Israeli rules say West Bank visitors must declare love interest
bbc.com
bbc.com
> demand on foreigners to inform the Israeli authorities within 30 days of starting a relationship with a Palestinian ID holder.
Most countries grill people who come on a touristic visa to stay with their SOs simply because there is usually a sperate visa scheme for that purpose.
The issue here is that the policy only targets part of the population, hence the outcry.
No it doesn’t. Palestinians are outside Israel. It targets specific foreigners, not Arabs or Christians or anyone else.
OK. Open a map. A map made by anyone. See a border? Not the same state.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=my%20girlfri...
Ironically, it was the mainstream media, the legends in their own minds streamers, and a few select looking-for-attention US channels that made it seem like they had a lot of popular support (through in-crowd shots, amplifying poorly substantiated claims, etc), where at best they have pockets of support.
Oh, and spend more than 30 seconds talking to them, and you'll see how quickly their ideas go to poorly researched conspiracy theories.
But it is amusing to see how some people here in canada are totally ok with that, and still manage to blame the US or whatever for pointing out that the federal government did exactly what it did. Demanding that the government steps down is legal, and is normal for a protest. We had it happen in quebec in 2012 during the student protests, but no one was calling that an overthrow attempt. And if the bar for basically stripping the citizenry of rights is "disruptive protests", then we don't have protest rights. Even the most reactionary right wingers in America weren't calling for suspending their constitution after the 2020 protests.
(And the discussion has nothing to do with popular support, no one was claiming they were supported by the majority. It's not even relevant, why would that matter when the problem was the insanely dangerous step of suspending charter rights. Trying to make it about something else is a red herring.)
Remember Sir John Diefenbaker's: freedom of speech is the right to say whatever you want, it is not the right to do whatever you want.
The moment those honkers started interfering with the tranquility, safety and professional activities of other people they were no longer doing free speech, they were doing vandalism and terrorism. BTW, it was terrorism supported by foreigners (in the US).
What was novel was the amount and time they spent doing those things. I had previously seen tractors occupy Wellington Street, and being generally very loud. For six hours. They afterwards left in orderly fashion, their point made. The convoy was delusional in the thinking that leaving after the protest was not part of the discourse.
Israel has repeatedly said that Gaza can be free and independent if they would just stop firing missile over the border into Israel and sign a peace agreement.
It's insane that people here are taking sides, including the above linked organizations, instead of pressuring Hamas (which controls Gaza) to accept a peace deal.
There are not settlements in Gaza. There are no Israeli soldiers in Gaza. It's the simplest easiest peace deal - stop shooting missiles at Israeli cities.
...and for those who don't understand why they do not do this incredibly easy thing - it is because Hamas is entirely funded and owned by Iran, who specifically forbids any peace with Israel.
Again, stop trying to take sides in a war you have no skin in the game. It's easy to tell Gazans to keep fighting Israel from the comfort of your basement.
Real courage is in advocating a peace deal for Gaza.
"A foreigner married to a resident of the Area, or forming a couple with one, must proceed to make arrangements according to Part 4 of this procedure before arriving at the Area. If the relationship starts after the foreigner arrived at the Area, then the authorized COGAT official must be informed in writing (at a special e-mail address) within 30 days of the relationship's start. At the same time, an application must be submitted to the Palestinian Authority for formalizing the status in accordance with Part 4 of this procedure. For the purpose, the "starting date of the relationship" shall be considered the day of the engagement ceremony, of the wedding, or of the start of cohabitation – whichever occurs first."
"Under this procedure, entry and resident permits for the Area are divided into various categories. Permits under Part 2 of this procedure are intended for a short visit in the Area, lasting no more than three months, whereas permits under Part 3 of the procedure are resident permits issued for various specific purposes in accordance with the provisions of this section. Part 4 of this procedure refers to applications for formalizing status in the Area and to the possibility of receiving permits for foreign spouses of the Area's residents to reside together with their Palestinian spouses (i.e. spousal permits) when an application that the foreign spouse's status be formalized has been submitted by the Palestinian Authority but rejected."
In short, if you become engaged, married, or cohabiting, then yes you may not qualify anymore for the visa you entered under (and need a different permit), and have to report that within 30 days.
Who gives Israel the rights to issue such visas in the first place? US made tanks and missiles? Why should Palestinians apply Israeli visas to enter and stay in Palestinian land?
