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 Location:  Home » Middle East » General » Lonely Planet Guide : Israel & the Palestinian TerritoriesJanuary 8, 2009  


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Lonely Planet Guide : Israel & the Palestinian Territories
Lonely Planet Guide : Israel & the Palestinian Territories
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Authors: Andrew Humphreys, Paul Hellander, Neil Tilbury
Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications
Category: Book

List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $4.80
You Save: $13.15 (73%)
Buy Used from $4.80

Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars(12 reviews)
Sales Rank: 573543

Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 4
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 5 x 0.9

ISBN: 0864426917
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.6940454
EAN: 9780864426918
ASIN: 0864426917

Publication Date: November 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

From Jericho's ruins and the domes of Jerusalem to Tel Aviv's hip cafes and Eliat's beaches, this fully updated guide is the essential companion for travelling around this fascinating land.

  • 64 detailed maps, including a full-colour country map
  • extensive political, historical and cultural information
  • the lowdown on language courses and working on a kibbutz
  • up-to-date information on visas, border crossings and safety
  • the best places to stay and eat on any budget



Customer Reviews:   Read 7 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars Lonely Planet Guide for Israel is biased   September 24, 2008
There are so many guides to Israel.

This is one you can do without.

The author Matt Rees blames Israel for Arab terror without describing Arab hatred of Jews and Israel. He equates Israel with Arab terrorists like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, fails to mention Jews murdered in Arab Riots of '29 and '36. He denies the holiness of the Temple Mount to Jews and only mentions the mosque built on top of it to co-op Jewish culture. I could go on with other examples but they are rife and there is not enough space to write about all his partisan opinions. His editorializing is apparent throughout the book and gets tiring. Israel is a very exciting place that is at the core of Jewish life. Rees' arabist opinions have no place in a guide book.

Don't waste your money on this book. The loneliness in the title is for the absence of truth in this guide.



1 out of 5 stars Very biased -- you can do MUCH better   May 4, 2007
  3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I buy a guide book to learn about the country I am visiting, preferably through a reasonably sympathetic eye. I don't want cheerleading or rose-colored glasses, but I don't expect open hostility or overt political bias. But the Lonely Planet Guide to Israel and the Palestinian Territories is full of just that. The author is overtly anti-Zionist in his tone, unnecessarily political, and to me outright offensive. I DO begrudge one's political views in a travel guide! If I want a political text (and I read voraciously about Israel, from a variety of viewpoints), I will buy one.

This is a terrible guide. You can do much better, and at the time of this writing, I would suggest the Frommer's Israel Guide, just released in October 2006. Anything would be better than this.



5 out of 5 stars A Riveting Read   July 30, 2006
  1 out of 2 found this review helpful

I have read and enjoyed a wide variety of Lonely Planet guides during my travels. But by far ISRAEL & THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES is my favorite. I picked it up before a planned trip to Israel and couldn't put it down. When I finished it, I couldn't wait to get the plane to check out this legendary country for myself. And then the trip was cancelled. I was devastated.

Though I cannot address the accuracy of restaurant, hotel and shopping recommendations here, I can say this book offers a fantastic selection of information about the history of the area, its peoples and peculiar challenges.

Reading how other reviewers have detected an anti-Israeli bias from authors Paul Hellander, Andrew Humphreys and Neil Tilbury surprised me. I noticed none of this when I first read this book, but opening it again I see it on every page from an inset box about Israeli rudeness to another that goes on and on about the challenges for Orthodox Jewish gays. I see no mention here about the "challenges" gays face in Islam.

Perhaps I was too captivated by the authors' accounts of things like "Jerusalum Syndrome" to notice the authors' political bent. And that's fine. I do not begrudge the authors their opinions.

In fact, though I am far from anti-Israel, generally speaking I prefer a point-of-view to bland, allegedly "objective" information.

-- Regina McMenamin



2 out of 5 stars Superficial   June 4, 2004
  13 out of 14 found this review helpful

I am a LP fan, but after been living in Israel for almost 3 years I have to say that this guide is very superficial. It could be much better ... for example, there are restaurants that everybody know in Israel, very popular, very nice that are not mentioned in the guide. I would expect something more from LP ... sorry :(


1 out of 5 stars Political opinion VS visitors guidebook   January 23, 2004
  16 out of 17 found this review helpful

I have a number of Lonely Planet guides and this is the only one that goes out of its way to make political statements about the country. Along with that is the poorly researched information about what to see and where to stay.

Shame on Lonely Planet. They are unquestionably the best guide books around except for this one.


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