Adventure tourism - Middle East style

Haaretz - Israel News - Tourism to Israel rises by some 26 percent in 2005 over last year:

"The lion's share of tourists visiting Israel in 2005 came from countries with large Jewish populations.

"The largest proportion of tourists came from the United States, with 339,000 visits. France came second with 243,000 and the United Kingdom third with 114,900.

"Most of the other tourists came from countries with large Catholic populations such as Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Poland and South Korea."

I am a bit mystified by the casual assertion that South Korea is a country with a "large" Catholic population - it's only 26 percent Christian according to the CIA factbook and I believe a lot of those are Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists.

The real puzzle here for me is the Brazilians. The article points out that there has been a substantial increase in Brazilian travel to Israel despite a lack of efficient airline connections between the two countries. I wonder what people who live in the sun and sand capital of the world find so attractive about travel to the Mid-East war zone. Still, there's no accounting for taste. Right now some Aussie is probably settling in for an 18-hour plane ride so he can get a sunburn in Miami.