2011.07.11迪拜滑雪

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Ski Dubai
By Jeffrey Goldberg
JULY 11, 2011
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So of course while in Dubai I stayed at the al-Bustan Rotana hotel, just by the airport, because I take the Umberto's Clam House approach to Middle East travel -- I like to see the scene of the crime. The Rotana -- room 230 of the Rotana, to be specific -- is where an alleged Mossad hit team allegedly killed a Hamas arms buyer named Mahmoud al-Mabhouh early last year. The team broke into his room somehow, and either poisoned or suffocated him, and then managed to place the inside chain on the door, to make it appear that Mabhouh died of natural causes. The alleged hit team didn't count, however, on the proliferation of CCTV in the hotel, or on the surprisingly assiduous investigative work of the Dubai police.


I got a quick look inside room 230 (no, I didn't bribe a chambermaid -- I think now, more than ever, it's best to treat chambermaids respectfully), and at a distance and it looked just like room 244, where I stayed, a very anodyne hotel room in a very synthetic city. I asked a hotel manager if the assassination had prompted a new kind of tourism to the hotel, but he declined to acknowledge that an assassination had even taken place. My feeling has always been that hotels and restaurants that have been the scenes of notorious events should exploit those events, but I'm not in the image-management business.

My visit prompted me to send a couple of emails out asking the question: Has Mabhouh's demise actually impinged on Hamas's ability to get weapons? I'll let you know if I get some good answers in return.

Then it was on to what has to be my new most-favorite place in Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates, which houses "Ski Dubai," which might be the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen. During my visit, it was 105 degrees outside (a dry heat, naturally), but inside the vast Ski Dubai complex, men, women and children were running around in parkas, snow gloves and hats (some women were wearing parkas over their chadors). Ski Dubai represents a kind of pure genius: Go to a place that is infernally hot and has endless money and build an indoor ski slope so that Gulf princelings don't have to travel to Switzerland to cool off. Pure genius. Here are some pictures that hint at the absurdity of the place. (By the way, I had lunch at nearby Aspen Restaurant, which was cheaper than the actual Aspen, and also free of ideas.)


Dubai is one of the stranger places on earth: Iranian and Israeli spies, Hamas arms smugglers, Russian gangsters, an "It's a Small World" collection of prostitutes, so many foreign workers you can go for days without meeting an actual citizen of Dubai, crazily-luxurious hotels (the Rotana doesn't fall into that category) and an all-around air of make-believe. Even though Dubai got is comeuppance in a recent crash (it had to be rescued by its sister emirate, the more buttoned-down and serious Abu Dhabi), the money still flows in rivers.

As I walked through the mall, past De Beers and Fendi and Dior and Christian Louboutin, I thought, of course, of the current financial travails of the Palestinian Authority. As you undoubtedly recall, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who is supported, justifiably, by the international community as the best thing going for a future functional Palestinian state, recently noted that Arab states, in particular, have not fulfilled their pledges to the P.A., in order to keep it running. This is a long-standing theme: Rhetorically, the Arab states stand as one with the Palestinians. But in reality, they don't cough up even a small percentage of the money needed to support their brothers. Naturally, this contradiction came to mind as I wandered through the decadent halls of the Mall of the Emirates.

Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. He is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.



迪拜滑雪
作者：杰弗里-戈德堡
2011年7月11日
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因此，在迪拜时，我当然住在机场旁边的al-Bustan Rotana酒店，因为我对中东旅行采取了Umberto's Clam House的做法--我喜欢看犯罪现场。罗塔纳酒店--具体来说是罗塔纳酒店的230号房间--据称摩萨德的一个打击小组去年年初在那里杀死了一个名叫马哈茂德-马布胡的哈马斯武器买家。该小组以某种方式闯入他的房间，将他毒死或闷死，然后设法将门上的铁链放在里面，以使马布胡赫看起来是自然死亡。然而，这个所谓的杀手团队并没有考虑到酒店内广泛存在的闭路电视，也没有考虑到迪拜警方令人惊讶的辛勤调查工作。


我快速看了一下230号房间（不，我没有贿赂女仆--我认为现在比以往任何时候都更应该尊重女仆），从远处看，它和我住的244号房间一样，是一个非常合成的城市中非常普通的酒店房间。我问酒店经理，暗杀事件是否促使酒店出现了一种新的旅游方式，但他拒绝承认甚至发生了暗杀事件。我的感觉一直是，作为臭名昭著的事件发生地的酒店和餐馆应该利用这些事件，但我并不从事形象管理的工作。

我的访问促使我发送了几封电子邮件，提出了这个问题。马布胡的死是否真的影响到了哈马斯获得武器的能力？如果我得到一些好的答复，我会让你知道。

然后是我在迪拜最喜欢的地方，阿联酋购物中心，那里有 "迪拜滑雪"，这可能是你见过的最荒谬的事情。在我访问期间，室外温度为105度（自然是干热），但在巨大的迪拜滑雪场内，男人、女人和孩子都穿着长袍、戴着雪地手套和帽子跑来跑去（一些妇女在她们的长袍上穿着长袍）。迪拜滑雪场代表了一种纯粹的天才。到一个炎热无比且有无穷无尽金钱的地方，建造一个室内滑雪场，这样海湾地区的王子们就不必到瑞士去凉快了。纯粹的天才。这里有一些图片，暗示了这个地方的荒谬性。(顺便说一下，我在附近的阿斯彭餐厅吃了午饭，那里比真正的阿斯彭便宜，而且也没有什么想法）。


迪拜是地球上最奇怪的地方之一：伊朗和以色列的间谍、哈马斯的武器走私者、俄罗斯的黑帮分子、"世界真小 "的妓女集合地、如此多的外国工人，你可以走好几天都见不到一个真正的迪拜公民、疯狂的豪华酒店（罗塔纳酒店不属于这个类别）和一种全面的虚幻空气。尽管迪拜在最近的一次崩溃中受到了惩罚（它不得不被它的姐妹酋长国--更加谨慎和严肃的阿布扎比拯救），但资金仍然源源不断。

当我穿过商场，经过戴比尔斯、芬迪、迪奥和克里斯蒂安-鲁布托时，我当然想到了巴勒斯坦权力机构目前的财政困境。毫无疑问，你们还记得，巴勒斯坦权力机构总理萨拉姆-法耶兹（Salam Fayyad）被国际社会合理地支持为未来能发挥作用的巴勒斯坦国的最佳人选，他最近指出，特别是阿拉伯国家没有履行他们对巴勒斯坦权力机构的承诺，以维持它的运作。这是一个长期的主题。在言辞上，阿拉伯国家与巴勒斯坦人站在一起。但在现实中，他们甚至没有拿出支持其兄弟所需的一小部分资金。自然，当我在阿联酋购物中心的颓废大厅里闲逛时，我想到了这个矛盾。

杰弗里-戈德堡(Jeffrey Goldberg)是《大西洋》杂志的主编，也是国家杂志报道奖的获得者。他是《囚徒》的作者。友谊与恐怖的故事》。