whataboutbob that was indeed my experience of travelling as a lone woman in Syria: in fact, courtesy to women extended as far as allowing them to the front of the line in shops or when queuing for the 'phone. I did once get an "inappropriate suggestion" but that was a time when there were (small but) increasing numbers of Russian sex workers in Syria: once I explained to the man that I wasn't working, he was extremely apologetic for his error!
I've experienced minor harrassment (hisses and comments) in Jordan, but none whatsoever in Syria or Lebanon, for that matter, even in crowded marketplaces or places where harassment would be expected. Syria in particular had a real air of old fashioned courtesy when it came to the men - young or old, irrespective of religion - and kindness from all.
On the other hand, Iraq today is a place of major sexual harrassment (I wasn't able to get a visa before the war), and I have experienced sexual assault in Egypt and Gaza and stranger rape on two separate occasions in the West Bank, alongside the tedious daily grind of sexual comments, groping, hissing etc Libya before the war was a place, for me, of the minor kind of harrassment I experienced in Jordan. I have - unfortunately - not yet visited Algeria, but both Tunisia and Morocco have been places where the general sexualised grief from men becomes boring because of its frequency.
I find it interesting that those areas with the highest exposure to Western women (bearing in mind that Lebanon, Syria and even Jordan are less visited than North Africa, say) seems to have more men that are comfortable blatantly expressing their atrocious attitudes towards women.