Booked ten days in the promised land in September, I've been before but my girlfriend never has. Planning to do some of the normal touristy stuff – see the sights in Jerusalem, dead sea etc.Is there anything in particular anyone would recommend that not the standard tourist trail?

Cheers

Jaffo lovely old town down the beach from Telaviv,

Masada, tell the security guard youre english tourist, and you can park underground in the cool,fantastic down hills by the look of them round there and fantastic cable car ride to the top,

Yad Vashem the holocaust museum, be ready to cry half way round as the needless killing of the jewish people suddenly hits you,

Caesarea, historic roman aquaduct and some ruins , fantastic beach etc,

Bus ride from Telaviv to Jerusalem, fantastic scenery,but if youre sitting next to the driver, and suddenly start trying to get your camera out of your cargo shorts,by pulling the cord,expect the driver to react, well he did when i did that a few years ago, always make it obvious what your going to do or tell him. :-).

Fantastic place, cheap, freindly people etc,great food.

Whop are you going with, we went with ELAL.

or alternativly yeman…that had a good toursim industry till the isrealis bombed it to death.

Flying with sleazyjet – nice and cheap. Definately going to Masada – first time I went we got up to the top before sunrise to watch the sunrise over the dead sea, that was special

Spent a cracking few months at Kibbutz Ein Gev, and I can remember one or two of them.

As mentioned – Masada is awesome.
Jerusalem is amazing – spend as long as you can there.
Sea of Galilee – good for a day out in a hire car. Good restaurant on the seafront (lakefront?) opposite Tiberias. You can do a kibbutz tour too if you fancy it.

a visit to Jericho is well worth it. Also Acre with its crusader castle etc and Beit Alfa

Bethlehem – Church of the Nativity and all that ? Just a short trip from Jerusalem.

Had a really spooky experience in Jerusalem eating dinner on a rooftop restaurant. A few hundred metres away was the Dome of the Rock ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock ) and coming directly out of the top of the golden dome was what I can only describe as a black beam heading skywards. Everyone else with me saw it and we were all baffled. There is reference to it on the web ( http://www.iconoclastpress.com/DomeoftheRock.html ) so others see it but I can find no explanation for what it is, weird!

Hmmm… – bit like going to South Africa for a holiday during the apartheid era.

Get to the border with Jordan, cross over and get a local taxi to Petra.

Grum – It's nothing like going to South Africa during apatheid you **** cretin.

Nobody asked for your stupid opinion. Why've you got to make a thread like this into some sort of stupid political willy waving contest.

You're the one making personal insults.

How about you check out the list of UN resolutions against Israel for widespread human rights violations, or the fact that they are a rogue nuclear state? I don't think it's unreasonable to mention these things.

Not somewhere I would choose to support the economy of by holidaying there personally but each to their own.

I'm with grum on this one.

How about you check out the list of UN resolutions against Israel for widespread human rights violations, or the fact that they are a rogue nuclear state? I don't think it's unreasonable to mention these things.

You'll change your tune when Mossad drag you out of your bed tonight.

Has anybody been to china?

+1 grum.

jezkidd, i've been to china a couple of times. i have more issues with israel though, and can, however, see the contradiction in my actions.

+1 for grum.

isrealis are **** of the highest order, IMB.

"ooh, we need somewhere safe after being persecuted by the Nazis."

"we're persecuting these palestinians because they want to kill us because we took land from them that had been 'theirs' for centuries."

YAY!

Perhaps if you were surrounded by nations which want to wipe you off the face of the earth, you'd think differently.

Alpin – all Israelis?

I heard this description;

"If Israel was a person it would be 5ft tall, scottish and ginger"

I don't want to demonise red headed short people from north of the border but I think it sums up Israels approach to a lot of things that happen around it.

There is no easy solution in the Middle East but giving Israel my money feels too much like me approving of their actions.

piha – Member
Get to the border with Jordan, cross over and get a local taxi to Petra.

