Originally Posted by
GUWonder
Been to all those places recently?
Given that I've been to all the
named countries above several times over, I'm sure Spiff won't be getting the Israeli-"treatment" of "extended questioning and searches" based on his ethnicity in a majority of those countries anywhere near as often as would be the case with TLV.
In most of those places, the "security" doesn't even ask Americans anything at the airport, at least not more than locals of the dominant ethnicity.
Actually, I have been to MANY of those countries... The ones I haven't been to I cannot travel to because of either my religion or my Israeli stamps in my passport (if I am traveling on my main passport which has Visas in it which I need).
That being said, even with the second passport I have, I assure you that even an American with the last name ending in -Stein -Berg -Witz will cause your journey to be much less enjoyable.
A prime example is a friend of mine, the CEO of a company with a supplier in Dubai LOATHES his travel there as although he is a non-practicing Jew who has never been to Israel he nevertheless gets the third degree even though he travels to/from Dubai on the JFK-Emirates route in First Class every 2-3 months. He thinks the people there are the tops and it is a lovely place, but for some reason an idiotic policy made by a bureaucrat to stick it to Jews makes travel to there a pain. The same is not true in Israel where such policies create a significant financial hardship and it would be fabulous if they could be dropped tomorrow.
I should mention I have had the above problem in many of those countries I have listed (even when traveling on a second passport) and I simply refuse to travel to others such as Saudi Arabia.
Now as for regular countries, I find immigration to be downright intimidating in Italy, and I don't understand their need for big, big guns in their airports. Nevertheless, I love Italy and go there as often as I can. The French seem to adopt security policies at random. As for the Germans, I don't know about you but I don't like to be touched at least twice when I am trying to get to my flight at 6am. The Chinese seem to have no regard for visitors to their country, being authoritarian in their immigration policies. I could go on and on, but my point is we can talk about security till we are blue in the face but I won't accept the argument that Israel is the worst airport on earth in this manner because if Israel's neighbor's treated it with a little less anger, then perhaps traveling to the holy land would be easier for us all.