Passengers hoping to cross into Egypt show their passports to a Palestinian policeman at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip Sept. 28, 2013.
Aspiring globetrotters from the Muslim world continue to have a difficult time. In a recent study published by Henley & Partners, seven out of the ten worst nations in terms of unfettered access to other countries were Arab or predominately Muslim.
Afghanistan occupies the bottom rung in the 219-strong list, followed by Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Palestine and Eritrea. But even Muslim states less fraught with conflict fared poorly in the survey, like the United Arab Emirates (in joint 56th place), Qatar (57) and Bahrain (59).
The study spawned a flurry of comedic comments among Arabs on Twitter, such this one from @AmerZahr: “Today I heard the Palestinian passport is the 5th-worst in the entire world. I was shocked! We have passports?!?”