A week’s holiday in Israel’s southern seaside resort during war presents some illuminating thoughts beyond sea and sun.
By David E. Kaplan
Before setting off to the beach I stepped into two bookstores. It presented the first clue signifying a fundamental change from visiting Eilat in years gone by when there were always robust English sections and prominently displaced – no more! Such as there were, were now tucked away; one had to look for it and when found, they displayed few recently published books in English, mainly the old classics – good to read but also having read. So, I saw Melville’s Moby Dick and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – as if obligatory presentations – but no sight of a latest Follett or Baldacci bestseller. Afterall, it was the beach I was heading to, not an English lit tutorial! While hot outside at a sweltering 36 degrees, there was little hot on the bookshelves – in English. The reason was soon obvious; why stock a merchandise if there are no customers and clearly, there are no foreign English-speaking tourists from abroad coming to Eilat.
It was soon evident there were no foreign tourist coming from anywhere!
This observation was all too evident walking along the long beautifully renovated beach tayelet (promenade) splicing a path between the long line of majestic hotels on one side and the emerald green merging into turquoise of the Red Sea on the other. It was packed – day and night – and to walk it was like threading a needle but there was another conspicuous difference from the not-too-distant past. Whereas previously Hebrew was a ‘foreign language’ on the promenade as one walked past conversations in French, English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and German. Today, the lingua franca is emphatically Hebrew as the tourists here in their multitude were all local Israelis.
With enemy ballistic missiles from Yemen directed mostly at central Israel, the concern here may not be existential but it is certainly financial. Being a resort city dependent on foreign tourism, Eilat is being hard hit by the war and is a microcosm of the situation vis-à-vis Israel and the Jewish world. Foreign tourists seeking sea and sun have stopped coming to Eilat and Israelis – feeling increasingly isolated by rampant antisemitism abroad and few airlines flying to Israel because of the Houthi missiles aimed at Ben Gurion Airport – flock to Eilat.
Actually, the bookstores should not have been the first clue of this now presently flawed gem!
Frequent visitors to Eilat over the years will recall when the airport was in the center of town and the planes would approach the runway from the sea, skimming over the roofs of the hotels, it used to be a fun pastime while lying on the beach – particularly with kids – to count the incoming planes and to identify the airline from the logos – that’s how close they flew in to land. I recall times when they used to come in at intervals of 5 minutes, with planes flying directly to Eilat from cities across Europe and Russia. Now the new airport – Ramon International – is approximately 20 kilometers north of Eilat and as my wife and I drove past heading to Eilat, we saw not ONE plane fly in, nor could we see any planes parked. There was not a plane in sight, either in the air or the ground.
It didn’t register as significant then until hours later we processed on the promenade – No Foreign Tourists!
Lying on a deckchair under palm trees at the beach in front of the hotel was sheer joy. Far removed visually and atmospherically from war, my eyes scanned from left to right, taking in the ochre-colored mountains of Jordan, followed in the distance by Saudi Arabia and then across the Red Sea dotted by moving and at varying speeds, yachts, power boats and jet skis – Egypt. All so pleasantly peaceful. Dreams and visions for the future were all to visually evident. On the Israeli side, new residential building was sprouting out the desert scaling the mountain side, while to the left on the mountain of Jordan above the port of Aqaba, was a huge sign embedded into the mountain. The writing was so big that one did not require binoculus sitting in Eilat to read the two words – Marsa Zayed. “What did it mean?” I wondered and was puzzled why it was spelt so boldly in English and not in Arabic. Curiosity got the better of me, so I Googled and leant that Marsa means “harbor” or “anchorage” and that Mara Zayed is a $10 billion redevelopment project named after sheikh Zayed Bin Saltan Al Nahyan, an Emerati royal politician, philanthropist and founder of the United Arab Emirates and served as its first president from its independence on 2 December 1971.
The project will consist of a marina, high-rise, hotels, retail, residential, entertainment and financial districts. This is Jordans only coastline and is only 16 miles (26 Km) long, the country with the fourth shortest in the world but nevertheless plans to make the most of it. Size does not matter – one has only to look at Monaca with the world’s shortest coastal frontage – a mere 2.5 miles of Mediterranean coastline but boasts home to over 12,000 millionaires.
No shortage of coastline is Egypt with its Red Sea Riviera immensely popular for its year-round warm weather, its white sand beaches and world-renowned diving.
I reflected on the name of Eilat’s tayelet called the “Peace Promenade” and the plan for it to eventually run from Taba in Egypt’s Sinai through to Aqaba in Jordan. Both countries are contractually at peace with Israel if not with any great public enthusiasm or support, but the vision and the potential is there, particularly if Saudi Arabia , which I could clearly make out to the south, joins in a post-Gaza war, the Abrahams Accord.
Trade and tourism not tumult I thought as I doused myself with more sunscreen lotion. The only danger today was the sun’s rays and I hoped on my next visit to Eilat, the bookstores will again be replete with English books!
Feature picture: Eilat’s coastal frontage of beaches and hotels with the city center to the left.
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Although I, personally, am not attracted to Eilat, I felt sad reading your article describing the dearth of foreign tourists. It is, was, and should be a major Israeli tourist destination. Let’s hope the foreign tourists will return soon, and the local ones continue to support the tourism industry in Eilat.