Also, on CO if you pay for BusinessFirst and you have an israeli address you get 200% EQM, 3 trips to NYC in BF = Platinum.
unfortunately, some of the other older perks for Israel based plats have disappeared.

I don't think CO J is much much better, I'd go for 'significantly' better. CO's service on the ground is vastly superior to LY, OnePass is a better program, I think the food is .. actually LY's food wasn't bad at all, but if you're flying CO you *have* to order Kosher if you are Kosher. I have wondered why they bother to serve blatantly non-kosher stuff on the TLV flights (lobster, shrimpies.... ). And finally, I haven't experienced LY C on the 777 and 767, but the seats suck compared to CO J.

Finally as far as my experience analyzing Matmid (vs. CO), Matmid is superior if you are actually flying a ton, CO is better if you have a mixed flying/partner accumulation pattern (getting matmid points via credit card at 70:1 on the amex doesn't seem good to me..). Also, I don't have experience in redeeming upgrades/reward tickets, are they fairly reasonable to come by? CO's availability to TLV (either 1 or 2 on their most profitable routes) sucks in general.

RT Flight from NYC-TLV in discounted Biz:
LY: 800 points
CO: 22,600 miles

Free ticket:
LY 3k
CO: 100k

Flights needed for free ticket(no status):
LY 3.75
CO 4.4
For RT Upgrade:
LY: ~2
CO:~3

with top tier bonus:
LY 1200 points (RT UG in 1.1 flight, free ticket 2.5)
CO: 37k miles (RT UG in 1.6 flights, free ticket 3 flights)