Israel's unlikely home away from home
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BANGALORE - Israeli tourists are descending on an unlikely destination this year - strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir. For the second year in a row, Israelis have topped the list of foreign tourist arrivals to India's troubled hot spot.
According to figures issued by the Kashmir Tourism Department, more than 960 Israelis - a little less than one-tenth of the foreign tourist arrivals this year - have visited Kashmir, reports Reuters from Srinagar. Last year, 1,097 Israelis visited Kashmir. More are expected to troop in this year before the end of the peak tourist season in October.
Overall, about 200,000 tourists have visited Kashmir this year. Tourism is the main industry of the state, which is nestled in the Himalayas. Its snow-clad mountains, forests, orchards, grassy meadows, lakes and glacier-fed streams used to draw more than 800,000 tourists annually. About 40% of these were foreigners - prior to the eruption of the insurgency in 1989.
But with grenades and gun battles between militants and Indian security forces dominating the news coming out of Kashmir, tourist arrivals fell to a trickle. Foreign tourist arrivals dipped further when, in 1994, six western tourists trekking in the Himalayas were kidnapped by the al-Faran, an Islamist militant group that subsequently changed its name to Harkat-ul Mujahideen.
One of the hostages was beheaded, another escaped, and the fate of the rest remains unclear. Media reports on Kashmir and travel advisories issued by governments have kept many tourists away from the area for more than a decade.
An improvement in the security situation in Srinagar, the state's summer capital, and the India-Pakistan peace overtures have contributed to a recent surge in tourist arrivals. The flow of tourists, even foreign tourists, to the Kashmir Valley is understandable to some extent. The flow of Israeli tourists is not. Given the fact that Israelis see themselves to be vulnerable targets of Islamists, their flocking to Kashmir at a time when jihadi terrorism is far from quelled is hard to comprehend.
The armed uprising in Jammu and Kashmir started off as an anti-India insurgency led by a supposedly "secular" Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. But quickly the uprising turned overtly Islamist, as pro-Pakistan groups such as the Hizbul Mujahideen dominated the militancy. From the mid-1990s onward, the jihadi element in the militancy started growing. Today it is the jihadis that dominate the anti-India violence.
Israel's role in India's counter-terrorism operations in Kashmir would make Israeli tourists all the more vulnerable in the state. In 2000, reports in the media said an Israeli counter-terrorism team, including military intelligence specialists and senior police commanders, visited Kashmir to assess India's security needs. Since then, several such visits are said to have taken place. Kashmiris insist that "Israeli agents" were in Kashmir much earlier.
India is drawing heavily on Israel's counter-terrorism expertise, intelligence and surveillance technology to tackle the infiltration of militants from Pakistan and to combat terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Israel's significant input into India's counter-terrorism operations in Jammu and Kashmir would make militants hate Israelis all the more.
But India as a tourist destination is not new to Israelis. The hippie haven of Goa has for several years drawn thousands of Israeli tourists. Restaurants selling Israeli food and shops with signboards in Hebrew are not an uncommon sight in Goa, where Israeli backpackers are warmly welcomed. But their arrival in droves to Kashmir over the past two years has taken many by surprise. This year, signboards outside a few shops in Srinagar were in Hebrew, apparently to woo Israeli tourists shopping for Kashmiri handicrafts.
The warm welcome that Kashmiris are extending foreign tourists, even Israelis, can be attributed to their desperation. They are anxious to make some money when the going is good. Kashmiris don't expect the tourist boom to last long and they are keen to make tourists feel at home.
Another reason is that Kashmiris are by and large a tolerant people; the Islam that is practiced there is a gentle, tolerant religion. With regard to India, for instance, they make a distinction between the Indian state and the Indian people. They say they have no problem with the Indian people. It is likely that in the case of Israel too, they differentiate between the Israeli state and the Israeli people and hold the former responsible for its policies toward the Palestinians.
It is the foreign mercenaries fighting in Kashmir and, more important, the jihadis that have an ax to grind with Israel and its people. Jihadi terrorists operating in Kashmir pose a threat to foreign tourists, and Israelis in particular. Shop owners who have put up signboards in Hebrew admit they are wary of drawing the wrath of the jihadis. But economic uncertainty forces them to take risks.
But why are Israelis willing to take such a risk? Back in 1991 about seven Israeli tourists were kidnapped, though they managed to escape.
An Israeli backpacker in Srinagar told Asia Times Online that he was drawn to Kashmir because of its scenic beauty, and because travel and accommodation there suited his limited budget. When asked about the dangers of travel in Kashmir, he replied that he was careful and did not stay out late. Besides, the situation in Kashmir was far safer than that back home in Israel, he pointed out.
Unlike other tourists who feel harassed when subjected to numerous airport checks and are intimidated by sandbagged bunkers and the presence of armed Indian paramilitary personnel on the streets of Srinagar, the Israeli tourist seems able to take this in stride.
For the Israeli tourist, then, violence-ravaged Kashmir is a home away from home.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent researcher/writer based in Bangalore, India. She has a doctoral degree from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Her areas of interest include terrorism, conflict zones and gender and conflict. Formerly an assistant editor at the Deccan Herald (Bangalore), she now teaches at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
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