By Lebawit Lily Girma, Bloomberg Information
In 2005, Aziz Abu Sarah — a Palestinian then residing in east Jerusalem — met with a Jewish buddy who was visiting Israel from the U.S. Though it was the tail finish of his tour, his buddy hadn’t met any Muslims or Arabs on his journey, and he was harboring anti-Palestinian views. “He was so one-sided, though he knew me,” says Abu Sarah. It was a revelation that planted the seed for Mejdi Excursions, a tour operator supposed to bridge the divide between two at-odds populations in a rustic the scale of New Jersey.
It might take 4 years, and the collaboration of Jewish-American co-founder Scott Cooper, to create the corporate, on the coronary heart of which is a “twin narrative” philosophy, which means that every tour group is guided by a pair of locals who symbolize opposing non secular, cultural, political or ethnic views. For years, Mejdi ran greater than 300 annual journeys to Israel that took this strategy.
However after the Hamas assaults of Oct. 7, 2023, the corporate’s enterprise all however floor to a halt. The founders — each former workers of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Faculty for Peace and Battle Decision — have since been principally targeted on world talking engagements, on-line workshops and digital excursions, “in addition to each on-line and in-person conferences for our guides’ group to debate present occasions and discover methods to assist one another,” Abu Sarah says.
Whereas this has been a gradual interval for journey to Israel, the group at Mejdi has not been resting. As a substitute, it’s been planning and activating subsequent steps in its efforts to scale dual-narrative journey to different components of the world, together with South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and the Balkans.
Mejdi’s first dual-narrative tour in Uzbekistan consists of assembly a Russian immigrant and an area Uzbek who speak concerning the sophisticated relationship between the 2 international locations, along with taking excursions of spice markets and conventional teahouses. The primary departure offered out in two days; extra nine-night departures are actually being supplied for October 2025 and Might 2026 (from $2,995 per particular person). And in October, a brand new 10-night itinerary referred to as South Africa — A Journey of Transformation and Reconciliation will deal with the historical past of apartheid as informed by guides and residents of assorted racial backgrounds; visitors may even go on a safari recreation drive and a sundown journey to Desk Mountain (from $4,995 per particular person).
Cooper and Abu Sarah will not be alone of their strategy to academic tourism within the Center East — or of their newfound need to scale it globally. One other such outfit is the 11-year-old Pomegranate Journey, which has an analogous deal with tourism-for-peace in Israel and is now increasing to Saudi Arabia, Rwanda and past.
Take Pomegranate’s 10-person group tour of Morocco (from $9,270 per particular person) in April 2025, which is able to take visitors to the nation’s key historic and cultural cities of Rabat, Fez, Ouarzazate and Marrakech. The itinerary consists of loads of the standard enjoyable sightseeing: a go to to Casablanca’s monumental Hassan II Mosque, cooking workshops in Fez and ATV rides throughout Erg Chebbi’s desert dunes. However it additionally consists of visits to the Jewish quarters of Marrakech and Fez — the place some 250,000 Jews had been corralled after intervals of pressured expulsion from different components of the nation — and conferences with Muslim preservationists who preserve now-abandoned websites of Jewish significance in an effort to honor the nation’s historical past.
“It’s actually impactful when Jewish individuals see Arab Muslims caring about Jewish tradition in an Arab Muslim land,” explains Pomegranate founder Hannah Blustin, who herself is Jewish, as are most of her clients. “Proper now, that actually issues; there’s a lot misunderstanding and concern.”
Extra excursions like this are coming on-line all year long. In April and September, Mejdi is taking teams to the Balkans, with each Serbian and Bosnian guides, to listen to from battle refugees and members of the Sufi group. There may even be wine tastings within the historic hillside city of Počitelj and some leisurely days in Croatia’s Elaphiti Islands close by. And Pomegranate is quickly to start journeys to Saudi Arabia, with a deal with the evolution of girls’s rights and roles in society.
Resuming excursions in postwar Israel
Some vacationers, Abu Sarah says, have been undeterred by the present state of affairs in Israel and have continued to plans journeys in Mejdi’s house turf: “We’re internet hosting just a few teams who’re effectively conscious of the present restrictions, looking for excursions that transcend the headlines.” Blustin agrees. Enterprise was scarce all through most of 2024, she says, however inquiries began to speed up after the UK advisory in opposition to journey to Israel was lowered in December; in response to the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, worldwide arrivals picked up 44% in December in comparison with the identical interval the yr earlier than. The present ceasefire helps, too.
“If this ceasefire turns right into a extra everlasting settlement and journey restrictions within the West Financial institution ease, we anticipate a big return of vacationers,” Abu Sarah says.
Besides, issues gained’t be precisely as they had been earlier than. On their Israel journeys earlier than Oct. 7, Mejdi’s staffers, each Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews, would take visitors — principally interfaith People — to tour Al-Aqsa Mosque, meet the households of Holocaust survivors, lunch with a Christian household and speak to Israeli settlers within the West Financial institution. In addition they visited Dheisheh refugee camp within the West Financial institution to be taught concerning the Nakba, a time period referring to the flight and compelled resettlement of some 700,000 Palestinians after the state of Israel’s creation in 1948, and toured kibbutzim in Israel’s border communities.
Having two tour guides of various views on each journey additionally inspired participation and led to frank conversations, Abu Sarah says, with visitors emboldened to ask questions they may not have felt snug articulating elsewhere. Among the many queries Mejdi fielded most incessantly: Is Islam a faith of violence? Why can’t Palestinians simply transfer to a unique nation? Did the Holocaust actually occur?
When journeys do resume in 2025, Mejdi and Pomegranate should be ready to take care of steeper challenges and extra harmful misconceptions, with social media having fueled numerous false narratives. Within the U.S. alone, these varieties of theories had been behind greater than 10,000 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7, 2023, and Sept. 24, 2024, in response to the Anti-Defamation League — a spike of greater than 200% yr over yr. Equally, a report 8,061 anti-Muslim bias complaints had been filed with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2023, the best in its 30-year historical past.
To deal with the evolving state of affairs, Abu Sarah says Mejdi is already updating its itineraries to mirror the occasions of the previous 15 months. Which means incorporating related experiences and audio system, together with those that will be a part of from Gaza by way of Zoom, in addition to from Jewish communities within the “Gaza envelope,” or components of Israel near the border with Gaza.
Each Mejdi and Pomegranate have remained in touch with their guides, conserving no less than a few of them on workers. However discovering and coaching new ones could also be more durable than it as soon as was, Abu Sarah says. “There’s undoubtedly a rising opposition to joint work within the area — extra anger and even hate,” he concedes. However he stays hopeful. Regardless of the rising resentment, he says, “we proceed to collaborate with dozens of organizations in each Israel and the West Financial institution which can be dedicated to peace-building.” Thankfully, he says, “There may be additionally a rising variety of people who acknowledge that with out Israelis and Palestinians working collectively, we’ll maintain returning to the identical level of battle.”
And it’s not simply the workers, it’s additionally the visitors who’ve the potential to grow to be a number of the world’s most considerate advocates, he provides.
“Vacationers have extra energy to impression the world than diplomats,” Abu Sarah says. “With over 1.5 billion individuals touring internationally this yr, the potential to foster a extra peaceable world is immense — journey transforms each guests and hosts, making us all citizen-diplomats and storytellers.”
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