Zionism, Tourism, and the Battle for Palestine: Tourism as a Political-Propaganda Tool

Introduction

In December 1917, Britain triumphantly entered Jerusalem, and by 1918, it had conquered the remainder of Palestine. In 1922, granted mandatory powers by the newly established League of Nations, Britain assumed stewardship of the country which continued until 1948. Within the Zionist movement these events, which seemed to have brought the possibility of a Jewish state that much closer, were greeted with jubilation; and not without reason. Finally, after almost 400 years of slovenly, backward, often corrupt Ottoman rule, Palestine, the Jewish homeland, would be ruled by one of the world's greatest imperial powers. It was also a modern western and, no less importantly, democratic power.

Living up to the hopes invested in it, Britain, in an effort to drag the country into the 20^th century and repair the extensive damage wrought by the ravages of the First World War to boot, launched a massive program of reconstruction. To this end, the British modernized and westernized Palestine's archaic economic, social and physical infrastructures. They reformed and expanded its antediluvian public administration service, and they invested a great deal of time and money in trade and industry, giving particular emphasis to the promotion of consumer goods. As a result, under British rule, Palestine, no longer a benighted Middle Eastern backwater, flourished as did the country's Jewish community. Jewish urban and agricultural settlements multiplied and, on the whole, prospered. The Jewish economy thrived, with the Jews actively, and as a rule successfully, engaged in the country's various new economic enterprises. These developments helped transform Palestine's Jewish community into an increasingly viable economic and political entity, well on the way to achieving its and the Zionist movement's national goals.

Not that it was all plain sailing. These years also saw the advent of an indigenous Arab-Palestinian national movement furiously opposed to the establishment of a Jewish national home, in its land. The battle between these two antithetic national movements was fiercely fought, in the streets, in the political arena, and in the economic sphere. Nor was it always possible to separate these three areas of conflict, as evident from the two sides' strident bid to capture the country's new, burgeoning tourist industry.

One of the primary considerations behind a tourist's decision to visit a certain area is his or her perception of that area. In other words: the image an area projects is one of its main sources of attraction. This image, however, is neither materially objective, nor set in stone. More often, than not it is formed and reformed by who ever involves or even controls the country's tourist industry, that is its travel agents, tour guides, press, and guidebooks. These, unwittingly or not, inject specific cultural or political perspectives into their country's various sites, which together create an overall, and indubitably subjective, image of the country. Moreover, tourism may be, and often is, exploited in order to create and export images that both correspond to and advance distinctive political and ideological goals. This was certainly the case in mandatory Palestine, where both Jews and Arabs utilized the tourist industry in order to promote their national ambitions, often at the expense of the other.

British rule saw a paradigmatic sift in Palestine's tourist industry. Increasingly westernized, mandatory Palestine was also an increasingly attractive place to visit. As a result, if, previously, pilgrims had formed the bulk of the country's visitors, there was now an ever-growing stream of secular tourists.¹ Both Jews and Arabs sought to take advantage of this new influx of visitors, hoping to benefit from them not only economically but also politically. Local Arabs and Jews competed over the right to serve tourists as well as over the opportunity to promote their image of Palestine. But, it was a battle in which the Arabs had a distinct edge over the Zionist movement, having...