The Colony in Jerusalem, “a hotel on the front line”

There is a place, the American Colony in Jerusalem, that has always been on the front lines of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Born almost 150 years ago in the old house of a pasha, home to a small colony of American Presbyterians, the Colony has always sought to be a place of neutrality, dialogue, and encounter between Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

Francesco Battistini, special correspondent for Corriere della Sera, tells us the story of this extraordinary hotel in his Jerusalem Suite (Neri Pozza, 2024, pp. 432, also e-book). A story made of characters, events, emotions.

It was a sheet from the Colony, used as a white flag, that marked the end of Ottoman rule. Lawrence of Arabia came here to take refuge, Churchill to redraw the Middle East, Selma Lagerlöf to write her Nobel Prize-winning novel, and Mark Twain to rest. In 1948, Arabs and Jewish settlers were shot from these roofs. During the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars, journalists from all over the world camped in this reception. The Colony is still a small Palestine in occupied Jerusalem, where many Palestinian leaders never set foot, and at the same time a piece of Israel that few Israeli politicians frequent. A land of no man and of all.

These are some of the reasons why Francesco Battistini decided to dedicate a book to this frontline place, as he confirms directly:

«In 2002, the Corriere sent me to cover the Second Intifada. I was coming from Kabul and Jerusalem seemed like a luxury to me. Instead, they immediately killed a photojournalist I was working with and I understood that things were much more complicated. After October 7, many lost the thread of the longest conflict of the last century. It's the same for me: the more I go there, the less I understand it. But you can't understand Gaza or Lebanon if you don't know what happened before. The story of this hotel is a way to tell 140 years of the history of Jerusalem: the return of the Jews, the Palestinian Nakba, the birth of Israel, 21 wars, 52 peace plans, 800 UN resolutions...».

What does the Colony symbolize, in your opinion?

"The Colony was born as a different experiment in peace. A community of slightly fanatical Protestants, who came from America to help the poor, who transformed themselves into a hotel and a meeting place for Jews, Muslims and Christians, ending up at the centre of all the most important events. The Green Line that divides Jerusalem in two passes through the Colony. In the Six-Day War, the Israeli military occupation began from the Colony. Arafat's PLO settled next to the Colony, in one of its rooms they negotiated the Oslo peace treaty, and here they took refuge in the era of the kamikazes. Everyone has passed through this hotel: Churchill who redesigned the Middle East, Lawrence of Arabia who led the Bedouin revolt, Rudolph Hess who planned the Shoah. And Golda Meir, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Carter, Tony Blair, spies, pacifists, fixers."

How is he regarded by the Palestinians?

"It is in the Arab part of Jerusalem and it was the house of a pasha. Here, for a long time the Palestinians learned a trade, they were treated in the infirmary. The staff is hired respecting all the confessions, but those who work there are mostly Palestinians. The moderates respect it, the extremists do not like its Western charm."

And from the Israelis?

"The right hates it, they called it 'Hotel PLO', and they even tried to close it down. The others tolerate it. After October 7, everything changed, however, and few like the project of dialogue on which the Colony was built."

During the intifadas, the Colony was a safe fortress: a rigid statute sets the “ethnic” quotas of waiters who can work there, and for this reason no one has ever attacked it. Those who work there manage to create that coexistence that Palestine has not known for a long time?

"Partly. The rules are respected: only English is spoken, Ramadan and Shabbat are not celebrated, there are no crucifixes, it is forbidden to talk about politics. But it is not always possible. Every now and then some fanatical chef is turned away. And the stories of the bookseller Munther or the jeweler Claire that I tell in the book, an intellectual and a pacifist forced to leave, are emblematic of what is happening in the country. The Colony has always accompanied the ups and downs of the peace process. Now it is at a very low point, the hotel has been empty for a year. And it risks failing, as has failed, so far, every attempt at peace between Israelis and Palestinians."