BBC News Online: World: Middle East

Israeli gamblers find Palestinian 'Oasis'

While religious leaders and politicians maintain a strict line against gambling in the state, regarding it as immoral, the money men who peddle the dream that a million dollars can rest on the turn of a card, are opening their first Casino in the Palestinian Authority.

Appropriately named the Oasis, the casino offers precisely all those immoral delights that the religious have sought to prevent Israelis enjoying.

An Austrian company is behind the huge complex - backed by unnamed foreign investors and some Palestinian money - and is keeping the entire project so under wraps that even the Palestinian Minister of Tourism knows little about it.

But they do promise one thing from the $150m project - it will bring 1,000 jobs to the West Bank and Jericho, where unemployment runs at 30%.

The casino comes after Israelis have spent many years playing roulette and black jack on special casino boats.

Every day, ships loaded with passengers to sail a few kilometres away from the coast and then set the wheels spinning.

Later, the boat sails home, leaving passengers to disembark with perhaps their wildest dreams fulfilled.

The new casino means that for the first time, Israelis will be able to gamble after just half an hour's drive from Jerusalem.

But while the casino will be welcomed by some for the jobs it will bring, other Palestinians are joining Israeli religious leaders in condemning the project, opposite a refugee camp, describing it as immoral and encouraging prostitution.

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