Call me dumb. Call me naive.
Honestly I never thought of travel documents for Arabs who live here and aren't Israeli citizens. Before June, 1967, they were Jordanians, right? Also, lihavdil/to differentiate, during the three years we lived in Israel before being official Israeli citizens we received a special travel document from Israel. Many of the Arabs who live here and aren't Israeli citizens are from other Arab countries, or their parents or grandparents came from other Arab countries. Nu, so don't they have citizenship from those countries?
Well, I should tell you what got me floored. I read the recent notice to American Citizens from the U. S. Embassy. It said that many American citizens in Gaza want to leave and are asking for help from the American Government. And to receive help, they must register with all sorts of documents. Among those documents is a "Palestinian passport number and validity."
According to Wikipedia:
Palestinian Authority Passport/Travel Document Arabic: جواز سفر (Jawaz Safar) is a passport/travel document issued since April 1995 by the Palestinian Authority to Palestinian residents of the Palestinian territories for the purpose of international travel.This is what it looks like.
The Palestinian Authority passport is available to anyone on production of a birth certificate showing that they were born in Palestine. What constitutes "Palestine" for this purpose is not clear. In practice only residents of areas under the Palestinian Authority jurisdiction can apply. Whether Palestinians born outside Palestine could apply for the passport is also not clear.[1]However, the passport issuance is subject to additional restrictions imposed by the Israeli government.[1] Israel asserts that the requirement is permitted for security needs under the Interim Agreement.[2] The United States regards the Palestinian Authority as not controlling its borders, with all persons entering Palestinian Authority controlled areas being required to obtain permission from Israel.[3]
It shouldn't be confused with this old one, from the British Mandate.
During the British Mandate, the term "Palestinian" referred to Jews, not Arabs.
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| Elder of Ziyon |
Shavua Tov, Have a Good Week!
8 comments:
Its been long known. Even Leiberman says to kiss the Greater Israel dream goodbye. Even if God Himself sent the answer Batya, we would make his life hell and ignore him. Take that to the bank. We are to blame, no one else.
Shiloh, oy, I do blame ourselves. We made Arafat accepted, and we built up the Arabs promising a state. We gave Har Habayit to the Muslims and Jordan. We have a long way to go.
I pray that G-d won't exile us again.
Exile is the kind way, I suspect we are long past that. If we are in the prophetic end game, it will be a nightmare. Our stupidity, our behaviour towards each other, such disregard for others, ignoring God after He identified His chosen (in our day), why should He not send a wrath, give me a good reason as we disgrace Him daily.
Palestinian passports have existed for many years. In 1974, King Hussein agreed (those subsidies remember) that he would no longer claim rule over the West Bank of the Jordan and Palestinians would have to decide what citizenship they wanted.
The Ramallah government has control over Palestinian passports. Hamas wanted it, but was not able to get it.
Palestinian passports were initially recognized by other Arab governments - and they are by various other governments by now.
If they didn't have Palestinian citizenship, many would be stateless. On the West Bank many used to be Jordanian citizens, but are so no longer.
Sammy thanks for the info
Wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_passport
Palestinian passports have been issued since 1995 (but I think Arab state recognition of Palestinian citizenship goes back much further. It was definitely the case in 1991.)
Apparently
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