UKC

I'm heading to Wadi Rum in 6 weeks time for climbing.

At least I was until a large conflict broke out in Israel and Palestine only a stones throw away. My initial reaction is to cancel the trip and go elsewhere. However I just wondered what other climbers would do in the same situation?

The Foreign Office travel advice has always stated to avoid the border with Syria but currently is not advising against travel to Jordan in general. 

Julian

  Wadi Rum

I'm going just a bit before that. As things stand I see no reason not to go. I went several times when things were really bad in Iraq and then Syria. A lot of people wouldn't visit the region and Rum was very quiet, but it was fine.    

Good to now. I'm not changing my plans for now. Hopefully the situation will calm down somewhat. 

I'd definitely still go. I very much doubt Jordan will get involved in the conflict, beyond maybe accepting refugees, and in any case Gaza doesn't border Jordan so even that's unlikely to any extent.

Extremely unlikely to be an issue for there - Israel & Jordan have signed a peace and neither side would have reason to disturb that even though it's a pretty "cold" peace.

It's possible that flights to Amman may have to take a slightly longer route but the conflict area's not big enough to require a large diversion.

Thank you. This gives me more confidence. Plan B was Morocco but I'll be sticking to plan A. 

I'd still go if I had booked it. You are absolutely miles away from the conflict zone.

But I'd probably check the flight path of your flights. You don't want to risk getting shot down by accident, that would be a major buzzkill.

Agreed. I plan on still going. I realise Jordan isn't near the conflict area. Though I suppose I was more concerned with terrorist groups emboldened by the current climate (and targeting tourist spots like Petra)  

One time flying from Istanbul to Aqaba, I got very concerned when that seat back map thing showed us going massively off course. It was shortly after that Malaysian flight went AWOL over the Indian Ocean and I decided the pilot wad planning a copycat disappearance in the Sahara. We flew over Cairo then right round the bottom of Sinai and came in from the south. Turkey was having a spat with Israel at the time, but I don't know why we flew an extra few hundred miles south.

I'm sure flights will avoid any risk.

Not much (nothing, in fact) you can do about that.

Follow Foreign Office advice (as you allude to in your OP.)

This. It will also dictate your insurance cover (or remove it!).

I meant, check the planned flight path before leaving. So if looks like it's going to traverse the Gaza Strip or you have a change in Tel Aviv what you do about it is not get on the flight in the first place.

Although I suppose you could go rogue on the plane and try and force the pilot to alter their course mid-flight... typically that hasn't work out well for people in the past though.

I can't channel a terrorist mind I'm afraid, so can't really comment on the emboldening theory.

But in statistical terms terrorist attacks on tourist destinations (or at least those western tourists tend to go to) are extremely rare and thinly spread, you'd have to be astronomically unlucky to get caught up in one. And even if you were as unlucky as to be there, the death toll tends to be single figures (most of the time it's just one guy running around with a knife) and very occasionally as many as 20 to 30 in places with thousands of visitors, so you'd need to be doubly incredibly unlucky to be one of the ones actually killed or seriously injured.

Think I'd be giving it a swerve. I've seen nothing that rules out the conflict developing into wider regional war. It's happened before and could again. 

Holidaying that close to a war zone isn't a great idea.

M

I think I'd give it a miss....

Personally, I *do* see this conflict widening. Fatah, who control the West Bank - not far from Wadi Rum - don't want to get involved, but if it spreads to Hezbollah/Lebanon/Northern Israel, they may not have a choice, or much control.

Iran and Hezbollah have no love for Jordan, neither does Fatah.

Others have spoken about the statistics, but that's what happens to *other people* - if it goes wrong, it will go very wrong indeed, and you need to think about whether the risk of that is worth a bit of rock that will be there next year.

Also worth noting that Jordan is a very close partner of the UK - the UK will therefore be very reluctant to start issuing travel advice that says don't go there, even if they would under other circumstances.

I am a big fan of the Middle East, but now doesn't seem an appropriate time to go holidaying there. The background situation is far too serious.

Yes, if it escalated into a general middle east conflict I would think again, but no need to make any decision now. Jordan is a generally neutral and safe place.

