El Alamein resort planned

[capt_starlight]

El Alamein resort planned

 

James Madden | February 19, 2008

 

AN Egyptian billionaire plans to build a $500million seaside resort near the World War II battlefield of El Alamein, where almost 6000 Australians lost their lives.

 

The proposed development, funded by businessman Ibrahim Kamel, includes 4000 hotel rooms, a golf course, a shopping mall and an entertainment complex.

 

The site - Ghazala Bay, on the Mediterranean Sea - is on the fringe of the El Alamein battlefield, where the Allies defeated General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in 1942, reversing a German drive on the Suez Canal.

 

Between July and November 1942, the Australian 9th Division suffered almost 6000 casualties at El Alamein.

 

Despite the historical significance of the location, Australian RSL national president Bill Crews said that as long as the development did not affect the cemetery and the various memorials at the site, there was no reason why the resort should not be built.

 

"Australia cannot lock up all of its significant wartime battlefields," Major General Crews said.

 

"Ultimately, it's a matter for the sovereign nation to decide if developments at such sites are appropriate.

 

"But we would expect that the cemetery, the museum and the memorials at El Alamein would not be affected.

 

"I am sure the Egyptian Government would be sensitive to that."

 

Egypt's Mediterranean coast provides about 500km of beaches, mostly undeveloped.

 

The Red Sea is Egypt's main tourist destination, luring more than half of its 11 million visitors each year.

 

Egypt received 9.7 million tourists in the first 10 months of last year, an increase of 13 per cent on the same period the previous year.

 

Additional reporting: Bloomberg

 

From => http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...5013404,00.html

[KingSargent]

Gee.......... Maybe they'll have reproduction Shermans and Grants and Stuarts and Crusaders and PzIIIs and M13s! And put on shows!

 

And.. and maybe they'll have a BumperTank game where you can drive the reprotanks and run into each other!

 

Or... or you can get into a reprotank and have a duel with lasers and simulators!

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But probably it will just be Islamic Police dressed in motheaten DAK "Crusader" suits from Raiders of the Lost Ark making sure all the women who want to sunbathe are wearing burkas.....

[pikachu]

It's in Egypt, where burkhas are pretty much a thing of personal preference and women go to the beach in bikinis. On the other hand, the more devout women do show up on the beach in full ninja gear.

[swerve]

...

But probably it will just be Islamic Police dressed in motheaten DAK "Crusader" suits from Raiders of the Lost Ark making sure all the women who want to sunbathe are wearing burkas.....

 

It ain't Saudi Arabia: Saudis go there to drink, gamble, etc. When I was in Egypt, I saw more local women bareheaded than with covered faces, though most wore headscarves. No topless beaches, though, except perhaps the more obscure corners of some of the more hippieish foreign-dominated beaches.

[BansheeOne]

I frankly don't see the issue in building a resort near a battlefield. For all its implicit hyperventilating about the dignity of the war dead, the article doesn't even say it will be on the battlefield. Hell, I'd imagine it would provide a good base for those interested in touring the historic sites.

[DougRichards]

Something about the article in the original post didn't ring true:

 

from: http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-confli...2-cat-index.htm

 

 

"Australian losses for the whole period of the El Alamein operations from 7 July were 5809, including 1225 dead, 3638 wounded and 946 taken prisoner."

 

Australian casualties were heavy, but to say that 6000 Australians lost their lives is to misunderstand the meaning of the word: "Casualties".

[cbo]

I frankly don't see the issue in building a resort near a battlefield. For all its implicit hyperventilating about the dignity of the war dead, the article doesn't even say it will be on the battlefield. Hell, I'd imagine it would provide a good base for those interested in touring the historic sites.

 

I can hardly see why building on a battlefield would be an issue? Whe you look at modern warfare, "battlefield" is a bit of misnomer, as is the concept of "a battle" in many cases. If you couldn't build on a battlefield, then there are large chunks of Europe that would have to be left undeveloped - just look at Normandy, for example. Basically, the whole place was a battlefield and today campingsites, hotels, pizza parlours and what-not mixes with museums, cemetaries and other memories of the battlefield.