...but to answer your more general question: Since the most recent Arab invasion of Israel, Israel controls all border crossings into the Palestinian territories - even though the Palestinian territories are self-governed.
If Gaza and/or the West Bank were to sign a peace deal with Israel, then this would end.
So I suppose the question is - Why aren't Gaza and the West Bank signing a peace agreement?
The real answer is different for both of those entities. For Gaza, it's simple. Gaza is entirely run by Hamas, an Iranian funded terrorist group. And Iran has explicitly instructed them to never sign a peace deal with Israel. There aren't even any settlements in Gaza - nor Israeli military there. Moreover, the border is well established.
The West Bank is far more complicated given settlements, division of Jerusalem, and water rights - but a deal was very nearly achieved in the last negotiations (all points were settled) but Arafat walked away from deal because he didn't want Israel to hold any portion of Jerusalem at all - even the portions inhabited entirely by Jews.
They could have settled for much more generous conditions in 1948 ot 1967
No one is going to invade Israel.
Palestinians should sign the last peace deal. They aren't going to get better terms.
The Palestinians will probably do the right thing and preserver until the israelis cross yet another red line. Let's just hope - for the israelis sake - that they don't cross a line to far.
The most obvious contradiction is that you think Israel will regret crossing the "red line", yet also claim that they are already crossing red lines.
I hope the lengthy document also lays out the specifics of what constitutes the "start of a relationship" so that all such relationships can be duly planned to comply with the framework. Hopefully it also covers the handling for "in-flight" relationships.
With journalists who ought to be well-informed, I cannot chalk it up to incompetence - it's anti-semitism, pure and simple.
ADDED oh and, having been an immigrant to both Canada and US, all this kind of stuff is relatively normal. By relatively I mean given the relative security situation. Especially on family visas (not my case) where the US literally checks on your private life to ensure it's not fraud. On non-immigrant visa they grill you about potential jobs you might have lined up, or any relationships you might have, in case you are lying about your intent. Or, you could try to check out the medical restrictions that (used to?) exist when immigrating to Canada. Of course just like with the history, half-truths are necessary here to create the correct narrative that this is somehow abnormal.
i am pretty sure the moment israel-usa relations turn sour, usa would wake up to the "inhuman treatment" and "apartheid"....
right now its all fair and square and under the approval of American interests so its all fine. even EU hasn't had that "woke" moment with Palestinian yet, most probably because of the same pro-israel lobby....
The usual answer is oil, but the cost of the Iraq war is estimated at $1.9 trillion [1]. Even if all of Iraq's oil industry was taken by the US, and its revenue was 100% profit that went entirely to the US, at the current record-high export of $11 billion/month [2], it would take 15 years to break even.
But neither of those assumptions hold - oil industry profit margins vary between 5% and 30% [3,4], and the media seems shockingly disinterested in reporting how oil company ownership or profit flow changed following the war, but let's be generous and say it resulted in half of their total profits being diverted to the US (that weren't already diverted before).
Under these more realistic but still very generous assumptions (using the 30% high-water mark for profit margin), it would take 97 years to break-even. That is also assuming Iraq would remain a stable pawn to US interests for that entire time, and it wouldn't take more military spending to keep them in line.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/2/iraq-oil-exports-11-...
[3] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012015/what-average...
[4] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/oil-industry-ranks-60-by-prof...
https://qphs.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b39d6210ab7224d8434ca...
look at this. India, back before 1991, had this printed on their passport. I dare any human rights advocating country to do this today against Israeli apartheid state?
Countries that lives in a fantasy world where you can cut off contact with every country that doesn’t meet your standards find themselves isolated pretty quickly.
Lets not forget the tan suit, quite right it was rolling news for weeks.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apart...
It's easy to ask Palestinians and Gazans and Israelis to fight and die from the comfort of our western basements, but how many of you have the courage to point to a peace deal and publicly advocate that the sides sign it to end the conflict?
How many comments and articles on social media (including HN) push people to take sides instead? Seldom to I see articles or comments even mention the last viable peace deal that was on the table.
It's the worst kind of journalism, and it attracts the worst kind of online participants.
For many, the narrative has superseded reality. And that’s the crux of the issue. If only more people had your level of willingness to explore the facts on the ground with their own eyes. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective.