Connecting flight through Dubai with an Israeli/Jewish name

I'm planning to travel from the UK to NZ in early 2015. The cheapest flights (Qantas) have a connection via Dubai.

I have more than one citizenship, so I can avoid using an Israeli passport (phew), but I'm still concerned that I might be stopped at some point due to my surname, "Yehudi", which literally translates to "Jew" in both Hebrew and Arabic. I'm not a religious Jew, but that's pretty much beside the point I should imagine.

Does anyone else with a markedly Jewish name have experience passing through Dubai, or does anyone know of cases when it may have been done safely?

Best Answer

You're not going to get any references to back this up, because no official source in the UAE is ever going to say "We love Jews! Please transit!" or "We hate Jewish-sounding people, regardless of their actual religion or their passports!".

That said, despite public huffing and puffing, the UAE's morals are famously flexible when it comes to making money, which is why Israeli passport holders are allowed to transit through the UAE (although they refuse to put this in writing either), and so are people with Israeli-stamped passports, who can enter the UAE as well. So if all you're going to do is transit through the UAE, without going through immigration, and you have a valid passport with a Jewish-sounding name, I am quite sure you will not have the slightest problem.