Jerusalem – When Canadian businessman Sam Ismail brought his wife and five children to visit his brother’s family in Ramallah last week, he planned to stay for 10 days and tour both Israel and the Palestinian territories. They had flown into Amman, crossed over to the West Bank. Knowing that Palestinian Authority license plates are banned in Israel, Ismail reserved a car at an Israeli rental company. But, when he got to Israeli border control, he was shocked to discover that his Canadian passport was stamped “Palestinian Authority Only.” “Last time they came, they visited Acre, Haifa, Jerusalem — the whole country,” Ismail’s brother Nedal, who lives in the West Bank, told TIME. “This time they packed up after 96 hours and spent the extra week in Jordan instead.”
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Ismail had fallen afoul of an Israeli border policy, quietly begun in June, that bars foreigners who say they are visiting the Palestinian Authority from entering Israel. Israel says the visa helps to exclude visitors who threaten security. According to Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad, the procedure is based on an unpublished 2006 decision by the Israeli interior and defense ministers that “any foreign national who wants to enter the Palestinian Authority must have a permit issued by the army, and entry is permitted only into PA territory.” (Read a story about Mike Huckabee’s visit to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.)
Palestinians say it violates international law and the promise of unhindered movement for foreign travelers under the 1995 Oslo II Accords. “Israel wishes to strictly regulate travel of visitors who come to the country, especially those curious to see the West Bank,” says Toufic Haddad, a Palestinian-American activist. (Read about Ezra Nawi, the Israeli activist jailed for aiding Arabs.)
The policy has affected U.S. citizens. This week, Betty Najjab, an American from Centreville, Virginia and the widow of a Palestinian, was given one of the new visa stamps after visiting in-laws in Jordan. She told TIME she didn’t know if she would be able to fly home: the return leg of her ticket departs from Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport. “We have made it quite known to the Israeli Government… that we expect all American citizens to be treated the same regardless of their national origin,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters this week. “These kinds of restrictions we consider unacceptable.”
“It is being applied in an arbitrary manner,” Salwa Duaibis, Coordinator for the Right to Enter Campaign in Ramallah, told TIME. “It depends on the discretion of the person sitting at the border. If you want to go and visit family in Jerusalem and you get this visa, then your whole plans are thrown out of the window.”
The new policy is alienating businessmen like Khaled Sabawi of London, Ontario whose family has for years fostered investment in Palestine and whose father Mohamed was on the board of the Peres Peace Center. Sabawi runs the Ramallah-based MENA Geothermal, one of the first green energy companies in the Middle East. He has spent nearly three years traveling between Canada and Ramallah on three-month Israeli tourist visas. Last January, Sabawi was suddenly turned back at the border crossing from Jordan. Subsequently, he was denied entry twice. Since June, his visa has restricted him to Palestinian territory. Says Sabawi: “I find myself being racially profiled, interrogated by security officials and forced to wait for up to eight hours at the border.”
” “I can’t meet with Israelis any more and lots of our equipment comes from Israeli manufacturers. I can’t buy from them if I can’t meet them to negotiate,” Sabawi told TIME. “We will withdraw our investments if we can’t be here to oversee our businesses. It will simply be too risky for us to invest in Palestine.”
First smart thing Israel has done in a while
This is a dumb policy that does nothing to protect security and will deny Israel badly needed tourist revenues.
Somehow I never read anything in “time” about the racial profiling of jews who would want to travel to dozens of muslim countries, somehow when the israelis do something, although all know the security reason behind it, it becomes racial profiling. Let these savages stay where they belong
Sure makes sense to me. They want their own country/state. This is how it works. Obviously, what they really want is total control(judenrein) of the West Bank(already got it in Gaza) and full access in Israel until they can take total control of it.
For some reason the State Department never objects when Americans are refused entry to arab countries for having a passport with Israeli visa stamps.
#4 is absolutely correct- All jews are barred from most Muslim countries and the US has said NOTHING!!! Israel is just banning the movement of people who visit a Non-entity dedicated to it’s destruction. There is no ban of these people traveling to Israel proper. As such thereis no discrimination in that sense. Where are our congressional people decrying this double standard to all worldwide Jews. But as we know “esav soney ess Yaakov” is a historic fact. Let us see the Arab reciprocity as Netanyahu makes a deal with the Us regarding settlements. Our Congressmen have no spine!
so let him take his business away!!! see both sides agree on something
They want their “own state,” well now they can have it. Getting an entry visa to Canada or Mexico doesn’t guarantee getting into the U.S.
Now why don’t they make sure that all people that live in the West Bank stay there and only there?!!
sounds like common sense idea to me,its a security issue pure and simple.im sure george galloway is not happy about this one!!
I have a U.S. Passport, why can’t I go to Saudi Arabia, or to UAE? What has teh US done for me in that regard??????
Very unusual for the israeli governement to take such smart decisions. But why did they let Obama fly in from an arab country ?
Try getting into an Arab country with an Isreaeli stamp in your passpoert.
NO WAY!
On a cruise that stopped in Libya Isreaelis and ,yes ,Ameircans were not allowed to leave the ship. The authorities held all passports till theship sailed
The media is bias and is ones sided to prove me point: I live in Long Island NY; I am currently in Israel doing some traveling. I was in the Golan today and drove back to Tel Aviv; on the way back I saw numerous mansions, I inquired to the tour guide and asked “what town is this, who lives in these many mansions” the tour guide explained that the many mansions are homes of Israeli arabs. Additionally the tour guide explained that these Israeli Arabs do not pay taxes nor do they serve in the Army. I explained to the tour guide that Uncle Sam never forgets of one neglects to pay ones taxes. Its funny that the media doesnt show the thousands of Israeli-Arabs living in mansions, dont pay taxes, dont serve in army. Can you find one jew living in mansions in any arab countries nor paying taxes to the country; however, the media focuses what ever it can make Israel look bad.
it is to protect the truble makers from gowing and coming
This policy as necessary on security grounds, as a means of insuring that individuals who pose security risks aren’t able to wander around Israel. In the past, some foreign terrorists were able to attack Israelis after first rendezvousing with contacts in Palestinian-controlled areas.