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Well, well, what is that thing about 'not getting into Syria when you have an Israeli stamp in your passport' - frankly its b-t! The Story: We were 4 travelers…

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Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:45:23 +0000

Well, well, what is that thing about 'not getting into Syria when you have an Israeli stamp in your passport' - frankly its b-t!

The Story:

We were 4 travelers from a small and politically neutral European country, coming from Jordan (Dara border crossing) into Syria with one car and one motorbike with European registration plates. 3 of us had a valid Syrian visa - mine had expired before I could use it.

My passport has a SMALL exit stamp for my car (European license plate) from Israel. The Israeli custom guy in Aqaba/Eilat ignored my protest: 'There is no Hebrew in the stamp, we have to stamp it to show that the car left the country with you'. Don't EVER believe what an Israeli official is telling you, they love to b-t you around! But its true that the stamp is only a small triangle with date, no Hebrew, no country mentioned!

So the Syrian border Rambo finds it in my passport and gets suspicious, he asks my 3 other friends for their SECOND passports, 2 of them actually have a second one, because they extensively travel to Israel.

They hand him their second passports filled with bright & shining Israeli entry and exit stamps! We all thought, we will have to go back to Jordan now! It took the border guards 2 hours of intensive tea & coffee drinking before they came back to us, asking us for our jobs:

'I am with the United Nations, my friend is a journalist, my other friend owns a bookshop and the fourth one is chief of staff of the president of that small country where your president (Bashir) is going to come to in April!'

Ahlan-va-sahlan! And we had our Syrian entry stamps in 5 minutes!

Edited by: Jan777

Edited by: Jan777

Edited by: Jan777

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ONLINE

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:51:18 +0000

the fourth one is chief of staff of the president of that small country

I'll have to try that one..............

Never try to whistle with a mouth full of custard.

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ONLINE

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:07:42 +0000

"I'll have to try that one.............. "

sure, that's the advantage of NOT being from the US, UK or any of these war monger countries! My friend is CoS of the president but travels like any other traveler, no armored cars, no body guards, no diplomatic mambo-jambo.....just imagine Obama's CoS at the Syrian border.....

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Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:20:49 +0000

And why won't you share with us some information such as which country you are from ?

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Sat, 28 Mar 2009 06:43:50 +0000

I am afraid this thread would mislead others, I mean it is just you; doesn't mean it is valid for everyone.
My advice for everybody is; do not take the risk.

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Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:13:16 +0000

the Syrians ask very pointedly on their visa application, "have you ever visited occupied Palestine?" Not Israel; occupied Palestine. This should give you a very clear idea of what they think of you going to Tel Aviv. If you say 'yes', you will NOT get a visa. Apparently, this poster found someone who was either half asleep, takes bribes, or doesn't know how to look closely. I have seen people turned away from the border simply because their answers to questions concerning a POSSIBLE trip to Israel were not convincing enough (no stamps in their passports). I would strongly advise you to consider this post THE rare exception to the norm. If the Syrians and Lebanese ARREST natives of Arab countries who show up with such a stamp in their passport and if they will even turn away diplomats who have been posted to Syria, they are going to turn awayYOU!

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Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:06:31 +0000

Yes, this is probably a very, very big exception to the rule. I won't want to try it myself with an Israeli stamp. But I wonder what happened when you left the country? As when I left, they also scanned every page of my passport!

But I have to say, it can differ from place to place and time to time. I arrived yesterday back in Damascus by plane from Doha. I didn't had a visa, because I am entitled to one on arrival. It took me five minutes to get one, and get through passport control. The guards didn't even have any interest in my passport full of stamps and visas, they just looked at one or two random pages, and I got the Syrian entry stamps! If there was an Israeli stamp on page six or seven they wouldn't even noticed it!

If I compare that with my experience at the border with Turkey a few weeks ago when I first arrived in Syria... they scanned every page of my passport there, and I had to explain every single stamp they couldn't read.

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