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Saturday 22 November 2008

Armageddon is up the road

Paul Wood visits the Holy Land

All this was unfolding as a couple of tour groups, one Swedish, one Japanese, emerged from the Church of the Nativity. The Swedes looked puzzled. The Japanese seemed to think it was all part of the entertainment laid on by the tour company. (In my experience, no war zone is complete without a camera-festooned Japanese tourist. In 2002, during the siege of Manger Square, when Bethlehem was sealed off, a Japanese backpacker arrived in the centre of town, having come straight through the Israeli checkpoints. I’ve also seen Japanese tourists popping up in Sarajevo and in Baghdad.)

After all this, if you have chosen wisely, you will return to the American Colony Hotel, regularly voted the best in the Middle East. The unhurried service will allow you to enjoy a quiet glass of fresh lemonade in the famous courtyard garden, water gently bubbling from the fountain. You won’t entirely escape history here. A white bedsheet from the American Colony was Jerusalem’s flag of surrender to the British General, Allenby, in 1917. More recently, some of the secret negotiations for the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians took place in Room 16 of the hotel. It is, though, a break from all the powerful religious imagery, the landscape and buildings which evoke both history and prophecy. There is even a recognised psychiatric disorder called Jerusalem syndrome, with some visitors suffering psychotic episodes, overcome with the belief they have a messianic mission. If you come here, the idea of Jerusalem syndrome won’t seem as bizarre as it sounds.

Paul Wood is Middle East correspondent of the BBC.

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