Gulf Tourists to Jerusalem Put Palestinians in Difficult Position

The Dome of the Rock (gold) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque (grey) are located near each other in Jerusalem (Wikipedia)

Gulf tourism to Jerusalem is expected to boom as commercial flights begin between Israel and Gulf states following the recent normalization agreements Israel signed with Bahrain and the UAE. The agreements were signed in the United States on September 15. While Jerusalemites, both Israeli and Palestinian, eagerly await the increases in tourism revenue following months of economic hardship brought on by COVID-19, political concerns surrounding tourism to Al-Aqsa may increase tensions between Israel and Palestine. 

The U.S.-brokered normalization agreements defied the Arab Peace Initiative, which was a pact among Arab countries to not recognize the state of Israel until it withdrew from occupied Palestinian territories. While Palistinian leadership called the deal “a stab in the back,” the UAE and Bahrain argued that the deals would help form a coalition against Iran and would promote economic prosperity in both Israel and Gulf states.

Now that travel between Israel and Gulf states is possible, many Gulf tourists are flocking to Jerusalem to observe Muslim holy sites. The Al-Aqsa site, an important location for Muslims, contains the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine. It marks the location of Mohammad’s ascent to heaven in Islamic tradition, and is the third holiest site in Islam to Sunni Muslims, following only Mecca and Medina in its importance. The site, referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount, is also the holiest site in Judaism, where two biblical Jewish temples of great significance once stood, according to Jewish tradition. 

Following the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, Israel gained control of the Al-Aqsa site, which is located in East Jerusalem. In 1967, Israel and Jordan agreed that Jordan would be allowed to oversee and administer the site through a waqf (a religious trust for property in Islamic tradition) run by the Jordanian government, while Israel would have external security control. 

Visits by Muslims to the Al-Aqsa site remained controversial even after the agreement, as people feared that they would legitimize the Israeli occupation, which the international community maintains is illegal. It was only in 2014 that a meeting of top Muslim scholars issued a fatwa (religious edict) lifting a previous ban on Muslims from entering the Al-Aqsa site, citing the now-common argument that it would be akin to visiting someone in jail, which does not necessarily acknowledge the jailer.  

While Gulf Muslims who want to worship at the Al-Aqsa Mosque are encouraged to do so, concerns have been raised over the fact that some Gulf tourists were seen entering the Mosque from the al Moghrabi gate, the only gate patrolled exclusively by Israeli police, with an Israeli security escort. 

While he acknowledged that Gulf tourists may simply be unaware of the complexities surrounding the Mosque, Ikrema Sabri, the imam who leads Friday prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, cautioned that “Any visitor from outside Palestine must coordinate with the Waqf” to ensure that tourism to the Mosque does not advance claims of Israeli sovereignty over the site. 

Meanwhile, Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, who remain deeply critical of Gulf normalization with Israel, need this tourism money to make ends meet. Sami Abu-Dayyeh, a Palestinian busnissman is East Jeruslaem, summed up the attitudes of many struggling Palestinians when he told  the AP, “Forget about politics, we have to survive.”

According to Israeli media, an agreement has been reached between Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Palestine that allows Gulf tourists to travel to Al-Aqsa as long as the Mughrabi gate is not used.