Entry denied: Deporting witnesses of Israeli occupation and unilateralism
In another Israeli move designed to further isolate Palestinians from the rest of the world community, it is being reported that the Israeli army will be declaring the West Bank closed to foreign nationals. The Gaza Strip has already been made virtually inaccessible to foreign nationals; those who wish to enter must apply to the Israeli authorities, weeks in advance, to receive elusive permits. The effect is that the plight of the Palestinian civilian population living under Israeli occupation becomes all the more invisible to the international community. The recent trend of deportation of foreign nationals (including foreign passport-holding Palestinians) working in Palestinian civil society, studying at Palestinian universities, and those living with Palestinian family gives further cause for concern that West Bank Palestinians will no longer be allowed visitors to their open-air prison...
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Entry denied: Deporting witnesses of Israeli occupation and unilateralism
Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada
 |
Two passports, no entry: Both of my passports marked by the dreaded red stamp (Maureen Clare Murphy)
11 July 2006
In another Israeli move designed to further isolate Palestinians from
the rest of the world community, it is being reported that the Israeli
army will be declaring the West Bank closed to foreign nationals. The
Gaza Strip has already been made virtually inaccessible to foreign
nationals; those who wish to enter must apply to the Israeli
authorities, weeks in advance, to receive elusive permits. The effect
is that the plight of the Palestinian civilian population living under
Israeli occupation becomes all the more invisible to the international
community.
The recent trend of deportation of foreign nationals (including foreign
passport-holding Palestinians) working in Palestinian civil society,
studying at Palestinian universities, and those living with Palestinian
family gives further cause for concern that West Bank Palestinians will
no longer be allowed visitors to their open-air prison. Of course, this
policy of isolation is being justified under the guise of "security."
The rightist Israeli daily Maariv
reports, "According to the plan, the IDF will declare the Judea and
Samaria [the West Bank] closed to foreign nationals. Denying entry to
... activists has been defined as prevention of political subversion
and involvement of members of the movement in acts of terrorism, and
limitation of friction with Jewish settlers."
However, Israel has long been denying entry to scores of internationals
whether they are activists or not -- a policy that has been intensified
in recent months. During April, after having lived in Ramallah for a
year and a half and staying on a tourist visa that I would renew every
three months, I was denied entry to the West Bank from Jordan via the
Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge land crossing, and given no
documentation to indicate why I was being turned away. On the Jordanian
side of the bridge, security officials there told me that scores of
international passport-holders -- Palestinian-Americans in particular
-- were being denied entry into the West Bank.
I eventually managed to get back in with a one-month visa after having
been issued a new passport by the US Embassy in Jordan, but was
deported from the airport in Tel Aviv a month and a half later. There,
I was informed that I was declared "persona non grata"
as it was believed that I was trying to "illegally settle in Israel,"
despite that I informed them that I was living in the West Bank city of
Ramallah. In any other country, staying too long on a tourist visa
would be an understandable reason for deportation. However, the
Palestinians have no control over their borders, and the former system
that allowed foreign passport-holders working and living in the West
Bank and Gaza to obtain a work permit or other special visa so they
would be able to stay a prolonged time has been terminated by Israel.
Denied a hearing and any further legal recourse, I was merely given a
very unofficial-looking piece of paper from the Israeli authorities as
they shoved me on a plane back to Toronto. However, the document was in
Hebrew, a language neither I -- nor the Canadian immigration officer I
had to explain myself to once I landed -- could read.
 |
"I was deported from Israel and all I received was this lousy piece of paper"
The
only documentation I received upon my expensive deportation from
Israel. Unlike what I was told verbally, it says here that the reason I
was denied entry was because of "illegal activity in the 'territories'"
(Maureen Clare Murphy) |
Control of all movement
The threat of Israeli deportation is the great existential fear that
hangs over all expatriates' heads in the occupied Palestinian
territories. Conversations with other expats would always lead to the
recounting of recent "visa run" experiences, when we would dash to
nearby Jordan or another country for a visit and then return to obtain
a new three-month B-2 tourist visa. Those working with UN agencies or
major international organizations often held work permits; but for
those of us recently working in Palestinian civil society, there was no
known mechanism for acquiring such a permit without the backing of a
major organization. And for those few brave souls who did try to forge
new ground and apply for a permit as individuals, not even hiring the
best of lawyers would guarantee that this would occur.