+1 for that, Petra is one of the best trips I've ever had.

As far as Israel is concerned, I was rather dismayed yesterday to find that I'd bought rosemary grown in the country – I really don't want to support their economy.

Haifa has some great clubs and some ok beach.

mate of mine went to a kibbutz with dreams of fruit picking in the sun and lazy evenings drinking wine with sweetypie girlys
12 hour shifts in a soap factory for peanuts sorted that one out 😆
he sacked it and went to jordan and had a great time

You should go to the Gaza Strip .

+ however many for Grum. By visiting Israel you are supporting a criminal state that is ethnically cleansing a portion of its population.

As you've committed to the trip, at least make an effort to support Palestinian causes and try to show some solidarity with their struggle.

APF

A visit the division wall would be educational, perhaps the bits that illegally annex Palestinian land, or cut farms in half.

Whitnessing the destruction of Palestinian orchards would fun too, or the bulldozing of Palestinian homes – be sure to post pictures on here when you get back.

+ 1 again. 😥

I'm sure people have said much of the above about us and Ireland at some point.

Jezkidd didnt ask for a lecture. I am half-Jewish and I wouldnt consider a holiday in Israel at the moment however it doesnt mean I'd rant on about Palestine etc when someones asked where to go 🙄

And they'd be right to do so, Tron.

Must remember not to say i like Israel again and im going back latter this year.

Don't mention the I word, it brings out the ignorance in people !

Go, speak to people, decide for yourself. Play fun games spotting the Mossad agents on the planes. I'd love to go, there is a great MTB scene there too I have heard.

A nice tour of illegal settlements – fun fun fun

"Go … decide for yourself"

I don't need to visit the North Pole to find out it's **** cold…

As mentioned above it's definitely not all Israelis but their hawkish government pandering to the extremists that keep them in power. There are many great Israeli NGOs working with Palestinians over the 'property disputes' for example.

And if we're not careful we'll have Melanie Phillips coming on here accusing us of being anti-semites.

Amazing how off topic this post has become but with I'm most of the above… I boycott Israeli products and certainly would never dream of booking there for a holiday… should have booked a hol in Syria, enjoy it before Israeli / Zionist coalition decides to build illegal settlements there aswell!

Apologies to the OP for not providing any help with this post! 😳

Go, speak to people, decide for yourself.

Yeah if you go and only speak to Israelis I'm sure you'll get a really balanced opinion.

🙄

Lifer? Not saying that all Israelis support the illegal occupation/human rights violations etc, but many (most?) of them do.

Here you go though, just so I'm not accused of being anti-semitic – from Haaretz

Consider this: What is the reader's moral judgment of a law that allows some people to reclaim past ownership rights but denies the same rights to others? This is the question today in Sheikh Jarrah.

How just do we deem the conduct of legal advisers who approve the evacuation of longtime indigenous residents from the center of a thriving city, enforcing almost complete separation between the hundreds who have moved in and the thousands who were displaced? This is the question today in Hebron.

What do we think of military commanders who collectively punish more than a million human beings, systematically answering their nutritional needs with provisions that keep them just above a state-secret "red line"? This is the question today in Gaza.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/pins-in-the-goldstone-voodoo-doll-1.290274

I am always surprised by the level of anti Israeli feeling in a country that used to occupy half the globe (the British Empire anyone ?), and continues to occupy by settlement The Falkland Islands, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar etc. And had possession of Israel until 1948.

So because of some British misdeeds we should ignore massive human rights violations by Israel that are happening right now? 😕

Other than the Iraq war (which I strongly opposed) – what is Britain doing right now which is anything like as brutal and oppressive as what Israel is doing?

Northern Ireland – yes some shameful things have happened there but we have come to a political solution. The British Empire – again mostly a fairly shameful affair but does that mean we should now just throw our hands up and say anything goes?