Customer Reviews

Footprint Israel Handbook (Footprint Israel Handbook with the Palestinian Authority Areas)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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 The Footprint Israel handbook gave alot of useful information, yet tried to write the book so that it wouldn't go out of date so fast.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.

This book is out of print and should stay that way. I made the mistake of taking a public library copy of the book to Israel on a recent trip there without reading it first, and too late discovered that it was a political tract, not a guidebook. The author is a typical British ivory tower apologist who is able to convince himself that siding with the "oppressed" puts him in the intellectual vanguard. In a book so full of misinformation and half-truths that it would take another book just to tease them all out of the text, here is just one choice example: page 211, where he actually says that a tourist worried about safety should be "equally vigilant" to avoid areas where Israelis could attack Palestinians, including tear gas attacks, since "Israeli police don't discriminate" between Arabs and tourists. Of course, in describing the supposedly "rare" attacks on Jews, there is no mention of who the perpetrators are of these "rare" events, and the author actually suggests that such attacks could be avoided if only those arrogant Jews would stop provoking people with their "outward displays of Jewishness" and their "'amusing' IDF t-shirts." The thousands who have been shot, stabbed, blown up, or otherwise murdered or injured by Arabs give the lie to this disgusting piece of work.

Agreed, as previously stated by many reviewers, this book contains some egregious, unwarranted commentary, and unmistakably presents negative opinion as "fact." (And as a minor point of information, the 2nd edition's cover is blue, not purple.)

Nevertheless, the book also contains a great deal more useful information, not to mention area maps, than many other Israel guides. There are, for example, maps of Beer Sheva and many other towns in the Negev that other guides do not even mention. There are also excellent descriptions of numerous national parks and nature walks, off the beaten track.

While using this book, in short, ignore the commentary, and limit your attention to the what, where and how to see Israel, from the Galilee and Golan, south to Eilat. The writer demonstrates complete ignorance concerning Israeli politics and Judaism. So ignore that content.

Nevertheless, this book provides an excellent guide to the physical and historical beauties of this tiny country. Overall, despite the book's deep anti-Israel biases, it proved quite useful for us.

This guide is a must if you are planning to travel on your own. It provides all the basic information about eating, housing, archeological and religious sites and geographical features. But, the real worth of this handbook is the detailed information and maps showing you how to get to specific sites. There are also small detail maps of the sites themselves. This book also has the best geopolitical background information of any guidebook I have read. Such information is critical in understanding the people and in helping the traveler to avoid trouble.

I found this to be a good comprehensive guide during my trip to Israel: helpful information about how to get around, good maps, a lot of historical/political background, and a very nice format. It has quite a bit of detail in it and some witty editorials. If you're looking for something more general, with less reading, the Rough Guide is also quite good.

A guide book to Israel can't ignore the political situation, but it could simply address the realities (it would have been very helpful to know how to dress and behave in certain areas, and it also would help to know which places should be avoided as simply too dangerous or inflammatory). Unfortunately, this guide has a strong anti-Israeli bias, which makes no sense to me. Why is the author living in a place that he disdains so much? It's not as though he is pro-Palestinian - he doesn't seem to like them much either, but he doesn't bash them as frequently or as blatantly.

Anyway, the irritating political commentary is not compensated for by a wealth of information about what is available in Israel for the average tourist. The emphasis is on cheap backpacking, with a lot about avoiding places where Israelis (Arab or Jewish) actually visit themselves. There is precious little about sport activities, music or nightlife (other than bars), and way too much about cheap tourist knick-knacks for sale everywhere. If all you are looking for is a place to crash while you go out drinking (preferably in a bar that caters to other impoverished foreign backpackers), then this is the book for you

Maybe even pro-Palestinian. There is no doubt that anyone having problems with Yad Vashem (as this author does, arguing that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem should not have been included in the exhibit, never mind that he was a major reason Jews could not go to Palestine to escape the holocaust) has to be at least a bit anti-semitic and anti-Israel There are other problems in this guide. Having been in Israel many times before, I agree that this guide has many items other guides do not have. But the tone and the bias of the author is hard to overlook. I suggest you look elsewhere for a more balanced view. All in my opinion, of course. I'd have preferred giving it no stars.

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).
Update 2005: A Pro-Palestinian view? I revised this book time after time, and I can say that the political commentary in it is truly balanced. The critics about (the old) Yad Vashem maybe had some effect over the new museum, more effective in its message. Most of the critics to this book probably come from people at home with the ideas of the Likud Party (not Sharon, of course) or at its right. Is still the best book to visit Israel for more than two weeks (after 5 years!).