TEL AVIV – Place your bets.
An Israeli businessman said on Monday that he has been conducting preliminary talks with Palestinian officials to build a casino in a Gaza settlement slated for evacuation, after Israel pulls out of the territory next month.
Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, a former Knesset member, said the plan was to turn the Elei Sinai settlement in northern Gaza into a resort town, with a hotel and a casino.
“It’s amazing there, it’s paradise,” he said. “The Palestinian Authority will help us obtain permits for a pool and a casino.”
Avi Farchan, a resident of Elei Sinai, slammed the plan, saying that the government was “gambling in expense od the country.”
Building a casino, he said, would show how “Jews are motivated not by values of the land by the values of money.”
“My house will be used by dealers – that is what’s planned,” Farchan said. “I understood that they would even leave the synagogue in tact so that Israeli frequenters of the casino would have a place to pray.”
PA want houses in tact
Flatto-Sharon said several Palestinian Authority officials, including cabinet ministers, had asked him to ask the Israeli government to destroy the settlement’s 180 houses in order to save on casino costs, which could add up to millions.
“It works for the Palestinians. Now I need permission from the Israeli government. We want the Israelis to visit the casino as well and that’s why I need a license from Israeli for security.”
Flatto-Sharon said Las Vegas business tycoon Norbert Aleman plans to invest in the project and that he plans to approach others as well.
But he said nothing would be finalized on the plan until after Israel’s planned pullout from Gaza in mid-August. He said he sympathized with the settlers and didn’t want to add to their hardship by conducting business with them on the plan.
Flatto-Sharon in favor of pullout
“I understand what’s in their hearts,” he said. “Personally, I am in favor of the pullout. It’s better to work with the Palestinians now about peace instead of wars. It’s important to do business with them and organize a life in peace. We must think how we can work together – enough wars.”
Farchan said he would resist the evacuation, saying: “We will not give up until we are convinced that they’ll leave us here, even among a Palestinian majority.”
Flatto-Sharon fled to Israel in 1972 after a French court indicted him on embezzlement and fraud charges. He entered the Israeli election race in 1977 to avoid being extradited to France.
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