In the post-Oslo Accords era, it used to be that internationals working
in Palestinian civil society would be able to apply for a work permit
from the Israeli civil administration in the West Bank via the
Palestinian Authority as a matter of course. But this has not been the
case for some time. A European friend working for a Palestinian civil
society organization recently rang the Beit El/DCO checkpoint, which
houses an Israeli West Bank civil administration office. She was told
that to cross the checkpoint, she would need a work permit from Israel
and that she should apply for one from the Israeli Ministry of Social
Affairs. However, the Israeli official added, "I will tell you now that
it will be impossible because they will refuse you once they know you
are working for an organization that is working in the territories."
Internationals working with Palestinian organizations are left with
little options for entering the Israeli-controlled borders in a
"legitimate" manner. Some choose to lie about what they do when asked
their purpose of visit, knowing that mere mention of the word
"Palestinian" would cause them to be red-flagged in the Israeli system.
Optimists like myself think that when in doubt, err on the side of
truth. Also, not skilled in the art of lying, I thought it a moral
point to not be made to feel as though working for a respected
Palestinian human rights organization was anything less than
legitimate. But we all knew that our fates would be arbitrarily
determined, for there is no established and transparent process for
ensuring entry.
Amongst expatriates living in Ramallah, there were stories of spouses
of West Bank ID-carrying Palestinians who have been continuously
getting the three-month B-2 tourist visa for as many as twenty years,
by coming and going to Jordan several times a year. These individuals
had acquired the status of legends amongst the expat community, though
the precarious situation of international passport-holders (including
Palestinians living in the diaspora) who marry and have families with
Palestinians holding West Bank or Gaza ID cards is all too real.
Thousands of Palestinian families perpetually live in fear of a family
member being deported -- a worry shared by my corner shopkeeper with an
American passport-holding wife who goes to Jordan and back every three
months, and a friend whose American sister-in-law simply overstayed her
visa for five years, knowing this would mean she could never return
once she left.
Recently, this fear has been confirmed; countless families in which one
or more members hold a foreign passport have found themselves fractured
by the denial of entry of one of their members. Many of these are
middle class families headed by diaspora Palestinians who returned to
help develop their country during the post-Oslo years. As a Palestinian
official who holds a European passport pointed out to me, "this is
particularly symbolic since, by choosing to return to Palestine, these
people represented the optimism of the Oslo years and personified the
state-building project." If this trend continues, a whole segment of
the Palestinian middle class may be dispersed, taking with them their
business investments and entrepreneurship, leaving the Palestinian
economy that much more unstable.
On top of this, there are the countless numbers of Palestinians who at
one point left (or were forced out from) their country and are not
allowed to re-enter with the passport of their adopted country. This
was the case with a colleague's European passport-holding brother, who
was denied entry to the West Bank via Allenby Bridge around the same
time as myself. And while he was taking me to the American embassy in
Amman where I would pick up my new US passport, a taxi driver from the
West Bank city of Nablus recounted how he left to work in Jordan some
years ago, leaving behind his wife so she would not be separated from
her family. Having lived outside the West Bank for too long, the
Israeli authorities did not let him return, and so he and his wife
continue to live apart.
 |
| Holding
his West Bank ID up for inspection, a Palestinian man attempts to pass
Al-Ram checkpoint to Jerusalem shortly before the Friday noon-time call
to prayer during the holy month of Ramadan (Maureen Clare Murphy) |
Access is restricted even internally within the West Bank, making it
difficult or impossible for many individuals from Jenin or Nablus to
travel to Ramallah or Hebron and vice versa. The Israeli military
controls all Palestinian movement with its hundreds of forms of
movement restrictions in the West Bank and its restrictive permit
system. Most Palestinians holding a green or orange West Bank or Gaza
ID have not been able to access East Jerusalem, considered part of the
West Bank under international law, in over ten years as they are not
allowed to do so without a rarely issued Israeli permit. And these
days, not even members of the Palestinian government (save President
Mahmoud Abbas) are able to travel from the West Bank to Gaza, and vice
versa.
Palestinians are left unable to reach places of worship, education and
health services, and even family members - breaking social, economic,
and cultural structures. Israel imposes such policies for "security"
reasons, but the terms that more accurately reflect reality are
collective punishment and oppression. These movement restrictions are
becoming increasingly formalized by million dollar
checkpoints-cum-terminals, suggesting that the intention is actually to
strengthen Israel's grip on the occupied territories and establish
"facts on the ground" to preempt a negotiated resolution to the
conflict.