Whenever people refused to go or expressed surprise that I went during previous conflicts, I used to point out that everyone in Great Britain continued as normal during the Northern Ireland troubles which were closer to home.

On the grounds of safety?

There's a very strong (IMO) argument to say that now could be an excellent time to go, as people in general are very cautious when it comes to perceived proximity to conflict. It's one of those cases where risk appraisal is often dominated by  fear of an outcome, even when that outcome may well be vanishingly unlikely. As a result you might well have the place pretty much to yourselves!

Yes, I agree. Having seen last year how incredibly much busier it has become post pandemic, having the place quiet again would be very nice. On the other hand, the locals I know catering for climbers might be glad of some business.

Absolutely not. It's about going there to have a jolly time whilst there is unresolved suffering in the region.

I can understand that as a gut feeling, but I really don't think that is rational.

as of today, there has been no change to expat daily life and people are going about the day to day as normal. Jordanians are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause so the risk of internal terrorism very low that coupled with the very strong secret police force means these things are as rarer than in the UK. 

The only point to mention, is to avoid going to down town Amman on a Friday as that's when people gather for peaceful protests and you could get stuck in it. 

India has the most malnourished people of any country in the world. By your argument, no one should visit India as a tourist.

The OP asked "would you go?" and I gave the reason I would not at this moment, the issue being war, not malnourishment. I appreciate that this is a personal choice, and each to their own. These kinds of decisions are not clearcut. For example, I was invited to, and went to, a wedding in Lebanon the whole way from America, shortly after the war with Israel in 2006 when the identical advice from the US State Department and the UK Foreign Office was "don't go unless you have essential business". (This advice actually spurred me on to go!)

But you quite specifically used the word suffering in the post I was replying too…

Why do you think it is wrong to go? How far away from Gaza would you consider it ok to go climbing at the moment.

I should have been more specific: suffering in the context of war.

It's not really a question of right and wrong. I am sufficiently distracted and distressed by this war that I would not be able to focus on the climbing in the region. Jordan adjoins Israel.

Ah, fair enough in that case.

For my own part, I feel about as far removed from the rest of the world as I ever do when out in the desert.

Absolutely do NOT go. You wouldn’t enjoy yourself, too much, and worsening, serious stuff going on.

One thing that strikes me with discussions both on these forums and in general is that most of us white western Brits seem to have no idea of the strength of feeling that other people have for the causes/struggles that they are involved in, especially in Arab nations. There will be a growing number of people in the Middle East that hate people that come from a country with even a whiff of pro Israeli support. Not likely to effect you have way up a big cliff, but could give off a vibe that could spoil things, or a lot worse. And let’s face it, at this present rate things could seriously escalate. 

One of my wife’s best friend was one of those unlucky ones, Ruth Williamson. Yemen was considered safe back then: 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk-tourists-were-used-as-shields-in-yeme...

Are you speaking from personal experience here? There are certainly parts of the Middle East I would avoid including parts of Jordan, but my experiences in Wadi Rum, even at the height of the Iraq debacle in which Britain was directly involved, is that, at an individual level the people will be overwhelmingly welcoming. If flying in to Aqaba and going from there to Rum and perhaps visiting Petra, you will be in areas which welcome tourists and where I am sure that yet another collapse in visitors following Iraq/Syria and covid will not be wanted.

Obviously there is always going to be the outside chance of an isolated incident and if someone feels uncomfortable enough that it will spoil their trip then they should consider not going. I'm booked to go a month today and, at the moment, see no reason to change my plans. Though, as I said, that might change if this turns into a general middle east conflagration or if FCO advice rules it out.

If the OP was doubting whether to go or not last week, then I’d most defo be going ‘things have got X times worse, the trip simply ain’t Worthing at the moment. 

Personal  experience? never been there, but I know shed loads of people from that part of the world who would also be protesting outsides embassies and kicking off if they were living back in their home country, and my contacts are what I believe are relatively  level headed ones. In no way am I generalising whole nations etc, but at the moment the general vibe in the Middle East appears to be most defiantly ‘anti west’, in many ways understandably so. Wadi Rum will still be there in X years time, so if I was the OP I’d plan a cheap alternative, and you never know if the flights get cancelled then a full refund might be on the cards. Not worth the mental hassle at the moment.

