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For centuries, Mount Sinai has drawn pilgrims and visitors guided by Bedouins to watch the sunrise over its rugged peaks. Revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, it is believed to be the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments and where God spoke from the burning bush. At its foot stands St Catherine’s Monastery, a 6th-century Greek Orthodox site and UNESCO World Heritage treasure.
But this sacred desert landscape is now at the centre of a fierce dispute. Egypt’s government is pressing ahead with the “Great Transfiguration Project,” a multi-million-dollar tourism development that includes luxury hotels, villas, a visitor centre, and even a cable car up Mount Moses. Officials describe it as “Egypt’s gift to the entire world and all religions.” Critics see it as a threat to both heritage and community.
The Bedouin Jebeleya tribe, known as guardians of St Catherine’s, have already lost homes and eco-camps to demolitions—sometimes with little compensation. They say graves have been exhumed to make way for car parks. “This is not development as the Jebeleya see it or asked for,” said travel writer Ben Hoffler, “but a top-down imposition that will permanently change their homeland.”
The Greek Orthodox Church, long tied to the monastery, has also clashed with Cairo. Tensions flared after an Egyptian court ruled the monastery sits on state land, prompting Greece’s Archbishop Ieronymos II to warn of an “existential threat” to the site. Egypt and Greece have since issued a joint declaration promising to protect St Catherine’s identity and heritage, but concerns remain.
UNESCO has repeatedly urged Egypt to halt construction and provide a conservation plan. In July, World Heritage Watch called for the site to be placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Campaigners have even appealed to King Charles, patron of the St Catherine Foundation, who once described the monastery as “a great spiritual treasure.”
For Egypt, the development is part of a broader push to revive tourism, battered first by Covid-19 and now by regional conflict. The government hopes to attract 30 million visitors by 2028. Yet for the Bedouin, many of whom feel marginalised since the Sinai’s return to Egypt after Israeli occupation, the project echoes earlier waves of mass tourism along the Red Sea—where locals were sidelined and displaced.
As construction reshapes the Plain of el-Raha, where the Israelites are said to have awaited Moses, critics warn the fragile harmony between landscape, faith, and tradition is at risk. St Catherine’s may endure, as it has for 1,500 years, but the world around it is changing forever.
