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“I think that the agricultural potential here has exhausted itself,” Weinstein tells Al-Monitor. “Agriculture here is incredible, but there are limits on water and demand, so anyone who wants to continue living here will have to learn to create some other quality industry. I think that tourism here will be fine. I won’t make millions, but if I can support myself at least partially from these bungalows, that would be excellent. I can still do that when I am older.” He says that anyone in the region who is not a farmer still bears a certain stigma, but people are starting to change their attitudes. “We all have some work to do on the way this is perceived. There are farmers who came down to the Arava to get away from people. Now, suddenly they have to play host.”

New facilities that have opened in the region over the past few years include a bee farm, an alligator farm, an antelope farm, and other attractions that combine agriculture with tourism and the untamed wilderness.

''This is the only strip of land left in the country with fresh air and wide-open virgin spaces. And it’s in a part of the country that is not disputed politically and has no demographic issues,”