Festive unrest
RAMALLAH In Bethlehem, the West Bank town revered as Jesus’s birthplace, hotels are at full capacity for Christmas despite simmering IsraeliPalestinian tensions over United States President Donald Trump’s labelling of nearby Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
‘‘We have not witnessed any cancellation since the Trump announcement and are 100 per cent booked for Christmas Eve,’’ said Palestinian Tourism Ministry public relations director Jeries Qumsieh.
Trump’s Jerusalem announcement outraged the Palestinians, who claim the sacred city’s eastern sector – home to sites holy to the three monotheistic religions – for a future capital. It also sparked demonstrations across the broader Muslim world.
The Palestinian Authority is anticipating a record 2.7 million tourists this year, a jump from 2.2 million in 2016.
Qumsieh attributed the rise to active marketing in Muslim countries like Indonesia and Turkey, as well as cultural draws such as street artist Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel, which faces the eight-metre-high concrete security barrier, topped with barbed wire, that Israel built along and inside the West Bank.
Qumsieh said interest in the three-storey guesthouse in Bethlehem, where rooms have a view of the graffiti art that covers that section of the barrier, had driven up tourist numbers.
The hotel has addressed Trump’s Jerusalem move on its website’s home page.
‘‘Ever since President Trump’s announcement about moving the US embassy, there has been potential for unrest in the region,’’ it says. ‘‘The situation is currently perfectly fine.’’
Italian Mario Ricci, 38, is visiting Bethlehem for the first time this year. He said he didn’t fear for his safety, but regretted that frictions had been aggravated GETTY IMAGES by the US declaration.
‘‘I chose Christmas time to be here because I wanted to live and feel the Christmas spirit,’’ Ricci said.
‘‘It’s sad what’s happening in this part of the world. This is the city of peace, and what Trump did is only going to ignite the region and not bring peace.’’
Qumsieh said the ministry was AP worried that if tensions were not defused, tourism could suffer. In past years, violence with Israel has had a drastic impact on visitor numbers to the area.
The United Nations General Assembly on Friday voted in favour of a resolution critical of Trump’s Jerusalem announcement, after the US vetoed a similar one in the UN Security Council earlier this week.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he would ‘‘no longer accept’’ any peace plan proposed by the US, instead calling on France and Europe to play a stronger role in peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel announced yesterday that it is leaving Unesco, citing the UN cultural agency’s ‘‘systematic attacks’’ on the Jewish state.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the decision was based on Unesco’s ‘‘attempts to disconnect Jewish history from the land of Israel’’.
Recent resolutions by Unesco have outraged many Israelis, who view them as diminishing the deep Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the biblical city of Hebron. Washington Post, AP