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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">"Racial engineering" behind Israel's new West Bank entry restrictions</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span> -
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">26 September 2022</span></span> </p>
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<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2022-09/170821_jericho_sm_00_7.jpg?itok=gDaZjJ7j×tamp=1663945654" alt="" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="261"></span><p>Palestinians travel through Allenby Crossing in August 2021.</p><small>
<span>APA images</span></small><p>New Israeli
defense ministry restrictions on the entry of foreigners to the occupied
West Bank will infringe on Palestinians’ basic rights, including to
family life, when they are imposed next month.</p>
<p>The 97-page procedure serves Israel’s “racial engineering” of the
population in the West Bank “within the framework of its apartheid
regime, which constitutes a crime against humanity,” <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20562.html">according to</a> a coalition of Palestinian human rights groups.</p>
<p>Those groups say that the restrictions “encroach on Palestinians’
freedom of movement, receiving humanitarian and development assistance
and hosting medical practitioners and other experts.”</p>
<p>“These measures impinge on the sovereign rights of the Palestinian
people, including the right to host experts, artists, athletes,
students, tourists and volunteers.”</p>
<p>The groups urge European Union countries to pressure Israel to “halt these increasing restrictions.” They are also calling on a <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/impunity-israel-begets-abuses-un-probe">permanent fact-finding mission</a>
established by the UN Human Rights Council “to investigate this measure
as a grave violation that falls within the category of racial
discrimination.”</p>
<p>The new restrictions, published earlier this month, will enter into
force on 20 October. They will not apply to foreigners visiting occupied
East Jerusalem, which Israel illegally annexed and is governed by that
state’s civil law.</p>
<p>Foreigners wishing to visit the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem,
must do so via the Allenby Crossing with Jordan rather than Israel’s
international airport near Tel Aviv.</p>
<p>Those seeking to work or study in the West Bank “must apply for an
entry visa 45, 60, or even up to 153 days before arrival as well as
provide an extensive questionnaire on their CV [resume], and any
familial or spousal connections in the West Bank,” according to the
coalition of rights groups.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://apnews.com/article/travel-business-lifestyle-middle-east-jerusalem-72b1da080e502584bdfcc1036029ef63">earlier draft</a>
of the restrictions would have required foreigners to notify the
Israeli military if they became engaged with, married or moved in with a
Palestinian.</p>
<p>“This scandalous condition was removed later under international pressure,” according to the Palestinian rights groups.</p>
<p>“However, the newly adjusted procedures still provide that any visa
renewal of someone on a work visa or other special purpose visa must be
accompanied by information about being in a couple with a Palestinian
registered in the population registry in the West Bank if that is the
case.”</p>
<h2>“Draconian”</h2>
<p>The “draconian new procedure for the entry and residence of
foreigners in the West Bank” will “undermine the academic freedom of
Palestinian universities and harm the local economy and society,” <a href="https://hamoked.org.il/files/2022/COGAT_procedure_briefing_paper_september_2022.pdf">according to</a> HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group that took legal action against an earlier draft of the restrictions.
</p>
“Short-term visits to the West Bank are limited to first degree
relatives of Palestinians, businesspeople, investors and recognized
journalists,” according to HaMoked.
<p>“The procedure does not allow for visits to extended family or
friends in the West Bank, nor for tourists, pilgrims or cultural
visits.”</p>
<p>Anyone wishing to enter the West Bank to work, volunteer, teach or
study, or who is a foreign spouse of a Palestinian, must pay
“prohibitively high security guarantees” of up to $20,000, HaMoked adds.</p>
<p>These directives apply to staff and volunteers with UN agencies and
international organizations. The restrictions therefore hinder “the flow
of needed humanitarian and development assistance … to cope with the
dire living conditions created by Israel’s discriminatory actions,” the
Palestinian rights groups state.</p>
<p>The new restrictions will disrupt the family life of thousands of Palestinians.</p>
<p>They stipulate that Israel has the authority to approve requests by
foreign spouses to reside in the West Bank and state that these requests
are “subject to political considerations of the Israeli government,”
according to HaMoked.</p>
<p>Israel has frozen the family unification process for more than two
decades, forcing thousands of people, particularly the foreign spouses
of Palestinians, to live in the West Bank without legal status.</p>
<p>The new regulations will render a foreigner married to a Palestinian ineligible for work or student visas.</p>
<p>“Furthermore, all visas under the procedure will be evaluated in
light of ‘the risk of becoming entrenched’ in the West Bank,” HaMoked
states.</p>
<p>The defense ministry in Tel Aviv even has the authority to set
academic qualifications for faculty at West Bank institutions under the
new restrictions.</p>
<p>Student and faculty visas may be renewed for a maximum of 27 months
and there is no option of securing tenure for foreign faculty.</p>
<p>The new restrictions do not apply to foreigners traveling to Israeli
settlements in the West Bank. Anyone wishing to study or teach at Ariel
University in the settlement for which it is named “will continue to be
governed by the much more lenient regulations set by Israel’s ministry
of interior,” according to HaMoked.</p>
<p>The defense ministry will also “determine the economic criteria for
entrance of businesspeople and investors, and decide which professions
and projects have ‘importance to the region,’” the rights group states.</p>
<p>Foreigners may volunteer with Palestinian institutions for only 12
months and then must remain abroad for another year before they may
reenter the West Bank.</p>
<h2>“Discriminatory”</h2>
<p>Citizens of Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain and South Sudan are
excluded from entering the West Bank under the new restrictions, despite
those countries’ diplomatic ties with Israel.</p>
<p>“This discriminatory exclusion also applies to dual nationals; for
example, a holder of both a US and a Jordanian passport would be treated
as a Jordanian for the purpose of this procedure,” HaMoked states.</p>
<p>Citizens of those states must go through a “separate process restricted to exceptional and humanitarian cases.”</p>
<p>The policy may cause frustration in Washington over Israel’s
discriminatory treatment of Palestinian Americans attempting to enter
Israel and the West Bank.</p>
<p>The Biden administration has sought to ensure Israeli compliance with the US Visa Waiver Program, with ambassador Tom Nides <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-embassy-urges-opposition-to-support-bills-needed-for-visa-waiver-program/">stating in June</a> that he has worked “around the clock since I arrived to help Israel meet all the requirements” to join the program.</p>
<p>The program requires reciprocal treatment for US citizens at all border crossings.</p>
<p>Palestinian human rights groups note that the new restrictions on
entry to the West Bank coincide with “unprecedented escalation
throughout the [occupied Palestinian territory], including forced
population displacement and transfer on both sides of the Green Line.”</p>
<p>Israel’s repressive measures are aimed at undermining “Palestinian
society’s capabilities, resilience, survival and civil society
organizations,” they state.</p>
<p>Three of the undersigned organizations – Al-Haq, Addameer and Defense for Children International-Palestine – were <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-declares-war-palestinian-rights-groups/34166">declared terrorist groups</a> by the Israeli defense ministry last year and their West Bank offices were <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-army-shuts-down-prominent-palestinian-rights-groups">raided and ordered closed</a> by the military in August.</p> <h3>
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