Samer Khoury is not a diplomat, which makes his self-assigned mission of restoring the little town of Bethlehem that much harder.
Despite incredible odds, this businessman has been able to attract the support from heavyweight patrons of all faiths, including Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C.; Prince Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a senior member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia; and, more controversially, Sheikh Muhammad A. Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, the Sunni Muslim in charge of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
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The task requires a tenacious spirit. On one hand, the unassuming Athens-based construction magnate, one of the family that owns the $5.3 billion Consolidate Contractors Company, is dealing with the Israeli occupational government, which has a say in much of what happens in Bethlehem. The Palestinian city lies just beyond the wall that separates Israel and Palestine, in between Jerusalem and the Jordan River.
Khoury also has to cope with Palestinian politics, which are in a perpetual state of disarray depending on support — or the lack of it — from the international community.
The long conflict and military occupation have exacted a heavy toll on Bethlehem, which could otherwise be one of the most visited tourism destinations in the world. The GDP per capita in the West Bank and Gaza is $4,300. Bethlehem remains a poor city, where some families live in one-room homes and many young people lack jobs.
Last month U.S. President Donald Trump signaled he was backing away from the U.S. commitment to a Palestinian state, as he rebuked Israel for its continual appropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank. Many observers took Trump’s moves — which have knocked both sides and neighboring Jordan off balance — as a sign he intends to reopen peace negotiations.
A political morass
Fractured politics mirror the fractured religions: The main attraction in Bethlehem is the Church of the Nativity, said to the be birthplace of Christ. It has been governed for centuries by three denominations whose defense of their “zones” in the church is legendary and has sometimes come to blows: the Franciscan order of Roman Catholics, the Greek Orthodox Church and Armenian Apostolic Church.
“They are not businesspeople,” said Khoury, sounding pained, recounting the difficulties of getting the lights strung to decorate the Church at Christmas.
But, moved by his family’s Greek Orthodox and Palestinian roots, Khoury has a new vision for Bethlehem: Within 10 years, he wants to see 3 million tourists a year thronging the narrow streets. Three years in, he said, “We’re 5 percent to 10 percent there.”
Paying it forward
Khoury’s late father, Said, founded the Bethlehem Development Foundation, a nonprofit that has so far spent $30 million. It aims to raise and spend another $70 million by 2027. “It’s a sad city when you enter,” said Khoury. “This is the center of Christianity, important for 2 billion people. My father said: ‘It is going to be a ghetto if nobody does anything.'”
Khoury, who picked up the reigns after his father died in 2014, wants to do everything from spur tourism with a new hotel and new agreements with Israeli bus companies, to helping develop jobs-training programs for students at a local university.
The streets of Bethlehem are lined with tiny shops, many selling olive wood trinkets and beautifully carved nativity sets, but they are struggling. Bassem Giacaman, one of the shopkeepers, said before the Second Intifada, his shop had revenue of $400,000 a year, and employed 12. Now, it brings in about $100,000 a year, enough to employ three people and earn him a tiny profit, perhaps $10,000. Still, he stays, he said, because he wants to keep his family’s workshop alive and because he loves the Church of the Nativity. In 1948, the Christian population of the Holy Land was 18 percent; it’s now 2 percent, according to the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.
Giacaman has tried to make his shop welcoming for everyone: it carries menorahs, nativity sets, Arabic calligraphy— and welcomes tourists who need to use the toilet. “We just try to open the door and keep things going,” he said.
Khoury said he was in part inspired to continue his father’s work when he talked to people like Giacaman. The Foundation, with the initial donation of $30 million from the Khourys in 2011, is helping the Palestinian government manage the much-lauded restoration of the Church, refurbished Manger Square, where tourist buses park, helped start a small museum, and financed a strategic solid waste management plan for the area. It’s now working on plans to build a small shopping center and car park, a solar power station that could power small factories, and a small hotel of about 100 rooms.
Some of the projects may be funded via investments – he said he believes some projects could yield 10 percent annually—and some via donations.
Though between 1 and 2 million people visit the Church every year – exact numbers are hard to come by – few stay overnight and little economic benefit comes to the town of about 25,000 people.
A philanthropic cause
Khoury’s late father was a Greek Orthodox Palestinian who immigrated to Lebanon, founded CCC, and then moved it to Greece. “He was a true believer,” Samer Khoury said of his father.
CCC, now run by his three sons, has about 100,000 employees worldwide and had revenue of $5.3 billion in 2016, Khoury said. It builds projects of enormous scale: CCC builds or is a partner on projects such as the giant 60 kilometer Riyadh Metro in Saudi Arabia, a giant expo center in Kazakhstan, and — in the near future — oil platforms off the East Coast of Africa, Khoury said. CCC is a part owner of the power plant in Gaza, the southern part of the Palestinian Territory.
In Bethlehem, the scale of projects is much smaller. Sometimes, in the complicated politics of the town, the goals can get tripped up by something as small as a string of lights.
For instance, stringing lights on the Church of the Nativity opened a fraught negotiation between the three denominations. An extra light hanging on the wrong side of a wall might have been taken as a sign one of the denominations had ceded territory in the church to another. In the Church of the Nativity, the walls, the windows and even a crack in the floor are claimed by one of the three. “It is funny,” said Khoury, without laughing even a little bit. “It is not practical.”
He is a little frustrated, but he is not giving up.
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SOURCE: CNBC – Elizabeth MacBride
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