On the menu: art

British graffiti artist Banksy launched The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem as a political statement rather as a straightforward tourist destination. Located next to Israel’s eight-metre-high wall in the occupied West Bank town where Jesus was born more than 2,000 years ago, the hotel is a genuine expression of pointed Banksy whimsy. The three-storey hotel has just 10 guest rooms with views of the graffiti-covered wall, ruled illegal in 2004 by the International Court of Justice and considered illegal by the world community.

The hotel is located in a modest building on Caritas Street, half a kilometre from the gate where armed Israeli soldiers decide who enters and leaves Bethlehem. The hotel’s opening was timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war and the 100th anniversary of the signing by Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour of his country’s pledge to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. A former province of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed after World War I, Palestine became a British colony by conquest, legitimised by the League of Nations.

Broken promise
In the document known as the ‘Balfour Declaration’, Britain also promised ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and reigious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’. This promise was ignored as the Palestinian majority was brutalised and ethnically cleansed when occupied by Israel in 1948 and 1967. At the entrance of a museum dedicated to the wall sits a mannequin of Balfour signing the declaration. The museum features photographs, posters and a film on the evolution of the situation in Palestine, recognised despite the occupation as an independent state by 137 of 193 UN members.

A talented artist and graffiti master who hides his identity, Banksy stated, “It’s exactly one hundred years since Britain took control of Palestine and started rearranging the furniture — with chaotic results. I don’t know why but it felt like a good time to reflect on what happens when the United Kingdom makes a huge political decision without fully comprehending the consequences.”

The Walled Off Hotel, decorated in the mode of a British colonial club dating from the early-20th century, is intended to attract foreign and Israeli tourists to Bethlehem and give them an idea of how Palestinians live behind the wall. About 85% of the wall snakes into the West Bank, isolating Palestinian cities, towns and villages. When  completed, the wall will be 700 kilometres long. In Banksy’s view, the wall “essentially turns Palestine into the world’s largest open prison.”

The hotel’s posh lobby contains a bar, a piano that plays by itself, leather couches and chairs, and tables for meals. Three cherubic angels with gas masks hang from the ceiling, a disturbing reminder of the wars that have engulfed Palestine. The Presidential Suite, priced at $969 a night, on the top floor, has a massive bed, a jacuzzi large enough for four, a bar and a film-projection space. Another room sports a wall painting by Banksy showing an Israeli policeman and a Palestinian in a pillow fight. A dormitory room with army-style bunks, costs $30 a bed. Guests may stay only three days before moving on.

The hotel is fully booked. Residents can take two tours organised by the hotel, which has 45 local employees and encourages tourists who cannot find a room at The Walled Off Hotel to book into nearby hotels and patronise local restaurants.

Warm scones and perfectly brewed tea are served at tea time and the Walled Off Salad is a speciality along with Palestinian dishes. The hotel vetoes ‘fanaticism... on the premises’ and requires a $1,000 deposit to ensure artwork on the walls is not stolen or vandalised. Anyone ‘found attempting to steal... or deface hotel property, will be arrested, transported to the police station in Ramallah (the Palestinian administrative capital) and prosecuted to the full extent of the local law’.

British singer-composer Sir Elton John performed by video-link at the hotel’s opening in March, assuring Palestinians they are “not alone, nor forgotten.” A message Banksy has projected since his first visit to the West Bank in 2005. During that visit, Banksy left behind nine graffitis. They include images of a girl in a pink dress patting down an Israeli soldier; a masked man throwing a bunch of flowers (presumably at Israeli soldiers); a flying dove of peace sporting a flak jacket; and a girl clinging to the strings of a bunch of balloons carrying her up and over the wall. While Banksy’s graffiti messages have become global, thousands of artists and spray painters have decorated the wall wherever it stands.

Sneaking in messages
Bansky visited Gaza in 2015 following Israel’s devastating 50-day war on the narrow coastal strip. He crept from Egypt into Gaza through a smuggler’s tunnel at a time commercial tunnels were still functioning, circumventing Israel’s blockade of Gaza. While there, he made a two-minute documentary entitled, Make this year YOU discover a new destination, and wrought three now famous graffiti: one of a large cat playing with a metal ball on a chunk of wall left standing after Israel’s blitz, a second of a hunched grieving figure, and a third of children swinging from an Israeli watch tower.

Believed to have been born around 1974 in Bristol, Banksy is said to have dropped out of school to join the city’s underground art community. He began as a freehand artist focussing on social and political issues, but in the late 1990s he switched to stencils as a means to achieve instant street art after nearly being caught by police while vandalising a railway carriage. In 2000, he moved to London where he produced satiric versions of famous paintings by grand masters such as Monet and Leonardo da Vinci, making a name for himself and selling his works for thousands of pounds. Banksy’s identity has not been confirmed although journalists have named him as Robert Banks or Robert Gunningham.