Israel and Jordan agreed this week to begin active cooperation in the field of tourism, with plans to promote and market joint tourism packages to sites in both countries.
News of the development came Wednesday, following a surprise meeting on the Israeli side of the Dead Sea between Israeli Minister of Tourism Uzi Baram and his Jordanian counterpart, Mohammed al-Adwan.
“Tourism is a peace industry,” the Jordanian minister told reporters. “It flourishes in conditions of stability and security.”
He said he hoped the plans would benefit both countries as well as other states in the region.
The agreement on tourism was reached a day after the two countries concluded an economic pact that will enable Jordan to export as much as $30 million worth of goods to the West bank.
The economic agreement, which one Israeli official said would lead to the end of a Jordanian boycott of Israeli goods, will apply only to goods produced in Jordan. The goods will only be allowed into areas of the West Bank outside of Palestinian self-rule.
Wednesday’s tourism agreement, according to an Israeli spokesman, will cover tours not only to Eilat, Aqaba, Masada and Petra — popular tourist destinations in the two countries — but also to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, despite the political complications involved in the unresolved status of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The two travel ministers agreed to launch a joint travel promotion and marketing program at an international tourism congress scheduled to be held in Lisbon in November.
REPORTED DIFFICULTIES AT BORDER TALKS
The meeting of the two travel ministers took place as parallel Israel-Jordan negotiations continued among eight subcommittees at the Moriah Hotel on the Dead Sea.
Israeli sources reported difficulty in two key committees, focusing on borders and water. The sources said the parties had, in effect, remained locked in their opening positions.
In the border negotiations, Jordan has been demanding some 150 square miles of land along the border south of the Dead Sea, while Israel is claiming about 100 square miles in the same area.
On the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating track, meanwhile, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres promised Wednesday to extend Israel’s help on the Palestinian economic front — provided the Palestinians do all in their power to control terror in the areas under their control.
Peres made the announcement after a lengthy meeting in Cairo with President Hosni Mubarak that dealt with both the Syrian and Palestinian negotiating tracks.
Peres, who was visiting Alexandria, Egypt, for a meeting of the Israel-Palestinian liaison committee, said after meeting Mubarak that Syrian President Hafez Assad had told the Egyptian leader of his willingness to receive a delegation of American Jewish leaders in Damascus to discuss Israel-Syria relations.
Referring to the long deadlocked negotiations between the two countries, Peres said Assad’s remarks “appear to be an advance, but should not be regarded as a breakthrough.”
Environment Minister Yossi Sarid and Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Gur accompanied Peres at the meeting of the liaison committee, which is comprised of the highest level negotiators in the Israeli-Palestinian talks.
The Israelis met with senior negotiator Nabil Sha’ath and other top-level Palestinian officials, with the talks reportedly focusing on the financial problems confronting the Palestinians. The economic issues appear to be standing in the way of the next phase in the peace process known as “early empowerment.”
Negotiators say they have virtually concluded accords on the transfer to the Palestinians of responsibility for health, education, tourism and welfare throughout the West Bank.
But implementation of early empowerment has been threatened by the Palestinians’ ongoing inability to raise the aid promised by the international community. Donor countries apparently have been unwilling to follow through on the pledges until the Palestinian leadership sets up verifiable accounting procedures.
To help boost Palestinian finances, Israeli officials announced it will now start handing over to the Palestinian governing authority 75 percent of the income taxes collected from Palestinian workers from the autonomous areas working inside Israel.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in comments Wednesday, cast some doubt on the seriousness of current Palestinian security efforts, which Palestinian officials said would be shored up in the wake of two attacks by members of the fundamentalist Hamas movement Sunday.
Rabin said the ongoing wave of arrests of Hamas activists in Gaza was “political” rather that security-oriented.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
