Aweyrat has mainly Yasir Arafat to blame. Forty percent of the investment in the 10-story Oasis project is Palestinian, according to Casinos Austria, which has a 15 percent stake in the project. Officials with an international economic-development organization in the West Bank say that companies run by members of Arafat’s inner circle are involved in the project’s construction and management. (Arafat’s economic adviser did not respond to requests for comment.) In addition, First Option, the consulting company building the casino, is run by Yasser Abbas, the son of Arafat’s deputy, Mahmoud Abbas. Alexander Tucek, general manager of the project, acknowledges that the backing of powerful Palestinians has helped push the project through over the objections of many locals. “It couldn’t have been done without Palestinian investors,” Tucek says.
The uproar over the Oasis casino underscores just how out of touch Arafat’s Palestinian Authority is with the people it purportedly represents. Jericho’s 30,000 people, who, like the residents of Gaza and seven other West Bank cities, live under complete Palestinian control, are skeptical that the project will do anything but benefit Arafat’s cronies. “I am angry that the Palestinian Authority allowed this casino to be built,” says Muhammad Barahmeh, a plumber. “There is no profit for the poor people here, and everyone will come to regard Jericho as a place for corruption and sex.” Anger at Arafat is mounting. Hanan Ashrawi, a top international advocate of Palestinian rights, resigned from Arafat’s cabinet last week over what she says is rampant corruption in his regime. A report by Arafat’s own government auditor last year reportedly found that 40 percent of the Palestinian Authority’s budget was wasted or skimmed off by officials, including ministers. The final straw for Ashrawi came when Arafat, under pressure from the Palestinian Parliament to clean house, named a new cabinet, only to retain those ministers accused of the most widespread corruption. “I refuse to look the other way,” she said at a press conference. “Nobody should be above the law.”
Casino or no, Jericho could sure use a boost. The town, which sits just north of the Dead Sea, has virtually no industry. Unemployment is at 30 percent. Laborers work on banana plantations or get permits to work in Jerusalem. Tucek predicts the casino will create 1,000 jobs for locals and draw hordes of tourists. But the plan could backfire. The casino might deter visitors like David Hall, an evangelical preacher from Oklahoma who brings Christian pilgrims to Jericho on his Holy Land tour. “Sodom and Gomorrah were near to Jericho,” says Hall. “Now Satan has brought the sin of gambling to Jericho.” Mahmoud Aweyrat, for one, would agree.
