Interesting what a little publicity can do...

It was noted by many in the blogosphere a few days ago that the Supreme Commission for Tourism in Saudi Arabia had a website saying who could and who could not enter Saudi Arabia for tourism. Among the list of excluded persons are: (I am excerpting from a longer list) bq. Visas will not be issued for the following groups of people: bq. An Israeli passport holder or a passport that has an Israeli arrival/departure stamp. bq. Jewish People bq. Important Instructions: bq. If a woman is arriving in the Kingdom alone, the sponsor or her husband must receive her at the airport. bq. Every woman must have confirmed accommodation for the duration of her stay in the Kingdom. bq. A woman is not allowed to drive a car and can therefore only travel by car if she is accompanied by her husband, a male relative, or a driver. The website underwent a swift revision. Here is the link to the old website -- cached by Google Here is the link to the new website Sort of reminds me of this incident where Mercedes and BMW had maps to their dealers in the Middle East and one map showed Israel labeled as Palestine and the other one didn't have it at all... And of course, we mustn't forget our own State Department's map of the area.