 

Seems to me that that since this made news in Australia, aussies must be particularily sensitive to this sort of thing. Perhaps because they live in a big country with very few battlefields...

[DougRichards]

I can hardly see why building on a battlefield would be an issue? Whe you look at modern warfare, "battlefield" is a bit of misnomer, as is the concept of "a battle" in many cases. If you couldn't build on a battlefield, then there are large chunks of Europe that would have to be left undeveloped - just look at Normandy, for example. Basically, the whole place was a battlefield and today campingsites, hotels, pizza parlours and what-not mixes with museums, cemetaries and other memories of the battlefield.

 

Seems to me that that since this made news in Australia, aussies must be particularily sensitive to this sort of thing. Perhaps because they live in a big country with very few battlefields...

It barely made the news here: I heard about it on Tanknet.....

[DougRichards]

It's in Egypt, where burkhas are pretty much a thing of personal preference and women go to the beach in bikinis. On the other hand, the more devout women do show up on the beach in full ninja gear.

Or they can wear what are known as 'burkinis' - suitable swimwear for Islamic women on public beaches - and no I am not joking. We even have some Islamic girls training to be surf lifesavers wearing the things.

 

Probably good at helping prevent skin cancers as well.

[swerve]

Or they can wear what are known as 'burkinis' - suitable swimwear for Islamic women on public beaches - and no I am not joking. We even have some Islamic girls training to be surf lifesavers wearing the things.

 

Probably good at helping prevent skin cancers as well.

 

I've seen 'em in Turkey. Definitely a minority taste there, but there were a few. Not much different from Victorian swimwear in coverage, but I think considerably more practical & comfortable, since they use modern lightweight quick-drying fabrics, & the designers appear to have thought about practicality & comfort as well as skin coverage. Some of them cling quite alluringly when wet . . .

[BP]

Hmmm, good place for our first African I&I.

[Mikel2]

I think it would be hard to find a place in Europe that hasn't been a battlefield at one time or another in the last 3000 years.

Edited February 19, 2008 by Mikel2

[Ken Estes]

Does anybody think that all the mines were cleared from the Western Desert?

[Colin]

Does anybody think that all the mines were cleared from the Western Desert?

 

Well this project should clear a few more..

 

Achmed, please walk in front of the bulldozer!!

[Archie Pellagio]

Does anybody think that all the mines were cleared from the Western Desert?

 

 

Every few years some tourists drive over a land mine.

 

As for egypt being radically islamic? Ahuh...

[swerve]

I think it would be hard to find a place in Europe that hasn't been a battlefield at one time or another in the last 3000 years.

 

Yeah. I cross one battlefield (Sunday 9th December 1688) on my way to work, & I'm about to go shopping on it, Alfred the Great lost to the Danes here 4th January 871, there were battles just outside the town where I work (Newbury) in 1634 & 1644, one on the edge of my home town 1st November 1642 . . .

 

If we avoided building near battlefields, we'd have to evacuate England.

[Xavier]

Does anybody think that all the mines were cleared from the Western Desert?

considering they are sitting in the sand in the middle of nowhere(as a matter of speaking) there should be tonnes and tonnes of UXO & mines left there, we still dig up UXO from both world wars every year, including the occasional 1000 pounder aircraft bomb

[Ken Estes]

considering they are sitting in the sand in the middle of nowhere(as a matter of speaking) there should be tonnes and tonnes of UXO & mines left there, we still dig up UXO from both world wars every year, including the occasional 1000 pounder aircraft bomb

The Dutch have only treasures from one world war, but the more than 7000 aircraft that crashed on its soil or wetlands must stand as the ultimate concentration of airframe scrap.

 

The USMC used to do ampib landings for training on the southern shores, back in the 50s, and old marines I once knew talked about the realtime mine dangers. We also had a USAF base there back then, can't remember the name but I bet Joe Brennan does....

[cbo]

considering they are sitting in the sand in the middle of nowhere(as a matter of speaking) there should be tonnes and tonnes of UXO & mines left there, we still dig up UXO from both world wars every year, including the occasional 1000 pounder aircraft bomb

 

AFAIK Egypt actually tops the list of countries with the most mines still in the ground, mainly because of events 1940-1943.

