Israel / P.T. Travel Safety

Don't worry about going to Israel or even S. Israel to Egypt (assuming you're going via the dead sea by coach to Eilat). There is some arab-Israeli unrest but i would be very surprised if you came accross it or Palestinian demonstrations, unless you seek it out.

haaretz.com or jpost.com will keep you abreast of events.

The region of a 40km radius from Gaza is not very safe owing to many rockets falling on Israel there. I would advise you to be careful and seek cover if you hear the siren go off if you decide to travel to Sderot or the affected area. You must find cover within 15 seconds if you are in Sderot or any community up to 10kms away from Gaza. Beer Sheba is also within range of Hamas rocket fire and you have up to 45 seconds to find cover.

It's interesting that the BBC owners of TT could not stomach any criticism of its biased coverage of this conflict, pulling a thread discussing amongst other things historic bias of the BBC including that associated with Israel. Its biased reporting of the Israel-arab conflict was compared with the BBC's anodine, doctored reporting of British military adventures abroad.

Typical, disgraceful, undemocratic (BBC comments are 'fully moderated'), but not unexpected. All the comments were saved if anybody is interested. Act fast before this too disappears.

We're going for a month too probably next fall. Rent a car and take ourselves around. We want to see the west bank as well and for lots of reasons are going to hire a guide with a car. If you're interested in doing the same here is a recent discussion on the issue.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1691848&tstart=0

Yes - things go on as usual in Israel. It remains safe and you avoid an area which you probably wouldnt enter anyway.

Have a good trip

I don't know, I can't speak for Israel as a whole, but I came came out of there and the West Bank is not a good place to be right now. There are plenty of riots there, a few of which I saw, and news report have it that some protesters were killed yesterday. Personally, I was stoned in Bethlehem and fled.

Play it by ear, and be cautious if you go the West Bank. People there are pissed. Outside of that area, there really shouldn't be any worries. Keep an eye out for news reports of course, but don't let it affect any other trvaels to the north or Eilat. Jerusalem was fine too, though the Old City had shut down in solidarity the day of the strike. I think they've opened back up.

chabibi, what is the historic bias of the bbc?

#4 Protesters killed? Interesting. I seem to have missed that. The Israeli authorities to my reading seemed to be quite restrained, and are carrying on dialogue with arab leaders there to allow peaceful non-violent protests. Please quote your source for this assertion.

#5 OP has asked for this not to turn into a political debate, something i wanted to and still wish to respect. I would have preferred that Gordoosh had not asked this here, but had opened a separate thread. You may open a specific thread to which i will be happy to contribute in further depth if you wish for further explanations.

One example was the BBC many years ago failure to report the holocaust on the instructions of the British government despite having evidence early on, the BBC's description of 'illegal immigration' to Palestine when the British government had been given a mandate specifically to set up a home for the jews. Its reporting on the hanging of the British sergeants as an act of terror, whilst failing to report that this had been a response to the execution of 2 Irgun men for the carrying of arms.
The BBC’s description of the Stern Group as a ‘gang’ to paint it as a criminal enterprise and associated negative reporting of that group’s (and the Irgun’s) actions because it worked to free Israel of British colonial rule once the British White Paper of 1939 had abrogated its League of Nations Mandate.
The totally distorted reporting of the Irgun by the BBC carries on to this day, with it being described by them as an ‘extremist group’. Has the BBC ever described the PLO or Fatah as that?
The following report is an example of biased reporting in the extreme. Practically every line describing Irgun, Stern Group expresses falsehoods about them, including the ‘massacre of Deir Yassin’, the absence of any mention of the British army shelling with artillery of the defenceless jewish city of Jerusalem, the lies about ‘untrained units no match for the IDF’. I could go on and on and would need to do some research to list this exhaustively.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/78601.stm

“Under Begin's command, the underground terrorist group Irgun carried out numerous acts of violence.
In 1946 Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. In 1948 it took part in the massacre of Arabs in the town of Deir Yassin”

Are Hamas described as terrorists? The KD was the British government and secret intelligence and CID center in Jerusalem. It was a prime target. Rather than being terrorists the Irgun always tried to avoid innocent civilians, ditto the Stern Group.
The events at Deir Yassin are not at all simply described as a ‘massacre’. This village commanded the approaches to Jerusalem when it was under siege, and many people in convoys bringing food to Jerusalem were killed by fire from this village. Under cover of a white flag villagers killed the commander of the attacking forces that had attempted to parley with them, and a battle ensued. Things are not at all as simple as the BBC would suggest.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/israel_at_50/profiles/81305.stm

The episode of the sergeants was presented totally out of context of the struggle for independence against British colonial rule. It was portrayed instead as brutal jewish terror which led to many acts of brutality and pogroms against jews in England and Wales. The hangings of the Irgun men had been a typical terror tactic of colonial rule practised in a similar manner throughout the empire, and which the Irgun was not going to accept. But that would never be explained by the BBC.

