20 August 2015
Tourism v. Terrorism
by Neil Tidmarsh
Summer holidays, August 2015. The sun is hot, the swimming pool is invitingly cool and fresh, the sunlight glitters and sparkles on the warm waters of the Mediterranean which meets a cloudless blue sky on a shimmering horizon. Sicily… the South of France… the Balearics… Gaza…
Gaza?
A few days ago, the Times reported the opening this summer of Gaza’s first tourist resort. It has to be the best news of the week. The Blue Beach Resort is a 162-room, beachfront, five acre tourist complex – with two Hamas military training facilities on one side and a ramshackle collection of refugee shacks on the other. You might think it bizarre, dangerous, even obscene to holiday between armed terrorists and suffering refugees, but on the other hand how wonderful, how cheering it is to think that somewhere in Gaza – that tragic strip cursed with terrorism, suffering, poverty and violent conflict – there are five acres reserved strictly for the enjoyment of life.
Most of the visitors are local residents, paying “up to $200 a night to escape the bleakness of their surroundings.” Most residents can’t afford that, of course, but a project like the Blue Beach Resort must bring much-needed employment for many of them. Perhaps this kind of commercial enterprise will succeed where years of violent conflict and interminable negotiations have failed, and bring peace, prosperity and stability – the fruits of any state’s firm economic foundation – to Gaza. Three cheers to the Palestine Real Estate Investment Company (based in Amman, Jordan) for bringing this small ray of hope into an otherwise hopeless country. We salute their courage, determination and enterprise. It took them seven years to build the resort, which isn’t surprising considering the Israeli and Egyptian blockades (Israel’s controls on shipments of cement made obtaining building materials a particular problem) and the hardline Islamic group who governs the territory (the hotel bar still hasn’t opened and will never serve alcohol because Hamas enforces a strict ban).
“The hotel has already drawn complaints from its neighbours” the Times reports. “On Thursday night the hotel disco proved too much for the militants, who said that the noise was interrupting training.”
How terrorists hate tourists! Is it any surprise? Travel broadens the mind, brings you into contact with other people, other places, other ideas, makes you more tolerant. How frightening that must be to anyone who has erected a barricade of narrow-minded and intolerant dogma between themselves and the world. For anyone dedicated to hatred and destruction, how infuriating it must be to see other people enjoying themselves, freely mixing with each other, openly celebrating life and the world, relishing God’s gifts to us.
The terrorist instinctively knows that the tourist is his most dangerous foe, his most potently symbolic antagonist. The countries the terrorist tries to destabilise are typically poor ones which depend economically on tourism. The countries the tourist comes from are often the ones the terrorist has a perceived grievance against, are the ones whose culture the terrorist’s ideals are opposed to. The tourist is vulnerable, far from home, and valued as a citizen by his or her government, which gives the terrorist an advantage and leverage.
All this is borne out by the recent attack by the gunman at the Tunisian resort, and by what must be this week’s worst news – the bombing in Thailand which killed and injured tourists from Britain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, China, Malaysia, the Maldives and Oman. The bomb was placed in a Hindu shrine, but it was in an area crowded with tourists. The Thai prime minister, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, said that the terrorists “aimed for innocent lives. They want to destroy our economy, our tourism.” The nature of the conflict was recognised by the brave Dutch tourist who was quoted in The Times as saying “Why should we leave? If you show fear, you give these people what they want.”
But terrorists themselves have every reason to be scared by the kind of courage shown by the Dutch man, by the Palestine Real Estate Investment Company and by the workers and visitors at the Blue Beach Resort. Because that courage undermines the aims and beliefs of the terrorist. While Hamas fires rockets into Israel, hoping to provoke an angry reaction, and while Isis tries to stir up trouble between Hamas and Fatah, people like the Palestine Real Estate Investment Company are trying to get Gaza up and running economically. And perhaps, once it starts earning a good living and paying its way, Gaza will not need the leadership of Hamas or the PLO or Hezbollah or anyone dedicated to hatred and violence, and will drop out of its vicious cycle of warfare and suffering. Then the kind of ceasefire which it emerged this week that Tony Blair is trying to broker between Gaza and Israel might actually happen. The blockades will disappear and Israel and Egypt will open their borders. And the freed people of Gaza will be able to go out into the world on their own holidays to enjoy themselves as tourists. And the people of the world, hopefully, will flock to the Blue Beach Resort, bringing their terrorist-defeating cash, curiosity and goodwill with them.
