Deryck, you should be fine. There are many Israelis (some colleagues of
mine, for example) who're flying to Malaysia on business with foreign
passports. I don't even know what the Chelsea incident is, it didn't make
any headlines over here.
The security questioning is meant to guarantee the safety of air travel
with El Al, which as you may know has been the target of terror back in the
1970s (and since, to a decreased degree), in other words - it's done so you
can fly safely. El Al is considered the world's most secure airline exactly
because of its unique methods which are based on interviewing the passengers
to detect suspicious passengers, instead of forcing 85 year old grannies to
remove their shoes (TSA method...), which have been in place long before the
9/11 attacks, for example.
Because you clearly have no terrorist intentions, there's nothing to
worry about. Just be very patient, answer the questions frankly and openly,
and they'll let you in. They won't fly out without you :)
Harel Cain
Wikimania 2011 local team
On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 21:43, Deryck Chan <deryckchan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I'm flying from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv on an El Al flight, holding a
British passport with a Malaysian stamp from this January (along with a few
other stamps from USA, Taiwan and Japan from previous years).
I never thought Malaysia would be an issue other than some questioning
by the El Al and Israeli border control, until the Chelsea incident this
week made Israel-Malaysia relations somewhat tenser than usual, as I've
heard.
I doubt that in my case the "formal" letter would make any difference:
the automated email has our name and personal itinerary printed on it, so if
that doesn't get me through, I doubt any other paperwork from WMIL will...
On 30 July 2011 02:29, Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Unless you come from a potentially problematic country (for example one
> which doesn't have diplomatic relations with Israel, or just one which is
> rather exotic for incoming tourism), the printout of the automated mail you
> got from us should be fine, and even that shouldn't be necessary. It's just
> something you can show during the security questioning, which normally
> occurs only on El Al flights.
>
> We prepared personalized "formal" letters of invitation upon request
> for quite a few people. However I'm rather disinclined to prepare more and
> more of them. If you are from the USA or the EU or other Western countries I
> really think they're not necessary.
>
> These things are really a matter of chance - I heard the one attendee
> from Czech Republic had a few problems (everything is fine, nothing
> serious), while the South Americans went through everything without any
> problem at all.
>
> Please seriously consider if you really need them before asking for
> such personalized letters (requests please send to one of the OTRS queues).
>
>
> Harel Cain
> Wikimania 2011 local team
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 20:08, Deryck Chan <deryckchan(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> ...and how many copies of each!
>>
>> On Jul 30, 2011 1:07 AM, "Laura James" <ljames(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
>> > Hi, thanks for the great advice - yes, please do let us know which
>> > document
>> > would be the most helpful to print. And any other tips! :-)
>> > Thank you,
>> > Laura
>> >
>> > On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 8:17 AM, Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 07:49:31PM +0900, KIZU Naoko wrote:
>> >> > Hi from Tel Aviv suburb.
>> >> >
>> >> > I strongly recommend to follow Manuel. Also the letter from the
>> >> > organizing team may help.
>> >> >
>> >> > At security check in AMS I met difficulty , since then I left all
>> >> > the
>> >> > copy of registration team and also had no copy.
>> >>
>> >> > document on my registration to the confenrence or a document from
>> >> > WMF.
>> >>
>> >> Hmm, good point, what document would be handiest to print out?
>> >> (I'll check
>> >> my mail)
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
>> >> gpg (
www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72
>> >> 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72
>> >>
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>> >>
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>
>
>
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