On Aug 6, 4:33 pm, " wrote:
Yep, basically all that is left of Israel Radio International (Reshet
Hey) programming is 1.5 hours
of Persian. Besides that, shortwave is relaying parts of the domestic
REKA schedule.

As of yet, there is not updated schedule onwww.iba.org.il/reception
or israelradio.org

On reka.iba.org.il , the margin has much of the domestic schedule, but
not all.


From what I've heard, the Israeli government has serious budget
problems, mainly because they never recovered from the dot.com bust,
and tourists have been largely scared away by the wars. 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.

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. 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.

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.
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.