WEST BANK: Jenin amusement park helps Palestinians forget economic, political woes

Record ID: 560393

  • Title: WEST BANK: Jenin amusement park helps Palestinians forget economic, political woes
  • Date: 19th December 2007
  • Summary: MINI ROLLER COASTER GOING BY
  • Embargoed: 3rd January 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA3AID242CXD0VO6QTS096LHMLO
  • Story Text: A resident of the West Bank city of Jenin has turned his family home and land into an amusement park that helps provide other residents of the city with a place to have fun.
    Where once stood the Haddad family home on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Jenin, an amusement park now thrives, providing a rare source of entertainment for the Palestinian children and youths of the area.
    Ibrahim Haddad, founder and manager of the park, used to live on the land with his family, but he decided to make the place a destination for entertainment hunters in the West Bank. He even designed and oversaw the construction of the rides himself.
    Before Israel began implementing progressively stringent travel and trade restrictions on the Palestinian territories in the early 1990s, Jenin residents used to travel to Israel and amuse themselves with what the West Bank lacked: amusement and theme parks, public parks and shopping and food malls.

    "Before, people used to have places to go, they used to enter Israel which has beautiful countryside and tourism spots. Everything related to entertainment used to be in Israel and there was nothing like that in the West Bank. Nobody (in the West Bank) wanted to take the chance of competing (against Israel) or founding an amusement park in the West Bank, which is now Palestine, because borders with Israel used to open," Haddad said.
    Israel tightened its blockade of the Palestinian territories following the start of the second Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 2000. Israeli-issued permits allowing Palestinians to leave the West Bank and Gaza Strip became harder and harder to come by.
    Haddad said he founded the amusement park to provide those unable to leave the West Bank with a source of entertainment.

    "I founded this project for the city of Jenin, though the location is isolated, it's far from the city centre and there is no economic movement around it. I did this to meet the demands of the residents of Jenin district.
    We had to do something to entertain the people and make them happy like other people around the world," Haddad said.
    On his 2.4 acres of land, Haddad, formerly a metal workshop owner, employed workers and oversaw the building of fairground rides from scratch, using metal he used to sell in his workshop.
    Beginning in 2004, Haddad this year completed the park and has opened it to business. With Israeli checkpoints stifling economic development in the West Bank, Haddad says he takes people's restricted financial means into consideration when pricing the fair rides.

    "Even old people, rich and poor people, they all come to my place and have fun. They pay small fees that any worker or employee or anybody can afford," he said.
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