rusty600

Actually Israel won't do that anymore (the stamping of another piece of paper). You can get another passport though from the State Dept. if you are planning to go someplace else. Just don't let the other countries see you have two passports... and I don't get harassed any more than I can handle over there ;)

yeah you can't, but most middle east countries you can't get into anyway or there are limited opportunities to, but you probably won't be the one they select -- at least that's the case with women. I couldn't have gone to Saudi Arabia anyway as an American non-Muslim woman. Yeah I went to the Dead Sea. It's commercialized but still really cool.

well -- who knows what it is like right now over there. I'm not sure with this Hezbollah thing if Israel is SUPER safe right now. But otherwise, when I've been there, I've flown into Tel Aviv. Depends on how you go. Continental has a direct flight, as does El Al from NYC to Tel Aviv. I fly Continental for the miles. Otherwise, if you get to London, I've flown from there to Tel Aviv too, once on El Al and once on Al Italia airlines. Once I got there, I visited Haifa and Akko and the Sea of Galilee in the north, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, and Tel Aviv. I didn't get to see as many places as I would like -- there's never enough time and you meet great people so you stay longer than anticipated some places. I never worried about being out late at night. I never have been to Jordan. I have a good friend from there. I could ask him about it, if you would like.

in israel the hostels are not party hostels, really. they're usually fairly quiet -- but I don't know about summers. I've been there a few times in the winter. It's "off season" then... It's great though all in all. I went alone twice and with a friend once, but met great people there. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, there will always be trouble, but just don't talk politics there and you'll be fine ;)

No problems for me. I don't know where you are going, but the people are great there. There are no day-to-day problems/incidents, but i guess you just have to be aware that something COULD happen any minute (but it's really unlikely) from the outside threats...