Middle East - Anthony Ham [533]
In genuine emergencies, you might get some assistance, but only if other channels have been exhausted. For example, if you need to get home urgently, a free ticket home is exceedingly unlikely – the embassy would expect you to have insurance. If all your money and documents are stolen, it might assist with getting a new passport, but a loan for onward travel is out of the question.
For the addresses and contact details of embassies and consulates in the Middle East, see the Directory sections in the individual country chapters.
GAY & LESBIAN TRAVELLERS
The situation for gay and lesbian travellers in the Middle East is more diverse than you might imagine. Israel is the best place in the region to be gay – homosexuality is legal, and Tel Aviv and Eilat in particular have thriving gay and lesbian scenes. The same doesn’t apply to the Palestinian Territories, and hundreds of Palestinian gays have been forced to seek refuge in Israel. Homosexuality is also legal in Turkey, with İstanbul and Ankara both home to a small but thriving gay culture. Whether that’s about to change remains unclear, however, after the gay rights group Lambda (www.lambdaistanbul.org) was closed down by the authorities in May 2008 for violating Turkish morality laws.
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IS IT SAFE?
Imagine somebody whose image of the USA was built solely on the 9/11 attacks, or who refused to visit Spain or the UK as a result of terrorist attacks in Madrid and London in recent years. Just as the USA, the UK and Spain are rarely considered to be dangerous destinations so, too, day-to-day life in the Middle East very rarely involves shootings, explosions and other elements of terror; major international news sources rarely, if ever, report the good news. Picture the scene on CNN: ‘Today all was quiet on the streets of Damascus, Amman and Cairo. Now, back to the studio…’ There are trouble spots where violence persists, such as Iraq – visiting the country is a serious undertaking and not for your average traveller. And there are places where violence flares from time to time (such as in the Palestinian Territories or Lebanon). But such outbreaks of violence usually receive widespread media coverage, making it relatively easy to avoid these places until things settle down.
Terrorist incidents also do occur, and there have been attacks in Israel and the Palestinian Territories and the Red Sea resorts of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in recent years. While such incidents are clearly major causes for concern, these are definitely the exception rather than the norm. The sad fact about modern terrorism is that you may face similar dangers anywhere in the world and that you’re probably no more at risk in the Middle East than you may be in your home country. As one holidaymaker was reported saying in the wake of the 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh bombings: ‘Actually, I live in central London. I don’t really want to go home!’
In our experience, most people in the Middle East are perfectly able to distinguish between the policies of Western governments and individual travellers. You may receive the occasional question (‘Why does the West support Israel?’), but you’ll almost never be held personally accountable, except perhaps in deeply troubled Iraq. Once in Tehran we stood, obviously Westerners, with cameras and pasty complexions, and watched a crowd march by chanting ‘Death to America! Death to Britain!’ Several marchers grinned, waved and broke off to come over and ask how we liked Iran.
So, while right now we’d advise against visits to Gaza, Hebron or Baghdad, rarely should events in the news make you reconsider your travel plans. Keep abreast of current affairs, and if you need to phone your embassy for travel advice, then do. Otherwise, just go.
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It is slightly more complicated in Egypt and Jordan, where, although the criminal code doesn’t expressly forbid homosexual acts, laws regarding public decency have been used to