Opinion: Israel to host tourism summit in disputed territory legitimizes occupation

Ma'an- Last January, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development announced that Israel would host its next Tourism Committee Summit in Jerusalem.

...Most ironically given this summit's topic, Israel has calculatingly decimated the Palestinian tourism industry. It has looted, confiscated or destroyed countless Palestinian archeological artifacts and heritage sites that are integral to Palestinian patrimony. To this day, Israel controls who enters and exits Palestinian territory, as well as their movement within our territory. In this vein, Israel has restricted the issuance of travel guide permits to only 42 Palestinian tour guides who are able to work in occupied East Jerusalem. This stands in stark contrast to the over 7,000 such permits Israel issued to Israeli tour guides to ensure that the incomplete, if not patently false, Israeli narrative dominates what is conveyed to the vast majority of tourists.

All of the forgoing of course begs the larger question of why Israel, the largest recipient of American foreign aid, was admitted to the OECD in the first place.

For these reasons, Palestinians welcome the decisions taken by those governments that chose not to attend this Summit. However, through their attendance, many other countries remain complicit in Israel’s attempts to preempt the results of any negotiations process. Read more