And, for an hour at least, I like the Holy Land Experience just because it isn't the Magic Kingdom. Now it would be easy to dismiss the Holy Land Experience as a temple for a cult – except I have already been to Disneyworld. "This entire Holy Land theme park is under 24-hour surveillance," says a sign.
Perhaps the Israeli Defence Force could have been represented by gnomes or cardboard cutouts, because the Holy Land Experience is full of cardboard cutouts of Jesus looking young, hot and very toothy, as if commerce would not tolerate an ugly Jesus, no matter how devout the consumers. The entrance is a shrunken copy of the Damascus Gate in old Jerusalem it is quite like old Jerusalem except there are no members of the Israeli Defence Force sitting on the wall. But I will get 10% off the $35 admission. Nor can I interview (stalk) any of the customers, presumably because coming here is a religious experience and they don't want liberal (godless) journalists interfering. A few days later a reply came – they don't give interviews. I emailed in advance, asking to interview the park owners and the staff. It then passed, for $37m in 2007, to Paul and Jan Crouch, who own the Trinity Broadcasting Network and are the biggest figures in International God TV. It was founded in 2001 by Marvin Rosenthal, a Jewish-born Baptist minister, whose Zion's Hope organisation likes to convert Jews to Christianity it was picketed by the Jewish Defence League on its opening day, although they didn't actually have the guts to invade and occupy it. T he Holy Land Experience is a religious fundamentalist theme park in Orlando, Florida.