US
Turns Blind Eye to Israel’s New Separation Policy
by Jonathan
Cook
Anti-war.com
August 18,
2009
In an echo
of restrictions already firmly in place in Gaza, Israel has begun barring
movement between Israel and the West Bank for those holding a foreign passport,
including humanitarian aid workers and thousands of Palestinian residents.
The new
policy is designed to force foreign citizens, mainly from North America and
Europe, to choose between visiting Israel – including East Jerusalem, which
Israel has annexed illegally – and the West Bank.
The new
regulation is in breach of Israel’s commitments under the Oslo accords to
Western governments that their citizens would be given continued access to the
occupied territories. Israel has not suggested there are any security
justifications for the new restriction.
Palestinian
activists point out that the rule is being enforced selectively by Israel, which
is barring foreign citizens of Palestinian origin from access to Israel and East
Jerusalem while actively encouraging European and American Jews to settle in the
West Bank.
U.S.
diplomats, who are aware of the policy, have raised no objections.
Additionally, human rights groups complain that the rule change will further
separate East Jerusalem, the planned capital of a Palestinian state, from the
West Bank. It is also expected to increase the pressures on families where one
member holds a foreign passport to leave the region and to disrupt the
assistance aid organizations are able to give Palestinians.
According
to observers, the regulation was introduced quietly three months ago at the
Allenby Bridge terminal on the border with Jordan, the only international
crossing point for Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli officials, who control
the border, now issue foreign visitors with a visa for the "Palestinian
Authority only," preventing them from entering Israel and East Jerusalem.
Interior
Ministry officials say a similar policy is being adopted at Ben Gurion, Israel’s
international airport near Tel Aviv, to bar holders of foreign passports who
arrive via this route from reaching the West Bank. Foreign citizens, especially
those with Palestinian ancestry, are being turned away and told to seek entry
via the Allenby Bridge.
Gaza has
long been off-limits to any Palestinian who is not resident there and has been
effectively closed to Israelis and most foreigners since early 2006, when Israel
began its blockade.
"This is a
deepening and refinement of the policy of separation that began with Israel
establishing checkpoints in the West Bank and building the wall," said Sam
Bahour, a Palestinian-American living in Ramallah who heads a Right to Enter
campaign highlighting Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement.
"Foreign
governments like the U.S. ought to be up in arms because this rule violates
their own citizens’ rights under diplomatic agreements. So far they have
remained silent."
The U.S.
consulate in Jerusalem is aware of the increasing restrictions on foreign
passport-holders, according to its Web site, but claims to be powerless to help.
The Right
to Enter campaign notes that 60 percent of all people turned back at the borders
by Israeli officials are American citizens.
The
consulate Web site notes both the denial of entry for many Palestinian-Americans
at Ben Gurion airport, forcing them instead to use the Allenby Bridge crossing
into the West Bank, and the issuing at the crossing of the "Palestinian
Authority only" stamp, which excludes them from East Jerusalem and Israel.
"The
consulate can do nothing to assist in getting this visa status changed; only
Israeli liaison offices in the West Bank can assist – but they rarely will,"
points out the Web site. "Travelers should be alert, and pay attention to which
stamp they receive upon entry."
Bahour,
44, said the immediate victims of the new policy would be thousands of
Palestinians from abroad who, like himself, returned to the West Bank during the
more optimistic Oslo period.
Well-educated and often with established careers, they have been vital both to
the regeneration of the local Palestinian economy by investing in and setting up
businesses and to the nurturing of a fledgling civil society by running welfare
organizations and teaching at universities.
Although
many have married local spouses and raised their children in the West Bank,
Israel has usually denied them residency permits, forcing them to renew tourist
visas every three months by temporarily leaving the region, often for years on
end.
Bahour
said the latest rule change should be understood as one measure in a web of
restrictions strangling normal Palestinian life that have been imposed by
Israel, which controls the population registers for both Israelis and
Palestinians.
In addition
to the wall and checkpoints, he said, Israel regularly deported "foreigners,"
both humanitarian workers and those of Palestinian origin, arriving in the
region; it denied family unification to prevent Palestinian couples living
together; it often revoked the residency of Palestinians who study abroad for
extended periods; and it confiscated Jerusalem IDs from Palestinians to push
them into the West Bank.
He added
that the U.S. consulate appeared to have accepted Israel’s right to treat
American citizens differently based solely on their ethnic origin.
"While
Palestinian-Americans are being denied entry to the region or excluded from
Israel and East Jerusalem, Israel is actively encouraging American Jews to come
and settle in the West Bank."
In early
2006 Bahour, who is married with two daughters, was affected by another rule
change when Israel refused to renew tourist visas to Palestinians with foreign
passports, forcing them to separate from their families in the West Bank.
After an
international outcry, Israel revoked the policy but insisted that Palestinians
such as Bahour apply for permits from the Israeli military authorities to remain
in the West Bank.
"This
latest rule, like the earlier one, fits into Israel’s general goal of ethnic
cleansing," he said. "Israel makes life ever more difficult to encourage any
Palestinians who can, such as those with foreign passports, to leave."
Bahour
said the new restrictions would further sever the West Bank from Jerusalem, the
center of Palestinian commercial and cultural life.
Overnight,
he said, his Ramallah business consultancy had lost a quarter of its clients –
all from nearby East Jerusalem – because he was now barred from leaving the West
Bank.
He lost his
limited privileges last month when he finally received a Palestinian ID. He said
he had been forced to take the ID, which supersedes his American passport in the
eyes of the Israeli authorities, to avoid the danger of being deported.
"The ID was
bittersweet for me. It means I can’t be separated from my family here, but it
also means my American passport is not recognized and I am now subject to the
closures and arrests faced by ordinary Palestinians."
Sari Bashi,
a lawyer with Gisha, an Israeli organization that challenges restrictions on
Palestinian movement, said the new policy was placing a severe obstacle in the
way of humanitarian organizations, as well as foreigners working in Palestinian
welfare organizations and academic institutions.
"Many of
the aid organizations working in the West Bank have offices and staff in East
Jerusalem and even in Israel, and it’s difficult to see how they are going to
cope with this new restriction."
She said
staff of major international organizations such as the United Nations refugee
agency, UNRWA, and its humanitarian division, OCHA, had been denied entry at Ben
Gurion airport after declaring that they were working in the West Bank.
"When
Israel prevents access to an area, it raises the question of what is happening
there," she said. "What are we being prevented from seeing?"
Human
rights groups are also concerned by the wording of the new restriction,
confining foreign citizens to the "Palestinian Authority." The PA rules over
only about 40 percent of the West Bank. The groups fear that in the future
Israel may seek to prevent foreigners from moving between the PA-controlled
enclaves of the West Bank and the 60 percent under Israeli control.
Guy Imbar,
a spokesman for Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the
Territories, said the phrase referred to the entire West Bank.
But Jeff
Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions warned: "Given
Israel’s track record, it is right to be suspicious that the restriction may be
reinterpreted at a later date."
A
shorter version of this article originally appeared in The National, published
in Abu Dhabi.
Share this Article
Here is your
chance to help this article to be read by thousands more people by sharing it on your favourite social networking site. You can also email the
article from here.