When Israel began building its new "Atarot Crossing" terminal between
Ramallah and Jerusalem where the former Qalandiya checkpoint lay,
rumors began to fly that the thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites
holding Israeli permanent residency cards would have to obtain permits
to cross to Ramallah and the northern West Bank. Since the new terminal
has been in use, this hasn't been the case (though since the beginning
of this month, they not able to pass through a similar terminal at the
entrance to Bethlehem), but many believe that there is no telling when
such a policy could be put into place. The permanency of the
technologically sophisticated structure gives weight to such
speculation. Why would so much money be invested in a temporary
security measure? The same question must asked of Israel's barrier in
the West Bank, the current route of which effectively annexes ten
percent of the West Bank to Israel, and isolates Palestinian
communities from one another.
 |
| Replacing
the eminently more temporary-looking former Qalandiya checkpoint, the
new "Atarot" crossing terminal is complete with LCD monitors
misspelling greetings in English (Maureen Clare Murphy) |
Dangerous silence
Earlier this year, then-Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Israeli daily Ha'aretz
of the new scope of impunity that Israel enjoys following last year's
unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Regarding the state's illegal
assassination operations in Gaza, he bragged, "there is not a single
word of criticism anywhere in the world. And do you know why? Because
the disengagement gave us degrees of freedom in carrying out everyday
security activities, which we never had before ... The day before
yesterday we carried out a targeted interception [sic] in Gaza. The day
before that we did another targeted interception [sic]. Not a critical
remark, not a hint of critical remark, has come from anywhere in the
world.'"
The international community's silence has been deafening as Israel
routinely drops missiles onto Gaza -- one of the most densely populated
areas of the world -- in its illegal extrajudicial assassinations, and
is currently embarking on its indefinite deployment there. Of course,
the civilian casualty count has been predictably high. When asked to,
Israel justifies such operations as necessary to deter the launching of
crude, homemade Qassam rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. But
such measures are not in compliance with the legal principle of
proportionality, and the daily shelling of the Gaza Strip amounts to
another form of collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian
population. Meanwhile, Olmert has been meeting with world leaders to
secure international support of his "convergence plan," the latest
Israeli euphemism for unilaterally determining final-status
negotiations issues. But the foundation of these unilateral plans has
already been laid. With much of the Wall and the new permanent
checkpoints in place or under construction, the architecture for new,
Israeli-determined borders is already there.
 |
| The numbers speak for themselves: Israel's disproportionate response to Qassam rockets amounts to collective punishment |
Though not accepting the scheme hook, line and sinker, the
international community is greeting this latest unilateral plan as the
"only one in town," despite past affirmations that a bilateral
negotiated resolution to the conflict is the only way to move forward.
With the international community's boycott of the democratically
elected Palestinian government, half of them currently in Israeli
detention, the Palestinians are as powerless to claim their rights as
ever. Worsening the situation, now that it is becoming increasingly
difficult for international observers to access the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, Palestinian civil society institutions will be losing invaluable
conduits of advocacy to the outside world. The international community
will become all the more blind and deaf to human rights abuses and
rights violations committed in the occupied Palestinian territories.
While Olmert will continue to enjoy the warm company of fellow
statesmen, Palestinian civilians will become increasingly isolated
under Israeli occupation.
What will be the effect on Palestinian society if internationals
working in Palestinian civil society are not allowed to conduct their
work, and Palestinians who returned to develop their country are forced
to leave? With Palestinian voices largely absent from mainstream
corporate media coverage of the conflict, who will be there to
communicate the everyday devastation of Israeli occupation and
unilateralism to the rest of the world? With a toothless international
community, including consulates in Jerusalem who privilege Israel's
policies over the rights and interests of their own citizens that they
are meant to protect, the outlook is indeed grim.
When I sought advice from the US Embassy in Jordan after being turned
away at Allenby bridge, I was told that while Israel has the right to
control its borders, at a certain point the turning away of American
citizens (while Israeli citizens are not kept from entering the US)
becomes "a bilateral issue." Despite this, after I was deported from
the airport, the response from the US consulate in Jerusalem was that
tighter restrictions on foreigners entering the West Bank was
understandable given the growing tensions between Hamas and Fatah.
Other Americans who have contacted the consulate have been told a
similar story. However, one has a hard time believing that any sweeping
policy denying international passport-holders entry is actually in the
interest of safety, rather than to remove some of the most credible and
able -- as far as international news audiences are concerned -- persons
likely to witnesses and protest Israel's designs on the West Bank.
Related Links
BY TOPIC: Banning of internationals and foreign passport-holding Palestinians
Arts, Music & Culture Editor of The Electronic Intifada, Maureen
Clare Murphy had spent the last year and a half living in the West Bank
city of Ramallah and working for the Palestinian human rights
organization Al-Haq before being deported late May
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:: Article nr. 24564 sent on 13-jul-2006 02:09 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=24564
Link: electronicintifada.net/v2/article4859.shtml
:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
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