I saw this movie and at the end, 2 questions came up:
1. Is Mona's passport issued by Israeli government? Do they issue passports as 'unidentified nationality'?
2. The Syrian guard said Mona should be regarded as moving from a place of Syria to another place, and therefore he could not admit Israeli exit stamp on her passport. If it was regarded as a domestic travel, why didn't the guard simply let Mona pass through without signing the passport?
I'd like to know how exactly is the process for someone to cross that border.
But what I thought is that the problem was mainly to exit Israel, not entering Syria. The closed gates are Israeli gates. An Israeli friend once told me that he is not allowed to go to the surrounding countries, after commenting on how, while in south america, traveling by land between countries was for him a novelty.
I just watched the film and to me it looked like she had a Syrian passport. I would have to guess that this had something to do with the Golan Heights being internationally recognized as occupied Syria, rather than a part of Israel. From what I understand, Israeli citizens generally have two passports, one from Israel and one from another country they may have had citizenship through.
When I visited Israel in 2008 one of the intriguing things I read was that if you planned to visit any of the Arab countries it was recommended to get a plain piece of paper stamped by the Israeli border guards so you could remove it when traveling to a country that didn't recognize Israel. What's interesting is that I went ahead and had the Israeli stamp my US passport like normal. When I looked at my passport, the entry stamp was on a new page even though there was plenty of room on the same page as the Jordanian exit visa AND the Jordanian entry visa, for when I went back into the country was on a new page, meaning the two Israeli stamps were on a page of my own that I could easily slit out if need be.
Technically, those borders are closed to all but UN personnel, meaning no civilians at all could cross.
Robert
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I have a Tivo and know how to use it!