While a laudable sentiment, the cracks in this kind of morality are easily exposed.

Assuming you work a 9 to 5 job, do you go climbing on the weekends? If you do, it sounds like you are ignoring the unresolved suffering of homeless people, lonely old people and drug addicts in your local community, shouldn't you be spending every moment of your weekend and evening time volunteering for local charities who work to help these people?

It is a mistake to try to personally shoulder all the ills of the world, nobody could ever do such a thing without being crushed to dust.

(Which is obviously not to say that you shouldn't use some of your spare time and money to help others, which we all clearly should).

Since you have made about ten assumptions concerning my life that have absolutely no basis, I am going to indulge myself in one about your's: that your hobby is "strawman arguments"!

To be fair, the fact that everyone else seems to have taken your objection to going to be on moral grounds does suggest you could have been clearer and explicit about what you did mean.

I added several follow-up posts where I explained myself more fully, one of which was that this was not on moral grounds. 

Lots of conflicting opinions of course. We still plan to go (but will change the easyJet flights if needed). 

I don't have any moral concerns about going . If anything the local Bedouin would be grateful for the business. 

Coming from a position of concern for your personal safety; have you discussed your decision with your family?

You could say that about many climbing trips anyway. Both real and perceived risk.

Not sure if you are ignoring my point or didn't understand it.

To put it as simply as possible: It doesn't matter who you are or what you are doing, ("you" being any typical person), even if you are Gretta Thunberg, Gandhi or Mother Theresa, you can still be accused of not doing enough to alleviate suffering in the world.

What we should hope is that each person does their bit and hopefully strives to do more. Not that any person can do everything.

That's not part of the OP.

Listen to the FCDO, not random misinformed naysayers on UKC, many of whom have probably never been to the Middle East. 

To add my own opinion, I would definitely go. They will be grateful for your business. Some of the tourist traps might be quieter (if venturing out of Wadi Rum). And the bottom line is that Jordan is still a safe and stable country.

Sorry, no idea what your point is.

Yes, I know, but Henwardian clearly read your first post which seemed to be about the morality of going and replied to that in good faith.

“You’re from England? Oh, lovely country.”

“But… death to England?”

“Oh that’s just politics. You are very welcome in Iran.”

That’s not to say very bad things never happen to westerners in the Middle East (I wouldn’t go to Iran at the moment) but it’s not all terrible by any means. 

In 2005 I was at the Dead Sea on the way back from Rum to Amman. We got chatting to a man who turned out to be an Iraqi doctor on holiday with his family. He said that if we had been in his country he would have treated us as his enemies, but since we were in Jordan we could be friends and he was perfectly charming.

Another time my taxi driver from Rum to Amman stopped at a tea shack in the middle of the night. There were a group of young men hanging about. They were introduced as Iraqi refugees. I was  a bit nervous but all was friendly.

People know the difference between states and individuals. I've regularly met Israelis entirely welcome in Rum.

Read the OP.

I have. Sorry, you have lost me; I was simply pointing out that considering the worries of family is no different from many climbing trips.

I totally agree with what you are saying here, but do not understand why you are giving me this sermon, since I implied nothing to the contrary. 

Incidentally, I worry about the problems of society and the world all the time and strive to do what I can to help the less fortunate, in ways that are practical.

Incidentally, rather than going climbing or walking at the w/e, I will be going on an anti-war march instead. Seems more appropriate, even if someone futile.

My first post was very general. I simply said: "I am a big fan of the Middle East, but now doesn't seem an appropriate time to go holidaying there. The background situation is far too serious."

("Appropriate" does not specifically mean "morally appropriate")

Threads develop into discussions. I suspect the OP probably values that rather than an unqualified Yes/No answer.

It sounds like we are in agreement.

Might be worth checking your flights, we were heading out on the 11th of November. And just checked our flights this morning, and they have been cancelled by easy jet. No email or anything, we just randomly checked to see our flight times, and they’ve cancelled it. 

