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GIL SEDAN

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7/17
1998

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he biblical town that Joshua
entered, hit hard by dashed '---\
hopes and unemployment, is
hoping that Lady Luck will
intervene — and fearing she won't.
The Austrian company Casino
Austria has invested some $150 mil-
lion in Oasis, a casino scheduled to
open this fall as the first legal gam-
bling house to operate either in Israel
or in the Palestinian self-rule areas.
The complex, on an area of three
square miles, will include hotels, a
congress hall, golf courses and tennis
courts as well as the casino.
Alexander Tuchek, the Austrian
director-general of the project, says it
will have wide impact in the entire
Middle East, attracting visitors from
throughout the regions and providing
work to 1,000 of the city's 20,000 resi- ,-/
dents.
1
But many Jericho citizens are not so
sanguine.
The town that was full of optimism
in 1994, when it became the first to
enjoy Palestinian autonomy — indeed,
residents once hoped that Palestinian
Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat
would set up his self-rule government
here instead of in the Gaza Strip — has,-,
like the rest of the areas under
Palestinian control, seen its economic
conditions worsen since the Israelis left.
All initiatives to open casinos in
Israel to date have failed so far because
of religious opposition and the concern
of organized crime involvement. Israelis
used to flock each summer to casino
houses in Turkey, but these were
banned last year at the demand of
Islamic leaders.
Jericho is located half an hour's drive
from Jerusalem, 90 minutes from Tel
Aviv. With temperatures hardly ever
falling beneath 60 degrees, it's an ideal
winter resort town.
Looking to boost Israeli tourism, the
Palestinian Authority approved the pro-
ject, but some residents of Jericho are
not as enthusiastic.
"Turkey has closed its casinos, so
why should we open them?" asked Hajj
Mansure Al-Slymah of the Jericho
Chamber of Commerce.

Gil Sedan is a writer for the Jewish
Telegraph Agency