Jericho celebrates 10,000 anniversary with low-key facelift (Feature)

By Maher Abukhater Oct 21, 2010, 3:06 GMT

Jericho, West Bank - Giving a 10,000-year-old a facelift is not easy - but the people of Jericho are trying.

This month the Biblical oasis city of Jericho is celebrating 10,000 years of human habitation - as such it lays claim to the title of the world's oldest still-inhabited city.

However, what was once planned as an all-out extravaganza to celebrate Jericho's unique status has turned into a rather low-key affair.

Archeologists estimate that this desert town of around 20,000 people, located in the West Bank just a few kilometres from the River Jordan and lined with palm trees, was first inhabited around 8,000 BC.

The oldest existing ruin, a defensive tower, is 7,000 years old.

'What distinguishes Jericho is not only that it is the oldest city in the world, it is also the lowest city below sea level,' says Jericho Mayor Hasan Saleh.

'You will not find any other city combining these two magnificent characteristics,' he added proudly.

The mayor also takes pride in the city's title as 'the eastern gateway to Palestine,' and recalls how a visiting French official told him that when he thought of the importance of the history of Paris, which is 2,000 years old, he stood amazed observing a city of 10,000 years.

He and organizers chose October 10, 2010 (10/10/2010) as a symbolic date to the launch of the 10,000th anniversary celebrations.

Sadly, the event failed to attract the mass participation one might expect elsewhere around the world for a such a unique anniversary. Locals blamed the organisers.

'I expected to see half a million people in Jericho' said Yousef Aldek, a celebrated Palestinian filmmaker, who was asked to contribute to the celebration.

Instead most of those watching the events were local residents.

Preparations for what was supposed to have been a celebration began in 2007. Those plans included new hotels, restaurants, an amusement park and other infrastructure projects as well as a light and sound laser show, fireworks, international music groups and heads of state and officials visiting from around the world.

In the end, it was only a local group plus some musicians from Norway performed.

However, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad held his cabinet meeting in Jericho to mark the occasion and inaugurated several projects.

The foreign ministers of Spain and France did visit, albeit en route to Jordan, and a Russian official toured the Russian museum under construction near the city's Sycamore Tree.

Christian pilgrims believe that the tree is so ancient that Jesus himself once stood under its branches.

Another tourist draw is the Mount of Temptation, just outside the city - the site where according to tradition Jesus spent 40 days and nights fasting, resisting the temptation of Satan.

Christ's baptism site in the River Jordan, and the Dead Sea, uniquely rich in salt and minerals, are just a few kilometres away.

But despite this massive potential for tourism, for years following the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, the biblical town looked more like a ghost city.

Since then security has improved significantly, and tourism has picked up, with Palestinian tourism police estimating 2009 visitors at 1.5 million.

Unfortunately an apparently strained Palestinian treasury as well as poor and late planning have reduced the celebrations to a handful of hardly-noticed events, which have failed to give the ancient city the facelift, let alone the rebirth, it had hoped for.

But, promised Palestinian Tourism Minister Kholoud Deibis, more is to come. 'The idea of Jericho 10,000 is not meant to be a one day celebration only,' she said.

'The celebrations will go on for three or four years with all kinds of projects for Jericho and the Jordan Valley.'

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