{"id":7437,"date":"2011-09-19T17:19:22","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T21:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7437"},"modified":"2011-09-19T17:19:22","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T21:19:22","slug":"israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world","title":{"rendered":"Israel asks you to vote for the Dead Sea as a &#8220;wonder of the world&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli officials want the Dead Sea to\u00a0make the &#8220;New Seven Wonders of Nature&#8221; list &#8212; and say you can help.<\/p>\n<p>The ancient sea is among 28 finalists offered by the conservation-minded New 7 Wonders group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would like to ask all my dear Christian friends to show their support for Israel by voting for the Dead Sea in the New 7 Wonders of Nature Competition,\u201d says Haim Gutin, a tourism consul, in a mass e-mail from his headquarters in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Competitors\u00a0includes the Grand Canyon, Australia&#8217;s famed Ayers Rock, the Galapagos Islands and Indonesia&#8217;s Komodo Island, home to the famed Komodo dragons, writes James D. Davis for the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., <em>Sun-Sentinel<\/em> newspaper. The list also includes &#8220;some sights you may have never heard of: the surreal Milford Sound in New Zealand, the exotic Halong Bay in Vietnam, the Masurian Lakeland in Poland, and the Bin Tinah Island, a nature preserve owned by Abu Dhabi.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Benefits to Israel are obvious if the Dead Sea makes the Top Seven, notes Davis:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It would likely boost the nation&#8217;s tourism industry, and most tour groups from America are already conservative Christians. Those are the folks who see Israel as the Holy Land, the setting for the events in the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>Israel wants to make it really easy to vote, with its own <a href=\"www.votedeadsea.com \" target=\"_blank\">www.VoteDeadSea.com <\/a> site. The site touts seven reasons to vote for the Dead Sea, including the saltiest lake, the lowest spot on Earth, the history, the healthy air and mud-bath spas, even the chance to bob in its waters.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/features\/religion\/faith-and-values\/sfl-fv-religion-blog-dead-sea,0,7926529.story\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli officials want the Dead Sea to\u00a0make the &#8220;New Seven Wonders of Nature&#8221; list &#8212; and say you can help. The ancient sea is among 28 finalists offered by the conservation-minded New 7 Wonders group. \u201cI would like to ask all my dear Christian friends to show their support for Israel by voting for the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[516],"tags":[1594,2228],"class_list":["post-7437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel","tag-dead-sea","tag-israel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Israel asks you to vote for the Dead Sea as a &quot;wonder of the world&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Israel asks you to vote for the Dead Sea as a &quot;wonder of the world&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Israeli officials want the Dead Sea to\u00a0make the &#8220;New Seven Wonders of Nature&#8221; list &#8212; and say you can help. The ancient sea is among 28 finalists offered by the conservation-minded New 7 Wonders group. \u201cI would like to ask all my dear Christian friends to show their support for Israel by voting for the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-19T21:19:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Israel asks you to vote for the Dead Sea as a \"wonder of the world\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Israel asks you to vote for the Dead Sea as a \"wonder of the world\"","og_description":"Israeli officials want the Dead Sea to\u00a0make the &#8220;New Seven Wonders of Nature&#8221; list &#8212; and say you can help. The ancient sea is among 28 finalists offered by the conservation-minded New 7 Wonders group. \u201cI would like to ask all my dear Christian friends to show their support for Israel by voting for the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-09-19T21:19:22+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world","name":"Israel asks you to vote for the Dead Sea as a \"wonder of the world\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-09-19T21:19:22+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-19T21:19:22+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/israel-asks-you-to-vote-for-the-dead-sea-as-a-wonder-of-the-world#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Israel asks you to vote for the Dead Sea as a &#8220;wonder of the world&#8221;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7437"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7439,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437\/revisions\/7439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}