 

http://www.mineaction.org/country.asp?c=72

 

The major source of contamination from explosive remnants of war in Egypt can be traced back more than 60 years to World War II, as well as to the Egypt-Israel wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973. Contamination affects an estimated 2,680 square kilometers of land in the North West Coast.

 

Very few mined areas are marked or mapped. Egyptian civilians continue to use mine- and UXO-contaminated areas for cultivation, grazing, infrastructure projects and housing. Between 1999 and 2002, at least 70 new mine or UXO casualties were reported.

 

The total number of casualties is not known, although according to "Landmine Monitor," landmines and UXOs have claimed 8,313 casualties (697 killed and 7,616 injured), of which 5,015 were civilians. These figures are believed to apply only to casualties occurring in the Western Desert since 1982.

 

cbo

[Jim Martin]

Yeah. I cross one battlefield (Sunday 9th December 1688) on my way to work, & I'm about to go shopping on it, Alfred the Great lost to the Danes here 4th January 871, there were battles just outside the town where I work (Newbury) in 1634 & 1644, one on the edge of my home town 1st November 1642 . . .

 

If we avoided building near battlefields, we'd have to evacuate England.

 

Reality demands

we also state the following:

life goes on.

It does so near Cannae and Borodino,

at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.

 

There is a gas station

in a small plaza in Jericho,

and freshly painted

benches near Bila Hora.

Letters travel

between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,

a furniture truck passes

before the eyes of the lion of Cheronea,

and only an atmospheric front advances

towards the blossoming orchards near Verdun.

 

There is so much of Everything

that Nothing is quite well concealed.

Music flows

from yachts near Actium

and couples on board dance in the sunlight.

 

So much keeps happening,

that it must be happening everywhere.

Where stone is heaped on stone,

there is an ice cream truck

besieged by children.

Where Hiroshima had been,

Hiroshima is again

manufacturing products

for everyday use.

 

Not without its charms is this terrible world,

not without its mornings

worth our waking.

 

In the fields of Maciejowice

the grass is green

and on the grass is -- you know how grass is --

transparent dew.

 

Maybe there are no fields other than battlefields,

those still remembered,

and those long forgotten,

birch woods and cedar woods,

snows and sands, iridescent swamps,

and ravines of dark defeat

where today, in sudden need,

you squat behind a bush.

 

What moral flows from this? Maybe none.

But what really flows is quickly-drying blood,

and as always, some rivers and clouds.

 

On the tragic mountain passes

the wind blows hats off heads

and we cannot help--

but laugh.

[TheSilentType]

No topless beaches, though, except perhaps the more obscure corners of some of the more hippieish foreign-dominated beaches.

 

I saw some topless sunbathing in Dahab, but then again that town is in the middle of nowhere in the Sinai and only exists because of tourists.

[swerve]

I saw some topless sunbathing in Dahab, but then again that town is in the middle of nowhere in the Sinai and only exists because of tourists.

 

When I was there it qualified as pretty hippiesh, & in warmer weather I wouldn't have been surprised to see bare breasts, but it was bloody freezing. January. I'd been swimming & sunbathing off Sharm el Sheikh & Hurghada, but the weather turned chilly by the time I got to Dahab.

[Archie Pellagio]

The Sinai resorrts of Egypt are the middle easts very own Thailand, not much you won't see.

 

Same with Morrocco and Tunisia, and we wonder why these people think we're all drunken whorish animals...

[KingSargent]

I was a bit startled to discover topless beaches in Rhodes . Preconceptions, preconceptions.

 

Now topless beaches on the Arctic Ocean would be something to see.....

[swerve]

I was a bit startled to discover topless beaches in Rhodes . Preconceptions, preconceptions.

...

 

But that's Greece! The Aegean islands are packed with (both official & unofficial) nudist beaches, let alone topless, & the clientele are by no means all north European tourists. Last time I was working in Athens, I escaped from the summer heat & smog at the weekend by hopping on a ferry to one of the Saronic islands & found it crammed full of Athenians with hardly a foreigner or swimsuit in sight.