Call for Church of Scotland to sell Israeli hotel

The Church of Scotland-owned hotel in Israel

The £13 million Scots Hotel in Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, was founded in the 1890s and was once a Scottish hospital.

It was turned into a modest guesthouse but, in 1999, the General Assembly took the fiercely-debated decision to upgrade it to a top-class hotel.

Since then, it has become a source of continuing argument, having required expensive upgrades despite its profitability being affected by security problems in Israel.

Commissioner Joe Elliott, who brought a motion asking the General Assembly to carry out a review, said the project was the “Church of Scotland’s very own Edinburgh trams”.

“Are we best serving the people of Israel-Palestine and delivering on our commitment to them by running what effectively is a five-star boutique hotel?” he said.

“This just seems to me bizarre, and it is this bizarreness, the fact that we’re a church which is enjoined to exercise best stewardship of the assets we have, and whose income comes substantially from congregations, Sunday by Sunday, with that background, I just cannot see it is best served by running that asset.”

His proposal was backed by a former moderator, the Very Rev Alan McDonald, who said that he had felt “uneasy” about the project from the start.

“As part of the Church of Scotland we are good at many things, but not I would suggest, running five-star hotels,” he said.

However, another former moderator, the Very Rev John Cairns, stressed that the hotel was built in the only patch of land in the area that was owned by a non-Israeli citizen.

Commissioner Donald Carmichael pointed to the hotel’s increasing profitability – £353,000 in 2012, up from £186,000 the year before.

The amendment was voted on by the Assembly and fell.

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