As if missiles were raining down on the south of the country, and as if Israel’s social protesters hadn’t just amped the ante by taking over an abandoned municipally-owned building in central Tel Aviv, and as if the police hadn’t come in to evict the squatters at dawn, causing an uproar, this week the Law, Information and Technology Authority at Israel’s Justice Ministry finally sanctioned Google’s request to operate its “Street View” here.

Razi Barkai, Israel Army Radio’s grand old man of morning radio news, presented this development from the sputtering point of view of a crotchety codger: “Why? Why would anyone even want to do this? Who cares? Who wants to look at this? What — like I want to see my favorite Dizengoff Street shoe store on Google instead of than just walking over? Or some guy riding his bike? Who has time for this?”

GlobalPost in Jerusalem: Glenn Beck heads to the Holy Land

The last question can be debated, but the younger, hipper media correspondent on air with Barkai was left to weakly respond “It’s actually a very popular feature, you know, pretty much everywhere.”