December 01, 2003

Visit Israel, If It's the Last Thing You Do

In an effort to boost tourism, the Israeli government is spending £2 million on an advertising campaign. With slogans like "Get Your Camera and We'll Get that Perfect Shot", it's sure to be a winner.

I can imagine them doing little sound-bite clips of tourists saying things like, "I visited a historic settlement in Gaza dating way back to the late 20th century. What I saw was so amazing, you could have knocked me down with a bulldozer!"

As one public relations expert said, "You can’t sell Israel with images of soldiers and reassuring safety messages." I don't think he realised that this is oxymoronic. After all, tourists may get attacked in Israel, but it usually isn't by terrorists.

I would just suggest that if you are visiting Manger Square this Christmas, you should probably run across it in a random zigzag pattern -- just in case the IDF mistake you for an altar boy.

Posted by david at December 1, 2003 11:34 PM | TrackBack
Comments

My advice to anyone visiting Israel at any time would be: don't take your 8 month old baby girl on a bus in Jerusalem incase the Palestinians mistake her for an Israeli reservist.

That's the excuse, isn't it? While they're wailing about the IDF killing Palestinian civilians they justify their murder of Israeli civilans by saying all Israelis are combatants because of their reservist status. Also, who killed the altar boy is hugely debatable in the way that who killed the two Orthodox Christians in Maxim's restaurant isn't.

My beautiful Arab-Christian roommate I lived with Saudi is dead because of this. My best friend lives in Tel Aviv. They both love(d) life but spend enough time with Muslims in the middle-east and you find their attitude towards life and death can be frighteningly different from that of Christians and Jews. When the Muslim Palestinians and their Arab and European friends let go the death cult and stop demanding that Israel commits suicide then Manger Square will be safe for altar boys and tourists and Jews and Christians and Muslims can eat together in restaurants. Meanwhile get used to the IDF.

Posted by: Havdala at December 2, 2003 12:46 PM

I thought this might get a comment from you, Havdala. (Not that I'm complaining -- you are about the most consistent commentator here -- many thanks!)

I'm not at all justifying what the Muslims are doing. I just like to show that there is more to the story. Speaking of which, I hadn't seen any debate on who killed the altar boy.

Posted by: David Holford at December 2, 2003 10:40 PM

I'll try to find the article I had on the altar boy. I suspect, though, there's been more than one :-(

Posted by: Havdala at December 3, 2003 12:05 AM

I agree David...there is always more to the story.

We have many brothers and sisters in Palestine that are very alone because they are Christian and Palestinian. Very sad.

Let us pray for the peace of Palestine and Israel.

Posted by: aaron at December 4, 2003 12:02 AM