Originally Posted by stimpy
The governments in the ME whether secular or not must kowtow to religious leaders and having some sort of screening at immigration is a small price to pay for civil accord. This is absolutely true in Israel too.
Very valid point.
Originally Posted by B747-437B
If Qatar chooses to deny you a visa on those grounds, then do you really want to associate with Qatar? Why force yourself to travel to a country where you are obviously not welcome. There is an entire world out there for you to travel to instead - enjoy it. It is their loss, not yours.
Well, it's not a vacation--although it is a boondoggle business trip, I will admit! Even so, I have a hard time dismissing whole countries as destinations because of their governments' policies (see also "United States of America"). And I really do want to go. I find the Middle East pretty fascinating, from a cultural standpoint, and this is my first chance to get to any of those countries outside Egypt and Israel. I have a weird desire to go to Yemen and Syria too (not to mention Libya), no matter what their opinions are about Jews. I just think there's a hell of a lot to see that would be really interesting. What's really holding me back is my solo female status and my total lack of Arabic language ability. I was pretty intrigued by that NYT article about Libya in last Sunday's travel section, I must say.