You could more recently point to the invention of the term 'militant' to describe those commiting terrorist attacks against Israel. 'Terrorist' was however the description for those carrying out IRA attacks against Britain.
You could point to Palestinians explaining their side of the conflict hardships, 'balanced' by interviews with extremist Israelis and settlers, guaranteed to put over a view that is not representative of the overwhelming majority of Israelis.
Recently the BBC buried the report of British troops killing and injuring civilians with a title of a soldier injured in action. Does this ever happen in relation to Israelis?
The daily coverage of all the minutiae of the Israeli's relations with the Palestinians when to the exclusion of a myriad of conflicts throughout the world, with very many horrific stories from the ethnic cleansing and suffering to this day of Azeris from Armenia for example who languish in refugee camps to the privations of Tibetans.

Planted stories by 'Pallywood' that invent atrocities are accepted on trust eg the case of Mohammed Dura was reported, but not the court case in France where the Israeli army 'killing' was proven to be staged, a blood libel.
Look for it on youtube. It is educative as to how the propaganda industry against Israel works.
The Hamas story of the blackouts in Gaza where they sat in a room with candles during the daytime, blackout curtains shutting out the light. Why did the BBC not report that this was a set up? Is this not collusion, the very worst form of journalism?

Positive stories about Israel, for example of its supreme court recently ordering the rerouting of the separation fence nearer the green line at the request of the villagers of Bilin were to my knowledge not reported.
You could point recently to the ignoring of rocket attacks on Israel whilst reporting every action of the IDF including every closure of the border of Gaza without explaining why.The address by Olmert and other Israelis at the end of last week pleading with Hamas to stop the rocket firing to avoid a military operation by Israel was not reported at all on the BBC website. News is selected to show Israel in a negative light.
I can point to the latest BBC bias yesterday having for the whole day a picture of an injured girl on its front page when the overwhelming casualties were of Hamas members. The intentions of such selective bias are obvious. Today there was a photographic slideshow which came up showing only damage to Gaza and casualties there, ignoring the massive damage to installations and injuries in Israel.

There is just so much evidence of BBC bias (It is arguable that ITV is even worse in its standards).
This link of the BBC's suppressing its own report on bias might point you further.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bbc-fights-to-suppress-internal-report-into-allegations-of-bias-against-israel-442150.html
It is regrettable, but for more balanced reporting i read the German or the French press. Even Al Jazeera has been more balanced in its reporting of this conflict. It did not resort to the cheap Sturmeresque selection of an injured child for its front page as did the BBC, the Guardian and the Independent.

I will not comment any further if anyone replies to this here in this thread in order to respect the OP's wishes. If you wish for further comment by me I will only do this if you open another thread, or send me your email address by PM if you wish for individual answers (not necessarily on TT as they seem to be a catspaw of the BBC and do not brook democratic debate) Please PM me a link if you open a thread somewhere. If i have time i will contribute.

Let's be realistic here shall we? When the buses start exploding and the cafes are detonated by suicide bombers will anyone be surprised? Our government here already knows this and when they brace us for what is to come with terms such as " there will be serious back lash" and what not you can damn well bet they're referring to what I outlined in my second sentence here. The only thing you can do as a tourist in regards to your safety is to chose not to come if you feel concerned. As a guide I don't like to see that happen but I also don't have much I can do to comfort a group who is on edge for two weeks either. The simple fact is there are going to be a lot repercussions in the weeks/months ahead and anyone who tries to tell you different is denying the past.

I would be worried about spending too long in places like Dahab or other resorts along the Egyptian coast.

Okay...thanks for keeping this mostly informative and not political or biased. I want to get all my info from various places, including here, while we are trying to decide. As far as suicide bombers and the craziness that are accompanied with that...are there places that this has not been a common thing in the past? Do they usually target tourist areas or is this more of an Israel / Palestine / Hamas thing? I'm not worried, but I don't want to make uninformed and foolish decisions on where we go.

guywhoeats...if you don't mind my asking, what nationality are you? did you do anything or go anywhere to provoke them throwing rocks at you? I know that sounds obvious, but since I don't know you I have no way of knowing whether you were being politically active or the like, so please don't take the question personally. We just really want to pay a visit to bethlehem and jericho, but don't want to go if there are no obvious reasons for us being targeted and we can't prevent it by playing it safe someway while we are there.

also, how easy is it for us to go to fro the P.T. and the surrounding Israeli land? What about border crossing into Jordan and Egypt?

I'll leave this thread open until we make a decision or until we leave, so please feel free to update comments and information as needed and as you feel would be helpful. Thanks!