Footprint Israel Handbook: The Travel Guide [Paperback]

Dave Winter (Author)

Book Description

Series: Israel Handbook | Publication Date: January 1, 2000

These brand-new or newly updated guides feature the authoritative and detailed coverage characteristic of all Footprint Handbooks. The authors are experts who have lived or worked in the countries they write about, and their prose will inspire readers to enjoy traveling as much as they do. -- Hands down -- the most current and authoritative resource for maps and vital global information -- Packed with up-to-date information including highlights of virtually every town and site -- Includes money-saving tips, advice on staying healthy, and anecdotes on local history, culture, customs, and etiquette

Editorial Reviews

Review

All the information you need for clued-up touring. -- Jewish Chronicle

Information rich with a healthy dose of maps, colour photos and savvy cynicism. A truly remarkable endeavour. -- Jerusalem Post

The authors have amassed about as much fact, information and detail as most of us are ever likely to need. -- The Times, London

Product Details

• Paperback: 872 pages
• Publisher: Passport Books; 2nd edition (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0658003682
• ISBN-13: 978-0658003684
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,624,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Marred by anti-Israeli and anti-semitic commentary, June 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Footprint Israel Handbook: The Travel Guide (Paperback)

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.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Footprint is definately the way to go, March 20, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Footprint Israel Handbook: The Travel Guide (Paperback)

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.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Deservedly out of print, August 23, 2006

By 

Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Footprint Israel Handbook (Footprint Israel Handbook with the Palestinian Authority Areas) (Paperback)

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.