For years already, Muslims from the Middle East and beyond have been increasingly ignoring the Muslim world’s boycott of Israel and visiting the Jewish state as tourists. A new record was set in 2018, when an incredible 54,799 Muslim citizens from countries that do not have official relations with Israel (some of which reject the existence of Israel altogether) came to visit. In addition, 17,310 tourists arrived from Egypt and Jordan, which are officially at peace with the Jewish state, but maintain somewhat cold relations.
According to official data published by the Immigration Authority, visiting Israel in 2018 were: 6 Saudis, 949 Tunisians, 36 Algerians, 2,108 Moroccans, 81 Qataris, 13,949 Malaysians, 37,555 Indonesians, 25 citizens of the United Arab Emirates, 56 Omanis and 34 Kuwaitis.
Over the past decade, since 2009, a total of 316,359 Muslim and Arab citizens from states that have no ties with Israel have visited on tourist visas, the vast majority of them (241,989) from Indonesia. During that same time, a total of 166,770 Jordanians and Egyptians have visited....
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