Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.6940454
EAN num: 9780864426918
ISBN number: 0864426917
Label: Lonely Planet Publications
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet Publications
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 432
Printing Date: 1999-11
Publishing house: Lonely Planet Publications
Sale Popularity Level: 599678
Studio: Lonely Planet Publications
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
From Jericho's ruins and the domes of Jerusalem to Tel Aviv's hip cafés 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
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers -
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.
Rated by buyers 
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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 very 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
Rated by buyers 
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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 :(
Rated by buyers -
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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