sorta, first thought was, a good analogy, then .. do you see a future for casinos in the West Bank and Gaza? .. then, lol and behold, i didn't know ..
March 16, 2005 West Bank gambles on casino city From Ian MacKinnon in Jericho
THE blue baize of the roulette tables is spotless. Poker slot machines flash enticingly. Only the Israeli gamblers are missing — but they will flock back to the ancient city of Jericho at the first opportunity.
The Oasis Casino in this West Bank city was one of the intifada’s first casualties when violence forced it to shut. However, with Jericho set to become the first city returned to Palestinian control today under the stuttering Sharm el-Sheikh peace plan, the hope is that the gaming venue could also be part of the revival.
It may take time. Palestinians are banned and the Israeli punters who spent £500,000 a month at the casino at its height four years ago are likely to remain barred from the city for some time for security reasons.
Even at the eleventh hour, there was renewed doubt yesterday that Jericho’s much-delayed handover would go ahead after Israel threatened to halt it amid suggestions that the Palestinians would release two senior figures jailed for ordering the 2001 assassination of an Israeli minister. After some confusion, Israeli security sources said that the transfer would proceed, but further moves might be suspended if the men were freed.
The uncertainty further tarnished the peace efforts as Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, arrived in Cairo last night for talks with militant factions that he expected to lead to an historic formal ceasefire to build on the tacit truce now in place.
Jericho, a city of 35,000 near the Dead Sea, was left reeling by the outbreak of the intifada. Unemployment hit 60 per cent as tourists and gamblers, who once numbered two million annually, melted away.
Despite early clashes, the sleepy oasis near Jesus’s baptismal site on the River Jordan remained largely quiet. For that reason it was chosen as the first city to be transferred to Palestinian security forces.
Last-minute wrangling delayed it for weeks. A dispute over whether the nearby village of Awja would be handed over was resolved after it was agreed that armed Palestinian police would patrol the area.
Now Jericho’s casino remains the great hope for an economic revival. The £55 million Austrian-Palestinian joint venture, just a 35-minute drive from Jerusalem, exploited regulations outlawing casinos in Israel. It also traded on the Israeli obsession for gaming.
“Israelis have a passion for gambling,” said Brett Anderson, the casino manager, a New Zealander who oversaw the 1998 opening. “The state of Israel is a gamble, so perhaps that’s why Israelis go at it with such intensity.”
The round-the-clock operation, with 285 slot machines and 124 gaming tables, attracted an average of 3,000 Israelis daily, with up to 6,000 playing on a big weekend.
It employed 1,600 Palestinians — the West Bank’s largest private employer — and more than 400 expatriates. Today a skeleton staff of just 50 keeps the mothballed casino ready for business. Yet already Mr Anderson has had Palestinian applicants for jobs that do not even exist.
By Daniella Cheslow Published: May 19, 2010 07:53 ET in Middle East
JERICHO, Israel — Jericho claims to be the oldest city in the world, where Joshua is said to have made the walls come tumbling down and where King Herod the Great built his winter palaces.
In more recent times, Jericho was the winter seat of the Jerusalem and Amman aristocracy. Yet a globalized Palestinian elite coupled with a volatile political situation turned Jericho into a provincial has-been resort town. Efforts to reinvent the city in the 1990s foundered during the Second Intifada.
Now, after a long economic standstill, Jericho is shaking loose Israeli control and restarting tourism efforts.
"Jericho is the lowest city in the world, and it's on the border crossing between Palestine and Jordan," said Mayor Hassan Saleh.
Saleh said the city was launching a "Jericho 10,000" campaign this year with the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism to celebrate the city's long history. Russia is bankrolling a new museum, and the United States and Japan are funding solar energy projects. He hopes to double the city's annual 1 million visitors. Moreover, he said, out-of-town Palestinians had been snapping up plots of land for second homes in five new housing developments.
"Jericho is special because it's the only place in the West Bank that has enough land to expand," Saleh said.
To some extent, the efforts are already bearing fruit. In February, Jericho recorded 58,317 visitors, far above the previous two years. Part of that is because the Israeli army removed the main checkpoint to the city this June, which has been replaced by a Palestinian-manned station. The result is that Jericho is feeling the economic upswing that has spread across the West Bank, according to Palestinian economist Samir Abdullah.
"The tourist facilities dried up [in the Second Intifada]," Abdullah said. "Maybe this is the first winter that the touristic facilities in Jericho feel the demand. ... You feel it also from the land prices. They are picking up all over the Jericho area."
Nowhere is the city’s unmet potential and hopeful future more evident than at the 10-year-old, 180-room Intercontinental Hotel, which rises imperiously at the city's southern entrance. On an oven-hot afternoon in March, three hotel workers dangled their feet into a waterless children's pool. Nearby, an adult's pool was filled with water but was devoid of swimmers. A month later, during Easter, resort manager Yousef Salman said the hotel saw business boosted to its highest levels since the Second Intifada.
"April was excellent, we had 77 percent occupancy," he said. "Last year was 61 percent."
Salman says part of this is a general tourism boom in Israel. Pilgrims who cannot find rooms in Jerusalem go to Jericho. Without a major regional war, he hopes the trend will continue.
"The city is helping out tremendously," Salman added. "They are opening new roads, and security is top-top."
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