Yeah, ours later in November have also been cancelled. Disappointed but also relieved that the decision has been taken out of our hands.

India is maybe an interesting example to use because of terrorism/fighting rather than malnourishment.

I spent a year there around ten years ago. Here's a highlight of some the incidents from while we were there. I can only remember the ones that felt close to home, I assume there were many more incidents that we weren't aware of because we weren't close to them.

When we were in the cities, there were islamist bombings in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore with lots of deaths, and there was heightened security when we passed through Delhi a couple of days after another bombing there. Varanasi was bombed a few days after we left.

We were on the waiting list for a ticket to a train that got blown up by Maoists with hundreds of deaths. (As it happened, we were also on the waiting list for the train 24 hours earlier as well and we got bumped up to a ticket with an hour to spare so were on the train 24 hours before the one that got attacked.) The local press reported attacks by Maoists every day while we were there, with average daily deaths into double figures. The Maoist attacks in Assam, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal were frequent enough for us to alter some of our travel plans.

We were in Gorkaland when the state police murdered some Gorkas at a peaceful protest, resulting in a general strike and military rule with curfews etc and food supplies running out.

We were in Srinagar when fighting broke out resulting in hundreds of deaths and military rule being imposed.

We were advised to change our planned route when trekking in Sikkim near the "contested border" with China because the Chinese military were crossing into India and people were disappearing to never be heard from again.

We avoided going too close to the Pakistani border because that briefly descended into a warzone a few weeks before we had planned to go there.

Quite a few foreign tourists were murdered or raped while we were there. The British ones made it into the UK press, I don't think any of the others did.

But despite all of that, the highest risk thing we did was probably using the Indian roads (especially the road across the pass to Leh, formerly known as the most dangerous road in the world). With second place probably going to the trains. The few times where we felt unsafe, terrorism was not the cause.

Most of the above never made it to the UK news so at least the family weren't aware of most of it and didn't worry too much.

Yes, they just seem to have removed Aqaba from their list of destinations. I was flying out on 11th too. Odd that no email though.

Gutted. Might look at going via Amman.

Plenty of flights still going to Amman around then at reasonable cost. 

Yeah India is very messy. It’s also worth noting that in addition to all that you describe, there is also now regular pogroms of radicalised Hindus attacking and murdering Muslims. I absolutely would not want to come across one of those events - mob violence is a very South Asian vice. 
 

But as you say, India gets a very good write up in the west. 
 

(Also completely agree with you about the roads and the Leh road in particular…)

Okay I just got the email. Flights to Aqaba cancelled! I assume it isn't worthwhile for EasyJet to run empty flights at the moment. 

Think its a sign to go elsewhere. 

I climbed in Wadi Rum in March 2011 during the Arab Spring. The place was very quiet and, ironically, it was a great time to visit and we were (over)enthusiastically welcomed. It felt completely safe even though there had been unrest in Amman. 

I am not a security analyst but the FO website is not currently advising against visits. Jordan has, historically, been relatively free of terrorism. Within Jordan, Wadi Rum seems like an unappealing target with only a few widely dispersed westerners. I might avoid Petra and central Amman, especially on Fridays.

This may all be academic if there are no flights although, currently, both Aqaba and Amman are extremely cheap with a stop somewhere like Poland.  

Yes, I think that is probably the reason rather than safety concerns given that other airlines are still flying. We may go elsewhere, but I think duncan may well be right that it could be a great time to be in Rum. And nowhere else is quite the same.....

Even if the terrorism risk were higher, the objective risk of going rock climbing has surely got to be astronomically higher in all but the most unstable of regions.

If I were planning on just visiting tourist sites then I might consider the additional risk significant in relative terms, but if you're planning on going climbing then you've already accepted a degree of risk in which the additional risk of terrorism seems fairly insignificant.

"Astronomically higher"? Only if you're into sketchy soloing.

Might be difficult to quantify it but would put money on the risk being at least an order of magnitude higher.

You may be correct about the relative likelihoods of these two risks, and their consequences are IMO fairly similar (thinking risk matrix here).

