How can a dual citizen of Israel and Russia travel to the "Arab Boycott" countries without getting into trouble?

score:7

Accepted answer

Of course, there is no way you will be able to directly enter an enemy country from inside Israel unless you want to illegally cross the border to Syria or Libanon — not recommended. So your friend’s travel will always be via a third country. Israeli law requires you to enter and exit Israel on your Israeli passport if you have one, but once you enter whichever third country it may be, you can stuff the Israeli passport somewhere deep into your suitcase, or maybe even leave it at a friend’s place while you travel further (assuming an appropriate itinerary).

At the time of this answer being initially posted (June 2016), the Wikipedia article Israeli Passport (version from 16th June 2016) stated (unsourced) that the Israeli law on visiting enemy countries did not apply to dual nationals who travelled to these countries on their second passport. This has since been removed. Now, the relevant section does not state that exception, so you will probably need to ensure that you do not visit countries Israel considers enemies. Not all countries that prohibit entry to Israeli citizens (or prohibit entry to people whose passports show evidence of travel to Israel) are also considered enemies by Israel. For example, at the time of adding this edit Kuwait will refuse passports with evidence of travel to Israel but is not considered an enemy by Israel according to the data present on Wikipedia.

The most tedious process will probably be acquiring a visa where it is necessary. All visa applications will have to go via embassies in Russia. You will probably have to remain there for some time to allow for visa processing and/or have a trused contact there with whom you can leave your passport between granting and collecting. Typically, embassies and consulates only issue visa to nationals or inhabitants of the country they are in or to a group of regionally close countries. And, of course, your friend doesn’t want the enemy state sending his Russian passport to an address in Israel. It would get harder if you need to supply proof of residence in Russia.

More post

Search Posts

Related post