Israel OKs Palestinian Permits
Line up, bitches. Time to slop the hogs.
JERUSALEM- Israel will grant residency permits to 5,000 Palestinians who have been living in the West Bank on expired visitors’ visas, officials said Wednesday, in a new gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The decision means an easier life for some of the 20,000 Palestinians who entered the West Bank as visitors during the heady years of peacemaking in the 1990s but saw their visitors’ permits expire. That left them with a difficult choice: leave the West Bank with no guarantee of returning, or remain illegally under constant fear of arrest.
Hussam Barghouti, 31, said if he made the list, he would be able to visit his brothers and sisters in nearby Jordan for the first time in 11 years. Barghouti came to the West Bank in 1995. Since then, he has spent years avoiding Israeli army roadblocks because he has no valid papers.
Barghouti said he even had trouble getting married, because the first question he was asked was always, “Do you have an ID?” He eventually married a cousin, but said he even stayed away from the hospital when his wife gave birth for fear of being deported.
The residency permit gesture is meant to boost Abbas in his struggle with the Islamic Hamas ahead of a U.S.-sponsored Mideast conference next month.
Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said the list of 5,000 would be completed before this weekend’s Muslim holiday of Eid el-Fitr, and additional permits would be approved in the future.
Palestinians who were abroad when Israel captured the territories in 1967 or who have lived abroad for many years have no residency rights. They must enter the West Bank with their foreign passports as tourists, even if they have long family histories or are married to local Palestinians.
For Barghouti, who works at Bir Zeit University near the city of Ramallah, a permit would make a huge difference. “If I get residency, I will be able to move around freely,” he said.
(AP)
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“I will be able to move around freely”, therein lies the rub.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:03 am