Chris Doyle
For all the genuine and, indeed, feigned international condemnations, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was spot on in his statement about Jews having greater freedom of movement than Arabs in the West Bank: “My right, my wife’s right, my kids’ right to move around freely on the roads is more important than the right of movement of Arabs.”
The US and others condemned his comments, but Ben Gvir only highlighted the apartheid reality and the ideology that underpins it. It existed before his rise to power and, in all likelihood, will survive his political demise. Palestinians, or Arabs, as the likes of Ben Gvir refer to them, simply do not have equal rights, and not just in freedom of movement. A whole infrastructure of checkpoints, obstacles to movement and a discriminatory permit system see to that. Palestinians even have to drive cars with different colored number plates to mark them out from Israeli yellow-plated cars.
Palestinians also lack the same rights on entry and exit to their own country. But is this now being called into question for the first time? The US has challenged this, if only for its own citizens. On this narrow issue, Israel has conceded and, in theory, American citizens with Palestinian IDs will now enjoy privileges their fellow Palestinians can only dream of. About 12,000 have apparently benefited from this since June when the system was piloted. For years, Israel has treated Palestinian ID card holders, even those who are dual nationals, as being solely Palestinian. Palestinians are typically subjected to horrendous levels of abuse traveling to Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory. Many say they refuse to go because they cannot stand the humiliation it involves.
Yet, Israel has now reached an agreement with the US to allow US citizens, including Palestinian ID card holders and passport holders of enemy states, to obtain a 90-day tourist visa. In return, Israeli citizens can travel to the US visa free, a huge political prize for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics point out that Israel has been given special treatment, its application accelerated without the usual intense scrutiny. If all goes to plan, Israel will be a full member of the program in September. A key test will be if and when Israel does not adhere to the agreement, will the US respond? The implications of this are manifold. According to Israeli estimates, tens of thousands of Palestinians with US citizenship live in the West Bank. If the US can achieve this for its citizens, why cannot other states? Israel has also essentially confirmed this by agreeing that its security concerns are not that dominant and can be addressed. But the most dramatic element of the US-Israel deal is that the US insisted that all its citizens should be treated equally on entry and exit. Equal treatment will revolutionize the experience for American citizens with Palestinian ID cards. One has to question whether this will be implemented in practice and how it will be monitored? How do you establish what equal treatment is?
As it stands, equal treatment was not applied even during the pilot program that kicked off in June. How come? Israel still insisted that Palestinian-Americans residing in the West Bank could not enter Israel in a car and had to enter by foot. Entering and exiting Israel and the territories it occupies has rarely been a simple, hassle-free process. Ben Gurion Airport has become synonymous with long, drawn-out and intrusive interviews. If you are Palestinian or Muslim, it is typically an horrific ordeal. In fact, more than one diplomat from embassies in Tel Aviv has said that non-white people get far worse treatment. Aid workers and human rights activists can recount endless stories about petty questions and confiscations. One aid worker told me how she had her flute confiscated, another how her keyboard, not the computer, was taken. In fairness, for non-Palestinian, white visitors to Israel, the process improved considerably during the 1980s and 1990s. Israeli security officials do have genuine security concerns which are understandable, although many of the questions appear unrelated to any legitimate worry.
Israel, on the other hand, has become tougher in terms of rejecting entry. It has the sovereign right to do this on its own territory, of course. Yet, in 2017, the Israeli Knesset passed legislation empowering the interior minister to deny entry to anyone who supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, including against the illegal settlements. In October last year, Israel introduced highly restrictive rules on foreign nationals working in the West Bank, for example at universities or in the humanitarian sector. This will also affect Palestinians trying to visit their families in the West Bank. Of course, this does not apply to Israeli Jews wanting to visit illegal settlements in the West Bank, but then again, none of the restrictions do. This raises another question. Considering a large portion of US citizens of Palestinian heritage support some form of BDS, especially against the settlements, what will happen if Israel starts denying Palestinian Americans entry on these grounds? The agreement also allows Israel to check an entrant for any links to “terrorism.” On paper this might seem as fair and unsurprising, not least as, in theory, Israel cannot do this differently to any other US citizen. Yet, Israel’s interpretation of this can be so broad as to snare many who have no genuine direct link to violence. After all, Israeli authorities have proscribed Palestinian human rights groups, but have notably failed to provide any evidence whatsoever to back such a charge.
This will get tested even more next month. From Sept. 15, American citizens from Gaza, not just from the West Bank, will also be included in the deal. Their numbers are measured in the hundreds. This agreement raises far broader issues. Why have the US and other major states done so little, and so late? It is pointless condemning Ben Gvir for his statement. It was ugly, but it was the ugly reality. Why should the US bother to promote the rights only of its own citizens, and not speak out and take action to ensure its major ally abolishes its discriminatory system? Other states can at least follow the American path and adopt the same approach as the bare minimum. Challenging Israeli treatment of Palestinian movement, entry and exit is vital. But, in doing so, change runs up against the apartheid system. The US has started that process in a timid fashion. Equal rights and justice, the dismantlement of systemic discrimination will require far more.
