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Title: Footprint Israel Handbook: The Travel Guide by Dave Winter, John Matthews ISBN: 0-658-00368-2 Publisher: McGraw Hill - NTC Pub. Date: 01 January, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.6 (5 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: If you live there, LIVE the country
Comment: A Pro-Palestinian view? Well, if you aren't a cold rigthtist is hard not to write against Israel policies. But that's not the issue. This guide is the ultimative way to know this country. I live in Israel and I've known places that my friends even haven't heard of, because of this guide. When you live in a country and you had already been in the major sites, this guide brings you to the interesting places near home that you passed by bus every day and you didn't know they were there. Also, the historical background is superb; I've used it even for college papers (a constant in Footprint guides). For a traveller staying only two weeks, I would choose a less comprehensive guide. But if you really want to KNOW the country, to be informed about israeli everyday behavior, and to be entertained, this is the book. A critic: I like the maps and walktroughs of the Michelin's Green Guide Series. There aren't here. But also aren't all the drawbacks of the Michelin book (sites in alphabetic order? that's lame for a real traveller).

Rating: 1
Summary: Marred by anti-Israeli and anti-semitic commentary
Comment: This book does present a fairly comprehensive guide to the country of Israel. If not for its strong political biases, alluded to by other reviewers here, it would be a book worthy of recommendation.

As a personal disclaimer, my serious charges against this book are not labeled by a "crazy extremist." I am Jewish, but I support Palestinian statehood, within the framework of real security for Israel. And I believe you can criticize Israel without being anti-semitic. However, some of this book's statements are simply intolerable.

The egregious behavior of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, etc. is consistenly explained away, given context, etc. whereas almost all criticisms of Israel are given without emphasis at all on the context, namely that of consistent use of terrorism against it by internal and external forces, numerous wars of aggression by other Arab countries, etc. In addition, there are highly offensive remarks throughout the textincluding, a joke about desecrating a Jewish grave, a ridiculous and offensive discussion of the "Jewish Lobby" in America (Yes, Mr. Winter, there is a Pro-ISRAELI lobby in America, supported by many Jews and Christians) but there is no unified "Jewish Lobby" representing the beliefs of all, or even most Jews as a religion or people. In addition, The author recommends a couple of books that are only a step above "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in terms of the way they slander Jewish people. Full criticism of the many biases in this book would take far more space than I have here. Suffice it to say that until this guidebook drastically changes its editorial attitude, I would go elsewhere for less-biased information about Israel.

Rating: 4
Summary: Footprint is definately the way to go
Comment: It is my opinion that the Footprint series is great! The Footprint Israel handbook gave alot of useful information, yet tried to write the book so that it wouldn't go out of date so fast. Thus, there is a lack of information on backpacking and student travel specifics.

My issues with this book: 1-Monty Python's Life of Brian wasn't 'that' good. Why do they have to constantly mention it? This was irritating. 2-People who want a travel book on Israel don't want to read pro-palestine/anti-israel propoganda. This was somewhat annoying.

Overall, a good read, and definately take it with you, keeping it handy, when going to Israel. Take the feeble attempts at humour with a grain of salt. Try to ignore the palestine bias in the content. Palestine is not a perpetual victim. With this in mind, enjoy this edition. It is usefull.