Israeli & Palestine Tours in English Break Barriers – Geotourism Challenge Spotlight

Beduin Children Engaging Passengers!

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Fred Schlomka has been involved professionally with Israeli/Palestinian relationships for ten years. His mother’s family has lived in Palestine/Israel for seven generations and his father was a refugee from Nazi Germany. In addition to managing ToursinEnglish.com, he is active in the Israeli peace and justice movement. In 2003 Fred was awarded a Social Entrepreneur Fellowship from the Echoing Green Foundation and established Mosaic Communities, an Arab/Jewish housing organization. He has lectured on Israeli/Palestinian issues in Europe and the USA, and his articles have been published widely. Fred lives near Tel Aviv with his wife and two children.

Says Fred: “Most visitors never meet the Arab citizens of Israel or Palestinians in the West Bank.TIE is the only Israeli tour agency that specializes in building relationships with Palestinian counterparts, has endorsed the Palestinian tourism Code of Conduct, (http://www.toursinenglish.com/2008/01/code-of-conduct-for-tourism-in-holy.html), and ensures that visitors hear the Palestinian narrative directly from residents of refugee camps, Bedouin villages, farms, and towns. In addition our guests can stay in family homes and thus become embedded in communities that ‘regular tourists’ have no access to. Indeed the Israeli tour industry actively discourages people from visiting Palestinian areas both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories.”

“In addition to the tours, the briefings, analysis, and visits to Palestinian and Israeli peace and human rights organizations, help visitors understand the situation on the ground, and gives them direct access to source information rarely seen or heard in the international media.”

“For almost ten years I have been giving tours of the West Bank to diplomats, journalists, and activists from abroad, both privately and in various capacities for human rights organizations. This included a period when I was Operations Manager, then Board Member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and also as Executive Director of Mosaic Communities”
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“During 2007 I noticed that various Jewish settler organizations were publicly advertising tours to West Bank settlements with two goals in mind. They were trying to encourage more Israelis to move to the Occupied territories, and also stimulate investment from wealthy individuals from abroad. The settler organizations have been very successful over the years, as is indicated from the continuing and dramatic increase in the number of settlers, which is now over 500,000 people.
I decided that there needed to be a counterpoint to the settler tours”
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“As I researched the tourist market, I found that while several Palestinian and Israeli non-profit organizations (NGOs) were offering ‘alternative tours’, there was no agency that offered a comprehensive selection of tours and accommodations aimed at educating visitors and providing a cultural experience that would benefit the local population. Keep in mind that the Palestinian economy has been in a nose-dive since the Al Aksa Intifada of 2000, and the subsequent Israeli restrictions on movement of labor, materials, and commerce.”

“I realized I was in a unique position due to my wide range of trusted contacts in the West Bank, my knowledge of the region, my experience with tours, and my ability to ‘get things done’. Any enterprise that assists Palestinian economic development, consistent with the principals of a just peace, is welcome by most people in the West Bank. However as an Israeli, I am initially suspect for obvious reasons, outside my circle of Palestinian colleagues, and therefore needed to proceed carefully.”

“So I decided that there needed to be a counterpoint to the settler tours, and started a little web-based business initially with a single tour of the Greater Jerusalem area that was based on the tour I helped develop for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. As I added more tours, I carefully expanded my existing circle of Palestinian colleagues, and developed the mission of the enterprise consistent with politically viable cross border relationships. As a result the business has kept expanding its reach, and an ever-growing network of people and communities are benefiting from the activities.”

“Visiting the Negev Bedouin is an eye-opener for most people. The ‘Bedouin Reality Tour’ takes visitors to an unrecognized village, a representative shanty town where people live without any utilities or government services. The village of Alsera is unique. The only educated man in the village, schoolteacher Khalil Alamour, has devoted himself to raising the standard of living for himself and his family. The visitors see the solar panels, piped water, and an ingenious wireless internet network that Khalil has introduced, and have lunch in his home. They also visit a Bedouin animal market, one of the few truly indigenous activities of the Bedouin men who bargain for the purchase of goats and camels.”

“During the tour the visitors learn about the 65,000 Bedouin (Israeli citizens) that live in the ‘unrecognized villages’, and the government’s activities designed to evict them from their patrimony though demolishing their homes and poisoning their fields. They learn about the feared ‘Green Patrol’, the paramilitary arm of the Agriculture ministry that enforces the government’s mandate to herd the Bedouin into the seven reservation townships. Visitors also have the option of spending a up to three days at the village as guests in Khalil’s home.”

“Developing partnerships with tour agencies abroad that have a clientele looking for new and different experiences would be helpful. Most of the marketing so far has been aimed at internet browsers and leafleting hostels and hotels. However this has a limit of effectiveness. The well optimized website already manages to steer many people ‘Googling’ for information on tours in the region, but many travelers still use travel agencies and tour packagers to organize their trips. A network of these types of organizations in different countries, promoting the offerings of TIE would be beneficial.”

“Local people help design of the tours, and are hired as guides. Relationships built on mutual respect have resulted in itineraries where the visitors interact with community residents as a planned and informal part of the tours. The communities have overwhelmingly responded positively evidenced by the close personal relationships that the Director now has with farmers, villagers, and townsfolk throughout the West Bank and Negev Desert. The benefits for local people include personal contact with internationals who otherwise never visit their communities, cash flow into the families, and political support for their cause for freedom, and hope for the future.”

“Travelers are able to visit communities, and see the infrastructure of Occupation in a manner that encourages discussion, debate, and awareness. Through having tea with a Palestinian farmer and walking his fields, having lunch with a Bedouin schoolteacher, or discussing housing issues with a resident of a refugee camp, the visitors become engaged in an informal fashion with local people. The dynamic and discussion during the tours are facilitated by the guide, so that the travelers feel that they are engaged in a travelling seminar, both educational and enjoyable.”

“Israel and Palestine have acute water issues that are highlighted during the tours. From the Sea of Galilee and West Bank aquifers being depleted by Israel; to the the shrinking Dead Sea; to the poisoning of Bedouin fields by the Israeli Agriculture Ministry. Ecological and environmental/political issues are often central to the daily concerns of many Palestinian and Bedouin people. Visits to wells, sink-holes, and villages without water are integrated into many of the tours. After sixty years of Occupation indigenous locals are keenly aware of the deterioration of their natural culture and a topic of discussion during visits.”

“ToursinHebrew.com is the next step, offering similar tours aimed at Israelis, who often do not know Palestinian culture, and are ignorant of the mechanics of the Occupation. Once the tours are self-supporting in Palestine/Israel then alternative tours will be offered into the Sinai and Jordan. The model of combining cultural tourism with political awareness can be applied to many regions. AlternativeTours.com has already been purchased with the view to expand or find partners in other countries. Cultural tourism in regions of conflict is a small but growing genre and ToursinEnglish.com intends to stay on the cutting edge.”