Lonely Planet Founder Bashes Israel

By Published On: October 3, 2006

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A few years ago, a CAMERA review of the Lonely Planet guidebook on Israel found in that book “a generally disagreeable attitude toward Israel and its Jewish inhabitants.”

“The legacy of Israel given in the ‘Facts about the Country’ section reflects the traditional Arab version of events almost from start to finish,” the review noted.

It wasn’t such a surprise, then, to come across statement by Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler’s statement on the Israel-Hezbollah war that didn’t so much reflect the traditional Arab version of events, but the version of events held by the most extreme Arab leaders.

In a feature in last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Wheeler discussed how previously safe places can quickly become dangerous. Lebanon, he said, has recently become “dangerous” not because the Lebanese government lacked the will or strenght to assert its sovereignty over the whole of Lebanon, and not because Hezbollah provoked a war with Israel with its deadly cross-border kidnapping raid, but because Israel, seemingly for no reason in Wheeler’s mind, behaves like an unruly gorilla:

Lebanon wasn’t a dangerous place a few weeks ago, then Israel starts smashing the place up and it’s very dangerous.

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