Final stretch to crown Dead Sea a top natural wonder

September 7, 2011 - 11:04 AM by Brian Blum

The Dead Sea from the 7Wonders voting page

If you look in the upper right corner of the Israelity blog today, you’ll notice a new ad asking readers to vote for the Dead Sea, officially chosen as one of 28 finalists in the international competition to crown the new 7 Wonders of Nature. The contest is not news in itself – Israel was named one of the finalists all the way back in 2009. But the final stage is now – that’s where you get to vote – and the deadline is coming up fast: November 11, 2011 (11.11.11 for those of you who like palindromes).

The competition is sponsored by the New7Wonders Foundation. A previous race ending in 2007 crowned the 7 new Man-Made Wonders of the World (the winners included Machu Picchu in Peru, the Taj Mahal in India, and Petra in Jordan). The whole project is an attempt to update and make more modernly relevant the classic 7 Wonders of the Ancient World declared by Philon of Byzantium during the Hellenistic period.

As one would expect for this part of the world, the process for securing the Dead Sea a spot in the finalists has not been without political contention. Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have been at odds over which of the trio “owns” the sea and who gets to promote (and reap the tourism benefit) should the Dead Sea make the top seven. The New7Wonders Foundation website has simply listed the Dead Sea as residing in all three areas. A compromise worthy of Solomon?

The competition is nevertheless formidable. The Dead Sea is up against Angel Falls in Venezuela, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and the Grand Canyon in the U.S.

Voting is easy. If you’re in Israel, just type in “Dead Sea” into your cell phone and text the message to 2244. Otherwise you can vote on the website (where you can choose more than just one finalist). Israel has also set up its own Vote for the Dead Sea Facebook page, which now has over 58,000 “likes.”

Not to be outshone, the Israeli Tourism Ministry, together with Israel’s Channel 2 News, has launched their own competition allowing Israel’s to pick the “7 Wonders of Israel.” These can be either natural or man-made. For the next week (until Sept. 13), you can post your suggestions; then a group of tour guides, academics and representatives from the TV station and government will select 15 finalists. Final voting runs through September 22 – a considerably faster timetable than the two years the 7Wonders Foundation contest is running!

One more tidbit about the former competition to crown the Dead Sea…in the midst of the voting, artist Spencer Tunick will be staging his mass nude photography project at the lowest place on earth, on September 17 (see our article here). While that may endear the Dead Sea to liberal Israelis and like-minded high brows around the world, I suspect it may throw off some of the more liberal voters in Ramallah and Amman.

The Dead Sea needs between 300-400,000 votes to make it as one of the top 7. Let the games begin!

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