US embassy cable - 04TELAVIV6054

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 006054 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA/IPA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/30/2014 
TAGS: ECON, KWBG, IS, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS 
SUBJECT: JOINT TOURISM STATEMENT PART OF BROADER ISRAELI 
CAMPAIGN TO DRAW CHRISTIAN VISITORS 
 
REF: JERUSALEM 04500 
 
Classified By: Economic Counselor Bill Weinstein for reasons 1.4 (b) an 
d (d) 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  On Wednesday, November 24, Israeli Minister 
of Tourism Gideon Ezra and Palestinian Minister of Tourism 
and Antiquities Mitri Abu Aita released a joint statement 
promising Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in support of 
international and religious tourism to the "holy land" 
(reftel).  According to Israeli Ministry officials, this was 
a symbolic gesture designed to set the minds of international 
visitors at ease, and represents the first step in a planned 
series of cooperation discussions on Israeli and Palestinian 
sites of religious significance.  Ministry and media sources 
noted that Ezra is following up the statement with action: 
his office approached the IDF with a request to ease travel 
for religious pilgrims and tourists on the patrol-heavy roads 
from Jerusalem to Bethlehem this Christmas.  In addition, 
Ezra plans to recommend to UNESCO that the Israeli-Arab city 
of Nazareth be named a World Heritage Site.  The joint 
statement and the Israeli Ministry's attendant activities are 
in line with a GOI strategy released last week that targets 
"bible belt" communities as a surefire source of increased 
religious-based tourism.  Gazan Palestinians said that since 
the Gaza Strip contains no sites of historic significance 
they do not expect any positive effects from the joint 
Israeli-Palestinian statement, but they are optimistic about 
Gaza's potential as a "beach vacation destination" for West 
Bankers if Israel eases closures and the PA invests in 
tourism infrastructure.  End Summary. 
 
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Joint Statement a "First Step" In Cooperation on Tourism 
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2.  (C) Israeli Minister of Tourism Gideon Ezra and 
Palestinian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Mitri Abu 
Aita released a joint statement November 24 promising to 
cooperate in promoting tourism to international audiences and 
ensuring the "safe and smooth passage" of religious pilgrims, 
especially between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, during the 
holiday season (reftel).  Arie Marom, director of the North 
America marketing division in the Israeli Ministry of 
Tourism, told Econoff November 29 that the meeting -- the 
first of its kind since the intifada began in 2000 -- was 
carefully timed with the approach of Christmas, and that 
Israeli officials took Abu Aita's own Christianity and his 
Bethlehem residency into account when considering whether to 
go forward.  Marom said that the MoT hoped the meeting would 
"play well" to international tourists nervous about visiting 
Israel due to security concerns, and added that it was only a 
first step in a series of planned Israeli-Palestinian 
discussions regarding tourism at specific sites of religious 
or historical significance. 
 
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Israeli MoT Serious about Bringing in Christians 
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3.  (C) Marom explained that Christian religious sites are 
Israel's "main tourist attraction," a draw surpassing even 
historic Jewish sites.  After four years of the intifada, he 
said, the Ministry is ready to start actively inducing 
tourists back, and must cooperate especially with the 
Palestinian and Israeli-Arab officials in whose 
municipalities Christian sites are mainly located.  To this 
end, Ezra reportedly approached senior IDF officials with a 
request to ease travel for international tourists and 
religious pilgrims between Jerusalem and Bethlehem -- an area 
thick with roadblocks and heavily patrolled by IDF soldiers 
-- during the Christmas season.  He also encouraged the mayor 
of Nazareth, an Israeli-Arab municipality that receives over 
half of the Christian tourists visiting the holy land 
annually, to hold a joint press conference with the mayor of 
the adjacent Jewish municipality of Nazareth Illit in support 
of further tourism.  The Ministry also plans to recommend to 
UNESCO that Nazareth be named a World Heritage Site.  All 
this is aimed at promoting Nazareth and its environs as a 
safe, rewarding place to visit. 
 
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Emissary to "Bible Belt" Will Carry out New Strategy 
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4.  (C) Last week the Ministry released a report in Hebrew on 
its new strategic marketing plan for North America, in which 
it states that the American Christian communities of the 
"bible belt" are a source of "tens of millions of Christian 
supporters of Israel" whose potential as tourists has not yet 
been fully realized, and who will be the chief target of a 
"marketing blitz."  Beginning this summer, a Ministry 
representative will spearhead this campaign from a U.S. 
office, possibly to be based in Texas.  The campaign will 
include multi-media presentations and expositions within 
local communities, as well as "workshops" with church 
officials and Christian travel agencies in support of travel 
to Israel.  In a similar vein, the offices of the director 
generals of the Ministries of Tourism and Foreign Affairs 
released a document this week for distribution to Israeli 
missions abroad, which encourages GOI emissaries at all 
levels to promote tourism to "groups of supporters" of Israel 
-- identified primarily as Jewish and Christian communities 
-- within their host populations. 
 
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Agreement Overlooks Gaza; Businessmen Looking Ahead 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
5.  (C) Gazan hotel owners and restaurateurs are pessimistic 
that the joint Israeli-Palestinian statement of November 24 
and the cooperative steps the Israeli Ministry says it is 
planning for the future will help them.  The Gaza Strip 
simply contains no sites of religious or historic 
significance, Hashim al-Hussaini of Paltrade told Econoff 
November 30.  While the positive international press 
generated by a Ministerial-level Israeli-Palestinian meeting 
"could not hurt Gaza's image", he explained, few in the 
Strip's tourist industry had even heard that a meeting had 
taken place, so irrelevant was it to their everyday business. 
 Arie Marom concurred that the statement was not orchestrated 
with the Gaza Strip in mind.  "Gaza will never be a 
destination for international tourists," he said. 
 
6.  (C) Yet businessmen in Gaza take seriously the potential 
for significant "local tourism" if Israel and the PA take 
certain steps to facilitate it.  Before the current intifada, 
a Reyyes Consulting Company representative told Econoff, the 
Gaza Strip was a stopping-place for Israeli Arabs traveling 
to Egypt, a long weekend destination for staff members of 
international organizations, and a beach holiday for West 
Bank Palestinians.  It is possible to get back to the nearly 
full hotels and flourishing beach restaurants of four years 
ago, he said, if Israel allows its Arab citizens back into 
the Strip through Erez, and if the PA takes a keener interest 
in the development of tourist infrastructure along the coast. 
 He noted that even now construction companies have put up 
four new hotels in Gaza -- the drive exists among 
businessmen, they simply need an organizing force. 
 
7.  (C) Comment: While Israeli officials indicated that 
neither side intended the joint statement on tourism as a 
confidence-building measure, the timing of the event lends it 
positive resonance within both populations.  The Israeli and 
Palestinian Tourism Ministries made a similar joint statement 
of intent to facilitate Christmas tourism last year, but 
unlike this year's statement, it received little media 
attention, and it did not result in any follow-up discussions. 
 
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