Intifada would have killed off Kirk's hotel

Published on Sunday 17 October 2004 00:35

THE Kirk’s controversial luxury hotel in the Holy Land would have been scrapped if it had been known how long violence between Palestinians and Israel would drag on, the minister running the project admitted last night.

The 9.5m Scots Hotel in Tiberias officially opens in less than a fortnight as Israeli forces wind up a 17-day crackdown on insurgents in Gaza which has killed 109 Palestinians.

When the luxury hotel was proposed in 1999, critics within the Church argued that it was a waste of money to build in the troubled country and could open the Kirk to accusations of siding with Israel.

But the church pressed on, saying the hotel - on the site of a 19th-century hospital owned by the church - would provide a place of reconciliation for Jews, Christians and Muslims.

The 69-bedroom hotel on the Sea of Galilee - which charges 100 a night for a room and has a swimming pool and private beach - officially opens on October 28, a year behind schedule and following one of the bloodiest-ever months in Gaza, just 200 miles away.

It was supposed to open last year but was held up because of building delays caused by Israeli restrictions on Palestinians getting into Israel. The discovery of a sixth-century graveyard also led to a complaint of sacrilege from ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The opening celebrations will involve fireworks and Celtic music. Israeli ministers, the mayor of Tiberias and heads of Christian churches will be present, but due to "a restriction in numbers" no rabbis or Muslim religious leaders have been invited.

Despite the impending celebrations, Rev Fred Hibbert, who is running the hotel and has overseen its construction, appears to admit in an interview that, with hindsight, the project might never have got off the ground.

In frank remarks to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hibbert says work began shortly before the current intifada erupted in 2000. But he says he did not believe the violence would last for long, telling the paper: "If we had known we probably wouldn’t have continued."

Hibbert’s comments contrast strongly with his upbeat assessment in an interview with Scotland on Sunday in which he insisted: "It has been an exhausting but exhilarating time. It [the hotel] was not a folly. A folly is something that is built for no purpose at all. This has a purpose.

"It is a statement of intent by the Church of Scotland to remain in Israel and maintain a presence in the region as has been the case since 1885. Besides, Israel and Palestine are in trouble and the church should not walk away from people in trouble."

Pressed on his interview in Haaretz, Hibbert confirmed it was accurate. "Construction had already begun a few months before the intifada began. If the intifada had begun a year earlier, I strongly suspect that the Church would not have gone ahead with the project," he said. "Having said all that, I don’t regret having done what we did."

Critics of the project were "a small vocal minority", he said, adding: "The idea that we are robbing the poor to pay for this hotel is a total misunderstanding. The hotel will continue to provide a place for people from all sides to meet and relate to each other. I have a great deal of sympathy for the people in Gaza. I hope that this hotel opening will be seen as a sign of hope and not as a sign that we don’t care."

Last night, the Church’s critics latched on to Hibbert’s comments as evidence that they were right all along to oppose the scheme.

Rev Alastair Keil, of St Andrew’s Church in Edinburgh, said: "This [statement from Hibbert] seems to say we would be shoulder to shoulder with them, but if there was an intifada it would be different. That is a very strange statement that would seem to deny all that. I would not want to be saying: ‘I told you so’, but people had expressed the view that Israel had never been stable and with the whole Middle East there is always uncertainty.

"The original argument used by the Church to win everyone over was not the financial thing or starting the hotel, but of standing shoulder to shoulder with the indigenous Christians."

General Assembly commissioner Findlay Turner of St Cuthbert’s, Saltcoats, said: "The man is probably being quite honest. We think the Church should be represented at the seat of Christianity in some way, but right from the beginning people were saying what on earth would the Church want with a large hotel development and why spend so much money in a place of high risk?"

Rev Ewan Aitken of Edinburgh added: "I am still very concerned that the Church of Scotland will be seen to be allying itself with the Israeli state and not playing the mediating role that it wants to play."

The intifada has devastated Israeli tourism and the number of British visitors to the Holy Land fell from 168,000 in 2000 to 77,000 last year.

The hotel unofficially opened its doors in June and Hibbert refused to say how well it was doing, only saying occupancy had been "healthy", with a mix of Jews and Arabs as well as foreign and local tourists.

However, it was reported as having 35% occupancy in June.