans' goal towards us in World War II ... Our aerial bombings in Gaza sure as hell DON'T have that in mind ... Just wanted to be damn sure that's CLEAR ...)
18 ) Joe Fattal / USA
02/05/2012 17:43
@9) Brian Cohen / Israel Wrong, Palestinians have the leadership but they don't have the weapons they need to defend themselves or to defend their sovereign territories. Now politically neither the Palestinians or the Israelis have a ground to stand on, as they both are still in dispute about where is Israel or Palestine and the lines that seperate both of them. And as long as Israel is still building settlements neither one is an independ country from the other.
19 ) Colin Wright / USA
02/05/2012 20:57
To Brian Cohen #9 'The number one issue that prevents the viability of a Palestinian state is the Palestinian leadership...' And so on. None of which does anything to justify the utter indefensibility of the entire Zionist enterprise in the first place. You might as well argue that the shortcomings of Polish leadership in the 1930's justified the Nazi conquest.
20 ) Nora / UK
03/05/2012 01:58
Gi'vat HaMatos is a settlement not far from Mar Elias on the road to Bethlehem, right next to Beit Safafa. It is likely in the Bethlehem governorate rather than the Jerusalem one. Interestingly, the settlement was started by Ethiopian Jews, and many of the homes there now are either trailers or semi-permanent. I'm not sure what the whole story is, but there certainly is one here...Is Israel displacing settlers now? Where will the current residents go?
21 ) Emile / USA
03/05/2012 02:04
#17 Actually Yehuda, you are worse then the Nazis. Much worse. You have ethnically cleansed a land to make it Jewish. You have imprisoned millions of innocents for their whole lives, 64 years and counting. Yes, WWII was very bad, but at least it was over in a matter of a few years. Your crimes have continued non stop for over a century now. Your greed in the end will mean you will lose everything you have stolen and you will be punished for your crimes.
22 ) Mel / USA
03/05/2012 02:53
Hey Israel? Don't forget to add these stats to your tourist 'brochures'? The zealot Christian Zionists especially,might find these "good incentives" to come to the land of Rapturstan?
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/report-israel-killed-five-and-kindapped-285-in-april-of-which-45-children/
For everyone else it's good reason to STAY AWAY from Israel,until the USG ends the Israeli occupation &collective punishment FINALLY after 67 years.
23 ) Can't See The Forest / Because of the Leaves
03/05/2012 05:30
A hotel plan 'threatening West Bank tourism' is too minor an issue to even be reported upon, much less even discussed among states, since water, borders, Jerusalem, and refugee issues still remain !!!!
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