Arafat Trumpets Jericho Sites for Papal Tour

Granted, Yasser Arafat said, the visit of Pope John Paul II to the Holy Land later this month was shaping up as an arduous, jampacked journey. But might his holiness consent to add one short stop: Jericho, believed to be the world’s oldest inhabited town?

Hosting Arafat at the Vatican last month, the pope graciously accepted the invitation. But first he had a question for the Palestinian leader, according to accounts of the meeting circulating here: Where exactly is Jericho?

The Palestinians were undaunted by the pope’s momentary lapse. If John Paul stops in Jericho during his six-day Holy Land tour, it will give a significant boost to their efforts to put this ancient, palm-studded oasis on the map as a destination for Christian pilgrims and other tourists.

After all, says Mayor Abdel Karim Sidr, Christian tradition may hold that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, spent his youth in Nazareth and was crucified and resurrected in Jerusalem. “But he came five times to Jericho,” the mayor, a devout Muslim, says with unabashed enthusiasm for his town’s Christian tourism potential. “We think the pope should visit Jericho too.”

The itinerary for the pope’s March 21-26 visit is still in flux, and a stop in Palestinian-ruled Jericho has not been confirmed. Some officials arranging the pope’s tour say the eleventh-hour addition would create unnecessary complications in a schedule already burdened by religious, political and cultural considerations.

The carefully balanced itinerary announced so far includes visits to the Western Wall, Judaism’s most sacred site, and Al Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest spot in Islam. The pope will meet Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious leaders, as well as Israeli and Palestinian political figures. Bowing to sensitivities on both sides, he will tour Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and a Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem.

Given all that, the little town where the biblical Joshua fought his legendary battle might be bypassed this time, say officials close to the visit.

If the pope does come to Jericho, he will see a sleepy, slightly quirky desert town, with donkeys, goats and an occasional camel wandering its ramshackle streets. The pace of life is slow here, with elderly gentlemen found almost every day near the town’s quiet center, snoozing over their backgammon games.

But John Paul also will witness a community in the midst of a surge in development, much of it aimed at attracting foreign visitors, including Israelis.

Already, this town of 15,000 boasts a cable car ride, a sprawling resort village, a modern soccer stadium and a $50-million casino, all of which have opened in the last two years. In the works are a high-rise hotel, an international airport and major infrastructure projects to upgrade Jericho’s water and roads system.

A European-style health spa designed to compete with popular Israeli resorts on the Dead Sea just to the south is under discussion, the mayor said.

The casino, which caters primarily to Israelis, is reported to be pouring more than $1 million a month into Jericho’s economy and providing tax revenue to the governing Palestinian Authority. On the nearby biblical Mt. of Temptation, the sleek new cable cars--a $10-million investment by a wealthy Palestinian family--are drawing tourists.

One recent afternoon, Danny Angel, the gregarious owner of Israel’s largest bakery, was leading a group of 54 employees on a day trip to the rocky mount, where Christians believe that Jesus was tempted by Satan. Most of the Israelis acknowledged that they had never ventured to Jericho before and said they had avoided the West Bank since the 1987-93 Palestinian uprising known as the intifada.

“But they’ve done a good job here,” said Angel, gazing out at the view from a restaurant atop the mount. “I think Israelis are starting to realize that they can come back to Jericho and have a good time.”

But none of that is why the pope might be moved to come here, or why Arafat invited him.

Although not as well known to most pilgrims as Bethlehem or Jerusalem, Jericho also contains a number of Christian sites, including the sycamore tree under which the tax collector Zacchaeus is believed to have spoken with Jesus.

The most significant site is on the town’s edge, on the western shore of the Jordan River. There, according to many Christians, Jesus was baptized by John. For more than 1,000 years, Christians have been drawn to the area; the remains of churches and monasteries hundreds of years old have been found nearby.

The baptismal site is inside a closed military zone that has been controlled by Israel since the 1967 Middle East War. Nonetheless, Arafat did ask the pope to visit it, and his reasons illuminate some of the complexities John Paul will face during his Holy Land sojourn.

The spot, known in Arabic as Kasar al Yehud, is one of several competing baptismal sites along the river. Most worrisome to the Palestinians--and, to some extent, the Israelis--is that the pope’s itinerary, which begins with a 27-hour visit to neighboring Jordan, already includes a stop at a newly developed spot on the eastern bank of the river that the Jordanians claim is the “real” site.

Biblical scholars say it is impossible to prove the location of the baptismal site, although they do not discount the Jordanian claim. Instead, they say, Christian pilgrims should simply believe that a visit to the Holy Land brings them close to the sites sacred to their faith.

Nonetheless, Arafat is said to fear that if the pope tours the Jordanian site and does not also stop at the one near Jericho, it will appear that a papal seal of approval has been given to the Jordanian claim. Jericho--and Palestinian tourism--thus might lose out in the race to cash in on the nearly 3 million people expected to visit Israel and the Palestinian areas this year.

Late last month, Jericho’s mayor made the case for his town’s claim.

“There are 27 different stories in the Bible on the baptism, and 22 of these say that Jesus Christ was baptized on the Palestinian side of the river,” Sidr declared. “Of course, I heard this. I didn’t read it myself.”

But even if the pope wants to tour the site, such a visit will require permission from the Israeli army. Until six months ago, Kasar al Yehud was open to pilgrims only a few times each year. Now, it is open five days a week, but visits must still be arranged in advance.

Arafat also hopes to use the papal visit for his own political and diplomatic benefit, as do the Israelis for theirs. Vatican officials have said the pope is determined to avoid such traps, but the Palestinian Authority president clearly wants the Jericho tour in part because it would allow him to stretch out the hours the pope spends in Palestinian-ruled areas--and shorten those spent in Israel.

As it is, John Paul is scheduled to pass the majority of his time at Israeli sites, taking in Nazareth and holy sites scattered near the Sea of Galilee in addition to Jerusalem. Bethlehem, so far, is his only scheduled stop in the Palestinian areas, but eager Jericho entrepreneurs and officials hope that changes.

“Everybody here is now looking to the pope, especially for the Christian pilgrimage market,” said Amir Dajani, operations manager for the cable car company. “We think he can really help give Jericho a very bright future.”