The Dead Sea – one of the Seven Wonders of the World?

It might have escaped your notice, but we at igoogledisrael are big fans of the Dead Sea, the world’s lowest place. So we were mightily impressed last week when the Dead Sea made the list of candidates for the new Seven Natural Wonders of the World. There are 77 other amazing locations up for inclusion as one of the world’s most wondrous natural sites, and just reading the list of candidates is guaranteed to give you itchy feet…

UPDATE: Yesss! The Dead Sea made it to the final stage (go and vote!)! See you in 2011!

There were some 440 original candidates, so the Dead Sea has done mightily well to get included in this round. Fingers, and legs, and any other free bits you have going spare, should be crossed that the Dead Sea can make it into the next round, the final 28 candidates, which will be announced on July 21st. The final seven natural wonders of the world will be announced some time in 2011, with an estimated one billion votes expected.

The Dead Sea’s inclusion in this final round of 28 might just be swayed by the very recent support for the candidacy by the Palestinian Authority; they had been dead set against supporting the Dead Sea’s candidacy because it was sponsored by a West Bank settler council in the Jordan Valley, but with their backing, it could now prove crucial in seeing the Dead Sea reach that glorious final stage. I say bless ’em over there in the Palestinian Authority.

Inclusion in that final stage might also be the saving of the Dead Sea, in so much that there is some serious environmental damage being inflicted on the area, especially over the last 20-30 years. Man-made damage, of course. The publicity generated by being included in that final list of candidates might just persuade the powers-that-be that they really should get their asses into gear and get some serious law-enforcement happening to prevent damage to the feeder rivers that supply the Dead Sea, as well as the extracting of minerals from the Dead Sea, largely carried out by the Israeli company Dead Sea Works. As the new 7 Wonders of Nature slogan reads: “If we want to save anything, we first need to truly appreciate it.”

So, we’ll get our pom-poms out and start cheering for the Dead Sea. Because there’s no other place we’d rather float on our backs reading a 3-day old copy of The Sun, is there?

“Go Dead Sea, go Dead Sea, go Dead Sea…!”

UPDATE: Yesss! The Dead Sea made it to the final stage (go and vote!)! See you in 2011!

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