If they will do that to a US citizen, think what they will be like with somone who isn’t.
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And, depending on what passport stamps are in your passport.
You are correct. The hand holding firms are inundated. And that doesn’t reflect the DIYers like myself.
Not just the US though, on my overland trip to India, admittedly in a different era, we were sternly warned not to enter Israel, a stamp from that country would mean we would get no further. We didn’t, and we did.
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Somewhat famously the Top Gear cast and crew had to have duplicate passports on the Middle East special because of stuff like this.
Working in Jordan, we crossed the old Allenby Bridge into Israel fot R & R. A paper visa was slipped inside the passport. This was stamped both sides of the border and removed completely when returning.
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You don’t need to be famous. I have a nephew in the Army who has two UK passports to avoid problems when entering number of countries as part of his official trips in mufti.
After a holiday trip to Israel I had to get a new passport - to travel to countries that were ‘not friendly’ to Israel.
Not going back there even though its is a fascinating country. Treatment of non jewish travellers is on par to US immigration and TSA
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On the trip I referred to in my earlier post, I was detained by MOSSAD for 5 hours on suspected involvement in a the highjacking of a 'plane.
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I watched him and the president of El Salvador on the new a little while ago. He was asking the press/TV for questions and kept insulting their channels/papers when asking them. Very very rude.
He no longer cares, he’s not standing for election again.
Though if you think that’s because he’s going to go quietly at the end of his second term, I have a bridge to sell you.
What was clear is that no-one that Trump sends to El Salvador is coming back.
Ever.
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Fact may be following fiction but I recommend the UK short series ‘Years and Years’ made a few years ago and now available on Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/us/title/80219056?s=i&trkid=254015180&vlang=en
The explanation regarding the ‘camps’ is utterly chilling.
A colleague of mine was visiting Israel to see NDS (the crypto people). He exited the airport, got into a taxi and the taxi sped off. A minute later the taxi driver pulled over and the back doors were opened by a group of guys in ski masks with guns. They pulled him out of the back and threw him into the back of a black transit style van which sped off with him held down in the back blindfolded and hands tied. He thought he was going to die. He was taken to a building where he was taken into a room and interrogated for about an hour before the (presumed) Mossad agents figured they had the wrong guy. They blindfolded him again, put him in a car and dropped him off at his hotel where his suitcase had been dropped off a few minutes previously. No apologies and no acknowledgment afterwards that any of it had happened. From his interrogation he figured they mistook him for a terrorist of some sort. He was quite badly traumatised and got the next flight home.
I once listened to a feature on Radio 4 about a couple who had booked a holiday in the Caribbean through a travel agent. The travel agent also booked their flights. Shortly after takeoff the couple were surprised to see that their flight had crossed the English Channel and was heading south east. They asked a flight attendant if that was normal and she replied that that was perfectly normal on flights to Israel. They explained that they were heading to the Caribbean. When the plane landed in Israel it was on an airport that was shared by commercial and military flights but the couple were surprised when soldiers entered the aircraft and took them out where they were made to lie face down on the tarmac. They eventually managed to explain what had happened and later the travel agent apologised for their mistake.
My experience was completely the opposite. They politely apologised, gave me tea and biscuits and said they just had to check a few things.
Apparently, some years previously I had been booked on a B.A flight from Tehran to London but in actual fact I took an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. This was the flight that immediately preceded the flight that was hijacked to Entebbe. I explained the convoluted reason why I had done so and it was clear and diconserting from their questions that they knew a hell of a lot about me. Fortunately for me, they said, they were able to check with UK intelligence services where I had been positively vetted to work on secure UK military sites.
Stuff like that was always happening to me at work. I think the reason I got away with it is because I am so naïve that I make Frank Spencer look positively sophisticated.
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I had a colleague who was really twitchy about using social media like LinkedIn until I gently pointed out that we would already have a thick dossier in any of the countries that might be interested and it wouldn’t make much difference
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I suspect that it might be advantageous to have a slightly dull & non-controversial online profile for the authorities to view - do the things everyone does and you’re far less likely to be of interest than someone with little information.
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Agree, a “virgin” phone and empty social media profile are suspicious in themselves these days.
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Sadly, it is these days, but what if like me you’ve never had a social media presence, except for this site and one or two others, and anonymously at that? It’s just like me being a really bad credit risk simply because I haven’t rented a house or borrowed any money (mortgage excepted and paid of many moons ago) since the mid 1980’s.
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