Josh (host)

Crazy.

All right.

So St.

Catherine's Monastery is one of the oldest continuously operated Christian monasteries in the world, founded in the 6th century, and it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Remember we talked about Gobekli Tepe Like all these places Which I think In the broad terms it's a good thing It protects it It's just weird that it's like this one world Whatever And who actually owns it

Yeah, but this monastery has its own ancient library manuscripts, religious significance in lands, gardens, vineyards, chapels that have been used by monks for centuries.

It's at the base of Mount Sinai.

Cool.

On May 28th, 2025, the Egyptian Court of Appeals issued a decision concerning 71 parcels of land associated with the monastery.

So basically, the government of Egypt has now taken over the land surrounding the monastery, even land that the monastery owns.

Right.

And they're building malls, shopping centers.

They even, yeah, so it's a large scale development plan called the Great Transfiguration Project.

Sounds like heresy to me.

This includes luxury hotels, villas, shopping areas, infrastructure, visitor centers, possibly cable cars, et cetera, built around Mount Sinai.

That's the battle right now.

There's some legal stuff that Egypt's like, well, this hasn't happened, so we're actually claiming this land now.

No, he's just the antiquities guy.

I don't know.

It's the UNESCO, which I don't know if that's associated with the World Economic Forum.