Last update - 11:48 06/01/2006
Straight Talk / Why go anywhere else?
By Julie Burchill
It's well nigh impossible at the moment to open a newspaper supplement in the depths of the English winter and not be sent into a state of severe beach-envy by some generic photograph of sun, sea and blue sky - 14 nights in a five-star hotel for the price of a long weekend in a decent London billet. And then, if you're me, you narrow your eyes and hiss "Cheapskate slave-driving bastards!" Because likely as not, the sun, sea and sand will be Egyptian, and one is once more confronted with the fact that holidays to Egypt are cheap as chips and twice as common for us Brits, while traveling to Israel is still considered to be on a par with vacationing on Mars, although a major advertising campaign here this month will try to persuade otherwise.
When I went to Israel for the first time last year, I must admit to arriving back absolutely perplexed as to why anyone would ever want to go anywhere else. In the space of seven short days and nights, I experienced everything from the beauty of Jerusalem to the kitsch glories of Eilat's mini-Vegas, to the surrealism of the Dead Sea and the nonstop nightlife of Tel Aviv. I came back feeling that I could easily have spent a month in each and still not had enough, but that Israel being the size of Wales, even such a whistle-stop tour had been gratifying rather than exhausting. All this, with nonstop sunshine all year round, and less than five hours from London!
But then you see the comparative prices of a holiday in Israel compared to, say, the Egyptian resort of Taba, and it comes in at around three times the damage. As is generally the case in any comparison between Israel and its neighbors, this is because is Israel is vastly more civilized - the average wages of an Egyptian hotel worker are far lower than his Israeli equivalent. Additionally, land is given free to property developers to build hotels in many Egyptian resorts, and there are fewer taxes. But knowing this doesn't make the disparity go away.
A friend of mine - a very pro-Israel friend - recently went for two weeks to Taba. Not only did she pay just over 500 pounds sterling for two weeks at the five-star Hyatt, but she was amazed to find out that there were large numbers of Israelis there doing exactly the same. When such a fiercely patriotic people as the Israelis cross the border to spend their hard-earned wages elsewhere while their own tourist industry is so in need of revenue, it's going to take more than the glossy new TV advertising campaign about to start over here to put things right.
The saddest thing is, of all the countries in this big wide world that I wish everyone could experience, Israel is definitely top of the list. It would be a terrible shame for the ultimate country of the people, for the people, to become an exclusive destination for a few well-heeled Western snobs.