American Insurgent wrote:
From what I've heard, the Israeli government has serious budget
problems,
(pardon my spelling, my news posting program does not have a spell
checker)

That's really not the problem in this case. The IBA is supported by
a television tax, about $150 a year. This pays for TV channel 1
and all of the various radio stations that the IBA runs e.g.
the regular IBA channels, Voice of Music, Immegrant network (REKA),
etc.

The last few years the immegration from English speaking countries
has fallen off among the general public, and the majority of immegrants
are relgious and won't buy a TV. If they don't buy TV's, they don't pay
the tax, and they are not entitled to the programs. Many of them have
computers and feel that having a computer gets them the same information
that they could get from the radio or TV including the broadcast news.

The IBA news is also very much left wing, and many (but not all)
"anglos" as we are called are politicaly right wing. For example,
Channel 7 (Arutz Sheva) a right wing pirate radio broadcaster
abandoned radio and went online totally.

Israel has never been very keen on "spin doctoring" or presenting their
side of the story. Efforts in the last few years to enter the "propaganda
war", have gone nowhere. At one time Israel launced a sattelite TV channel
to counter the Arab propaganda, but it has disappeared from the local
cable TV network, so I expect it was quietly abandoned.

mainly because they never recovered from the dot.com bust,
and tourists have been largely scared away by the wars.

That's ancient history. Downtown Jerusalem is as busy as it
was in the mid 1990's. Restaurants and stores are opening up
in empty places. There has been some change, for example,
Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts have failed, but other chains
such as Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, and several
home grown coffee shops are doing well. Some of the Israeli
chains have opened restaurants in the U.S. and Canada.


I'm sure that
Tel Aviv is relatively safe (I know some Israeli is gonna respond and
say so) but that's not what the average American hears. The big draws
are the holy sites, and many of those are in Palestinian territory,
cut off from the world.

That's true. Not only are they cut off from the world as you
put it, but the P.A. is very anti-christian, and Hamas's main
agenda is to convert Gaza into an Islamic Republic similar to
(and funded by) Iran.

In the late 90s the Palestinians built several big hotels in East
Jerusalem to cater to Americans, only to see their investment fail
when the Israelis closed the border and kept it closed.

That's not true. East Jerusalem is still open if you are willing
to go there. Most tourists are not. Just as the Jews built twoard
the west starting in the early 1900's, the Arabs built to the east.
Those areas are not closed to tourists and you can go there if
you dare. They are not tourist friendly areas anyway.

What killed those hotels was Arafat's starting of the second
intifada (shrugging off in Arabic) which he started a campaign
of terror to try to force Israel to capitulate. It simply
was no longer safe for a tourist to visit those hotels.

Beacause of the slow economy, there were many empty hotel
rooms in west Jerusalem, which was safe, and tourists went
there instead.

Another big investment that failed was a casino in Jericho, which
was built by an Austrian company. Palestinians were prohibited
to enter except to work there, it was for Israeli's and tourists.
Palestinian terrorists kept shooting people driving to it and
for public safety, the roads were closed and it is closed.

So far, the new improved P.A. has done nothing to secure the
roads to it, and it stays closed.

However the Christain holy sites in Jersualem are open and well
maintained and safe. You can go from the valley where the tree that was
used to make "the cross" was harvested, by a city bus to the old city,
see the remains of the second temple (where Jesus is said to have chased
out the money changers), to the street he carried the cross on (Via
Delarosa) up to the spot where it is claimed he was crucified.

Note that all of these are described in the New Testament, but there is no
evidence that he was there at all. Whatever evidence you see such as plaques
and signs dates from the British Mandate period or later.

I'm not trying to mock anyone's faith, but if you are looking for proof
as opposed to faith, you may not find it. Mark Twain wrote an excelent
description of it in "Innocents Abroad", and it has not changed much.

There are also many churches of significance in the old city which is safe.

If you are a fan of Joseph Cameron, you can go see the tomb where his latest
movie is set, but it is just a hole in the ground in a residential/light
industrial area. The commerical interests and tourist traps have yet to arrive.


The Waqf (the
keepers of al-Haram al-Sharif, aka the Temple Mount) are so paranoid
now that ANYBODY poking around is gonna raise suspicion, even if
they're clearly American. Evangelical Christian groups have to be
satisfied with standing outside the gates now. Americans largely don't
want to go anywhere near the holy sites now anyway, unless they get
prodded by some preacher. They'd rather visit the great cathedrals of
Europe.

I don't know about that. One of the big problems is that Americans think
Israel looks like Mos Eisly (the space port in Star Wars), stone huts
in the sand with a few space ships thrown in for effect. Jerusalem is
a modern city, and Israel is a modern country. There is one part
of the Tel-Aviv Jerusalem highway I call the Garden State Parkway,
because except for the road signs having Hebrew and Arabic in
addition to English it looks like North Jersey. The only big
difference is that there are cement factories in the distance
instead of oil refineries next to the highway.



All this fun and games has cut off a big source of revenue for the
Israelis. That, the lack of business investment by Americans who
envision their money going up in smoke, and the general political
chaos has sunk Israel's budget. Warren Buffett tried to buy an Israeli
factory, only to have a war (with Hizbullah) break out a week after
his tour, after which Buffett told the Israelis he wasn't interested.

Funny, after all the hype about the deal, the part that it fell through
was not published here. Did it really. The factory was undamaged and is
working just like before.


The only thing keeping them around is the American taxpayer and a
handful of superwealthy American Jews. The US doesn't want another
Holocaust, because it would get blamed even though the world wants us
to abandon Israel. Also, Israel is the only thing holding the Muslims
at bay. So the US sends Israel billions.

That's not true. In fact most if not all of the aid money sent to Israel
comes with a price tag. The money most be spent on U.S. made products,
for example the substandard amunition used during the war last summer.
Without the money, Israel would have used anmunition that is made
locally, promoting the Israeli economy. Instead it was used to
buy amunition from the U.S. which is still dangerous on the ground,
and helped subsidize the U.S. defense establishment.

Geoff.



--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/