Consequences of War: Travelling the Middle East After October 7th

On 7 October 2023, less than three months after I left home, Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist group in the Gaza Strip, launched a massive terrorist attack against Israel, firing 5,000 rockets indiscriminately into civilian population centres, killing the most Jews in a single attack since the Holocaust, and taking over 240 hostages. In response, the Israeli government declared war on Hamas, invaded the Gaza Strip, and began a bombing campaign intended to, in their words, “eradicate Hamas.”

The war has gone on for more than nineteen months, and resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties, mostly Palestinian. As of this writing, there is no end in sight, as neither side is willing to budge on its war aims or political objectives.

In this piece, I am not going to comment on the political situation surrounding the war. Instead, I'm going to talk about how the war affected travel, tourism, and my experience in the Middle East.

Government Statements

In response to the war, western governments initially discouraged travel to the region. The US State Department issued two worldwide cautions, which it has repeatedly updated, warning travellers of the potential for increased threats towards Americans. The details specifically mentioned Israel, Lebanon, and Iraq, but the title referred the entirety of the Middle East. Canada warned its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Egypt, especially as the Egyptian and Canadian governments were in an unrelated immigration and visa policy row.

The United Kingdom initially publicly stated it would not issue an advisory against traveling to Egypt or Jordan, and that travellers could cancel travel plans at their discretion as they would any other trip. At the same time, it repeatedly updated its list of "unsafe areas" in specific countries for travellers to avoid.

For the uninitiated, either in travel or government security bureaucracy, these blanket, vague warnings sowed more confusion in the public when paired with political and media statements than they did provide clarity. This had two impacts. First, family and friends at home worried about my travels in the region. I wasn't the only one. I met many travellers whose families wanted them to leave the region. The second is my next segment.

Tourism Died

The travel industry in the Middle East has suffered heavily in the wake of the attack, especially during peak travel seasons. In Egypt, tour companies saw mass cancellations, either because an entire group cancelled or because there were enough cancellations that they could no longer make money. This was especially true with Canadian tourists because of the compounding issue of the immigration row, which was essentially tit for tat travel restrictions related to migration policy.

In Aqaba, at the time of my visit, six cruise liners had cancelled their voyage to the Gulf of Aqaba, and Ryanair, Wizz Air, and EasyJet had all cancelled their flights from Europe to avoid overflying Gaza. As a result, peak season beaches were empty, businesses were in cutthroat competition for what little business they could get, and hard decisions were being made to keep costs down, such as keeping the lights off in local markets during business hours. Petra was the same story, and hotels in Wadi Rum charged as little as one Jordanian Dinar per night just to attract patrons.

Plainly put: the tourism sectors were either dead or dying. I met hardly any new travel friends outside of Cairo, and often times had entire hostel rooms to myself simply because there was no one else there.

Sites to Yourself

As someone who travelled to the region anyways, I hate to admit that all of this was plus. I had sites pretty much to myself everywhere I went, except Egypt, where crowds were minimal when they usually would have been unbearable.

On my dive trip to Aqaba, we essentially had the Gulf of Aqaba to ourselves. My newfound friends at AqabaShark and I could arrive at any dive site at any time of day and be the only ones there. I got to see the beauty of the Gulf ecosystem without the interference of tourist try divers, which, I have to admit, was awesome.

In Petra, you didn't need to get there first thing in order to take great photos. You could get there at 10h00 or 11h00, take a leisurely stroll through the site, and still get great views and pictures of the treasury and monastery without fighting the crowds. Much of the time, it was just me and the beautiful scenery.

While all of this was great for me as a traveller, it was a serious problem for the local population. I felt sad to see so many people who usually had so much business, and who were probably counting on it, going without and figuring out how to keep life going. I was often thanked profusely for eating at local restaurants, visiting shops, and engaging local "guides" to show me around.

My Experience with the Sentiment

The whole world was rocked with massive protests in response to the war, most of them protesting Israel. While the West was protesting, I was in the region talking to people who live there about the conflict.

No one I met in the region wanted to have a serious dialogue about the conflict. As an American, my policy was to keep my mouth shut unless directly asked, and even then, to be as vague as possible. I met exactly two people who wanted to engage in serious conversation about the war. One was an Egyptian Christian; the other, an atheist Canadian (who had a diverse family heritage).

In these two conversations, we had dialogue. "What do you think about X" was followed by silence and listening rather than debate. While we didn't necessarily agree on everything, we at least came to understand each other’s views better, and we left, I think, as better friends for having that sort of respectful connection.

Everyone else, though, not the case. Palestinians in Jordan shoved their dogmatic beliefs down my throat, despite many factual errors. They repeatedly railed against Americans and the West, and they would not listen to the American they were talking to. My hotel in Amman even had a sign stating "Zionists not welcome" followed by a list of businesses they wouldn't allow on their property (including Starbucks and McDonald's).

One Jordanian (who claimed Palestinian heritage) argued that I believe in an Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates. When I refuted this, I was told (again, by Palestinians) that whether I knew it or not, that's what I believed, because that's what the Zionists believe, and the Zionists control our government, businesses, and social life. It was the same rhetoric Neo-Nazis use to rail against the Jews back home.

Self-loathing Westerners were not much better. I was repeatedly told America was the root of the problem and cause of the conflict. When pressed, however, these same people could not articulate American foreign policy stances in the region outside of what had been on the news the prior few months.

To put it mildly, I was dismayed. The Israeli and Palestinian people deserve peace and security, but dogmatic anti-Israel beliefs and rhetoric were clearly the only thing anyone I spoke with on the subject were really interested in.

Parting Thoughts

Since quitting my job, I've tried to stay out of terrorism, geopolitics, and political conflict. Working in those areas took me to a bad place, and I was (and still am) adamant about leaving it all behind. Unfortunately, when you're there, in the region, when political conflict is happening, you can't avoid it.

I was saddened more than anything about how toxic the dialogue around the conflict was in the echo chamber that is the Middle East. I realised, really realised, that peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is as far from reality as the East is from the West. I'm honestly not sure if it is even possible. Not because there aren't real solutions which could result in peace, but because even if those solutions were to be implemented, the toxicity and hatred is so strong that they would undermine any real attempts at reconciliation. While I really would love to see a peaceful Middle East, coexistent Israel and Palestine, and a resurgent prosperity in a region that is so important to billions of people in the world, after visiting the region and talking to its people, I just couldn't see how it was possible.