But, the climbing risk feels like it's mainly within your own control whereas the terrorism risk is totally outside your own control so it feels a lot worse.

I think the risk of being involved in a terrorist incident is low, but much higher than normal. And these things do happen (but I get that I may put a higher degree of probability of such an incident happening due to my wife’s friend being killed).  BUT, it’s all the other stuff, for example all we need is Iran or Hezbollah to get involved and America to send a few planes over and the whole airspace would become a no go zone, with flight cancellations etc (which may be a contributory factor in EasyJet’s cancellation?). And at the rate the IDF is killing innocent civilians, the anti west sentiment will continue to increase - something which would put me off from going to that neck of the woods at the moment. Bad timing and all that. 

You and various others have talked about FCO foreign travel advice.

A lot of the time it’s reactive, not predictive.  Their advice didn’t specifically pre-empt the horrific Hamas attacks, for example.  If there was specific intelligence of a specific upcoming risk, it might not translate into FCO foreign travel advice due to the need to protect the fact certain parties had intelligence.

People regularly find themselves in a foreign location for which the FCO foreign travel advice escalates whilst they’re out there.  

I can’t answer your question, but you have to look at the possibility for escalation and the bounds on that.  With what Iran is saying about consequences of an IDF incursion in to the Gaza Strip, and with various assessments about Iran’s proximity to fission weapons, and with the rapid concentration of US naval forces in the eastern med and the gulf, it seems clear that if things escalate, the consequences could access a regionally unprecedented scale of severity.

It’s all iffs, buts and coulds, but it’s 100% clear that the region is closer to the brink than it was a few weeks ago.

You pays your money and you takes your chance.  I’ve been thinking very carefully about a non-leisure visit to the region in a few weeks.  My main concern is the lack of flight routes that stay well away from areas where missiles and interceptors are flying.  

You pick your routes and risks when climbing, you don’t pick your routes or risks when flying.

We have actually decided not to go. Not because I have any more concerns about safety in Wadi Rum than on any other climbing trip really, more or less however things develop, but because of the risk, if things escalated badly, of airspace being closed and being unable to return home. 

Good call. Sadly, kind of inevitable, and whilst I know it’s a cliche, it’ll still be there when things calm down. 

Yes same here. Not worth the risk. 

Yep we've just reluctantly cancelled our trip for the same reason. Next year!

We have switched to Morocco. Funnily enough I sort of feel more nervous about that. Wadi Rum almost feels like a second home to me and getting stranded there a few months would not really be that great a hardship. Almost appealing.

In that case, why not go to Wadi Rum? You appear to be arguing against yourself.

Was in Morocco a couple of weeks ago. I'd happily get stranded there for a few months, wonderful climbing!

Other people to consider! 

I went to the Anti-Atlas early in 2003 and Wadi Rum for the first time later the same year. This would have been my ninth trip to Rum haven fallen in love with the place, but I've never felt that inclined to rush back to Morocco! I'm trying to be open-minded though........

Hopefully. Some people certainly seem to rave about it but some I know who have been say its nice enough but not that special.

I am at this moment landing at Aqaba on the Taba-Aqaba tourist ferry despite Taba and Nuweiba having had mysterious missiles accidentally drop on them this morning.

collected a rental car in Aqaba yesterday, drove to Wadi Musa, ate and slept, and did the tourist thing in Petra today. It was as busy as you might expect such a place to be in very late October. Meaning it felt busy (numerous tour groups from Germany, Spain and France plus smaller groups, couples, individuals from all the above plus UK, US, Greece, and Jordan etc)

I am not going to the Dead Sea tomorrow. Partly because it is 150 miles in the opposite direction from where I want to be in the evening (Wadi Rum) and partly from a fairly irrational feeling of “ooh that’s getting a bit close to things”. But mainly because the novelty of slapping on some Dead Sea mud and then going in and feeling more buoyant than usual, has never appealed to me.

Hope I can get back to Egypt on the ferry on Tuesday 

https://israelpalestine.liveuamap.com/en/2023/31-october-a-second-drone-int...

this map has live location up dates