Saturday, April 14, 2007

The World's Most Impossible Job

You have to feel sorry for this woman in the Jerusalem Post article New PA tourism minister aims to 'rebrand' Palestine.
Making sure that local communities benefit from tourism is one of her main objectives as minister. [Ms. Khuloud] Daibes faces formidable challenges in her new job.
That is the understatement of the century.

While trying to market the world's most well-known international terrorist hideout and kidnapping capital as a tourist stop, her job seems to get more difficult with each week that passes. First, two weeks ago,
Tuesday, 27 March 2007, four Palestinians, an elderly woman and 3 children, were killed and 20 others injured...when the earth barriers around a sewage disposal pool broke 150 meters to the north of the village. As a result, sewage water flooded...the village... The level of sewage water was 2 meters high in the village.
Now this,
Mountains of garbage piled up across Gaza on Saturday and acrid smoke billowed from burning refuse bins as a municipal workers' strike over unpaid salaries spread to the territory's five biggest towns,
Terrorist anarchy, rampant kidnappings, extra-judicial street killings, rivers of sewage, and mountains of garbage. There's a tourism slogan in there somewhere.

Ms. Daibes acknowledges that she can't do it alone.
We are counting on cooperation with the outside world to give Palestine the image it deserves,
Actually, Ms. Daibes, that is exactly what you don't want.

3 comments:

Michael said...

Maybe they just need a good, catchy slogan:
"Have a blast in Gaza!"

Or perhaps they are aiming their advertising at the wrong market; I'd be willing to bet that ex-husbands would love to bring their ex-wives for a vacation in Gaza!

Abu Yussif said...

in light of reports of johnston's execution, if they keep all this up they might get a lot of visitors from western militaries.

it's not wrong for me to dream.

Michael said...

I thought they'd get those visitors after dancing on the rooftops on 9/11...

Too bad, isn't it?