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Amos J. Hochstein is an American businessman, diplomat, and former lobbyist. Wikipedia

He currently has the job of mediator between Lebanon and Israel.

Here is the problem, according to Lebanese law, it is illegal for passport holders having Israeli stamps or have any visit to Israel be able to enter Lebanon and any person who tries gets arrested or denied entry per this Wikipedia article:

Admission and transit is refused to nationals of Israel. Travelers who hold passports that contain stamps, visas, or seals for Israel will be denied entry into Lebanon and may be subject to arrest or detention.

So how is this guy able to enter both countries without scrutiny, do these rules not apply to diplomats?

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    Yes, rules for diplomats are different than for ordinary people. Further, when both parties support the mediation why do you think either side would try to screw the process up?
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Nov 19, 2024 at 17:07
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    The rules for diplomats are basically this: the sending country's foreign ministry informs the receiving country's foreign ministry that they'd like to send the diplomat, and the receiving country can say yes or no for any reason or for no reason at all. That's it. If Israel's or Lebanon's foreign ministry wants to exclude someone because they've been in the other country, or because they've been to Ikea, they can. If they want to overlook legal provisions that would otherwise make the person inadmissible as a "normal" visitor, they can do that, too, which they kind of have to in this case.
    – phoog
    Commented Nov 20, 2024 at 21:39

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Israel doesn't stamp passports, so there's that. Also, many countries are known to issue multiple passports specifically to avoid this situation. And last but not least, diplomats have special rules, especially when mediating between warring parties. UNIFIL officers posted on the border between Israel and Lebanon are known to routinely cross the border.

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  • Diplomats have officially different rules. Other people may have de facto different rules. If a wealthy businessman wants to invest tons of money, creating jobs, taxes and wealth, you won’t reject him for a little detail like a visit to Israel. Especially if he wants to make ONE investment and you don’t want him to invest in Israel.
    – gnasher729
    Commented Nov 21, 2024 at 11:11
  • indeed, diplomats have very different rules indeed, including being exempted from most visa requirements (at least when visiting using their diplomatic status). Downside is that they have to be very very conscious of what they're doing as even the slightest transgression can lead to an international incident, where a "normal" traveler would not trigger such.
    – jwenting
    Commented Nov 21, 2024 at 15:19
  • @jwenting actually, diplomats have stricter visa requirements, but different. If you look at the visa tables you'll see that many countries allow visa waivers for tourists, but not for diplomats from the same country. On the other hand, diplomats may get visas to countries where regular people can't go (the scenario in the OP is such an example). The reason is that diplomats have to have a personal individual approval from the host country.
    – littleadv
    Commented Nov 21, 2024 at 19:30
  • @littleadv of course. Diplomatic passports are often limited to specific country pairs, but within that restriction there is very little that hinders official traffic. I know someone who is part of the Japanese corps diplomatique, as long as it's on business there are few countries Japan has relations with that won't let her in on very short notice (while for many of those a "normal person" would have to spend weeks waiting for a visa if they can even get an invitation letter.
    – jwenting
    Commented Nov 22, 2024 at 7:17

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