Mt Sinai Turned Into Luxury Resorts and Shops

[argentus]

I am confused.   Are we talking about the monastery at St. Catherine, and surrounding areas?  Because there is NOTHING at Jabal Mousa -- Mount Sinai.   Literally nothing but rock and mountain and history.

ETA:   Okay I see now, on Googlemaps.   Once you get past the St. Catherine/Katherin/Cathrin-Nuweibaa road, you turn go past the St. Catherine Reserve Ticket Office, and begin your sojourn up the hill, past the Morgenland St. Catherine hotel, toward St. Catherine Monastery proper.  

I am of the opinion that it is owned by Egypt, however if they are changing history and religious icons, then it is a travesty.   

Just curious, from which areas are the Bedouin being required to leave and take their dead?

[BeyondKnowledge]

Just like most pretty natural or manmade wonders. Someone wants to put up hotels and parking lots right beside it so they can charge more than they were getting because people actually had to walk a few miles to take a selfie for proof they were there.

Get your 'I went and saw the bush and all I got was this t-shirt' t-shirts here. 

When are they going to put the cable car system on Mount Everest?

[schuyler]

Same as Jerusalem. Skull Rock, Golgotha, is one of the places that Jesus was said to be crucified. It's still there and it still looks like a skull. But below it is now an asphalt parking lot used as a space for tour busses to congregate with their diesel engines still running. The Garden of Arimathea is also still there, complete with a cave and a round rolling stone to cover the doorway, Thought in some circles to be the cave where Jesus was first buried and from which he was resurrected. I'm not suggesting that these locations were THE REAL PLACE or even that they are anywhere, but the juxtaposition with these 'sacred' sites and an asphalt parking lot strikes me as something other than proper.

[FlyersFan]

I am of the opinion that it is owned by Egypt, however if they are changing history and religious icons, then it is a travesty.   

It's owned by Egypt.
They are allowing the building, and the resorts and shopping malls have to pay Egypt for allowing them there.
(leasing the land out??)
They are turning it into a tourist attraction.
Putting a cable car up to the top of Mt. Sinai so you can be where Moses talked with God (allegedly).
Egypt makes money off this.

[quintessentone]

I am confused.   Are we talking about the monastery at St. Catherine, and surrounding areas?  Because there is NOTHING at Jabal Mousa -- Mount Sinai.   Literally nothing but rock and mountain and history.

ETA:   Okay I see now, on Googlemaps.   Once you get past the St. Catherine/Katherin/Cathrin-Nuweibaa road, you turn go past the St. Catherine Reserve Ticket Office, and begin your sojourn up the hill, past the Morgenland St. Catherine hotel, toward St. Catherine Monastery proper.  

I am of the opinion that it is owned by Egypt, however if they are changing history and religious icons, then it is a travesty.   

Just curious, from which areas are the Bedouin being required to leave and take their dead?

The Bedouin's dead have already been relocated and these people and the monks have been living and working together for each others benefit for a very long time. As well, Egyptian government has always lent a helping hand to the Bedouin people there.

Here's an interesting write-up about the bedouin and the monastery:

THE BEDOUIN

"Eutyches, the ninth century Patriarch of Alexandria, writes that when Justinian built the monastery, he settled next to it some two hundred families brought from the Pontos of Anatolia, and from Alexandria, in order to guard, defend, and assist the monks. The modern-day bedouin are considered to be the descendants of those families that were converted to Islam in the seventh century, and that today form the Sinai bedouin families that make up the Jebeliya tribe. Its members to this day trace their lineage to these soldiers, and are proud of their Greek and Roman origins, as well as of this denomination and cultural identity."

"The monastery has become an integral part of their lives as they care for it, due to the fact that the monastery has always respected their rights and sought for solutions to their various difficulties. They are peace-loving and cultivated, and they are courteous, joyful, frugal, and hospitable in spite of their poverty. They consider the monastery and the Archbishop of Sinai as the traditional administrative and judiciary authority of their tribe. They are linked with the monastery in that they work for it, taking part in its everyday life and activities. Now, thanks to the great interest shown by the contemporary Egyptian state for them as well as for the whole of the South Sinai, their living conditions have been greatly improved."
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The Egyptian state promises to keep things just as they are, only make it better for all concerned, and make it a tourist spot. They expect 30 million people per year to visit.
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I've always wanted to visit Egypt but now with the enticement of cable-carring it to the top of Mount Moses, I might seriously think about going.