Arab tourism to Israel is still thwarted by politics and Palestine
Enduring hostility makes Arabs loth to visit the Holy Land
The indigo festival near the seaside southern foot of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula sounded jolly enough. Its organisers promised five days of “psychedelic music, sun and sea” in a mood of peace and love. Yet the fiesta has proved controversial, largely because the show was being run by Israelis. The Egyptian branch of a global campaign to boycott and divest from Israel denounced the organisers as “racist Zionist occupiers”. After Israeli police recently clashed with young Palestinians near Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, the festival was axed. Israeli-Arab tourism is still blighted by politics and tensions over Palestine.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Wanderers in the desert”
From the April 22nd 2023 edition
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