I work for Right-to-enter campaign; I receive weekly tens of denied-entry cases, the campaign is doing a tremendous work to reach a clear law of who are allowed to enter and trying to facilitate it, I was reading Nadia’s story of her repetitive entry denial, she’s a Chilean- Palestinian woman, her only violation in the Israeli’s eyes is her will to live in this country- her country, Palestine, knowing that she followed the regulations and renewed her visa at the time of its expiration. This story is repeated over and over with all the Palestinians of foreign nationals.
Last week I was chaperoning a German delegation who are traveling across Palestine 67 and Palestine 48 in their attempt to write and publish a book about Palestine “journey to Jerusalem”, Laura- the coordinator of Right to education campaign at the university of Bier Zeit received us there, we had the chance to talk to students from different departments of the University, Ahmad talked about his experience on the check points and how hard it was to travel daily from Jenin to Bier Zeit, he ended up living in Bier Zeit- Ramallah, in the way to Bier Zeit-Ramallah the traveler should cross Za’tara check point, which controls the travelers from Nablus, Jineen and Tulkarem who are heading to Ramallah, this check point was a small crossing point with few soldiers checking the travelers IDs.
Recently the IOF are expanding the check point to become a big crossing point as the ones on boarders, Ahmed told me that the plan is to control not only the travelers but to issue permits to those who are residents of a certain city and heading to a different one, (e.g. Nablus residents should show the reasons of their visit to Ramallah to get a permit)!! While logically this procedure is not needed as Ramallah and
The last three days brought me different followed regulations which will be put in force in the Palestinian territories, Noemi- a Swiss friend who studies Arabic in Bier Zeit university was inquiring about the new interpretation of the CoGAT letter which organizes the entry to Israel “Palestine and Palestine 48”, what she was inquiring about is the visa or visiting permit that any visitor of a foreign national passport to the Palestinian Authority territories should apply to, in order to visit these territories, to find out that this regulation is applied only on Palestinians of foreign national..
The wall is bigger and higher than what we think, it lies on our chests and surrounds each and every Palestinian, whether he has the Palestinian ID or not, first the wall was constructed to separate the Palestinian state from the “Israeli” one, and now it’s expanding to separate the Palestinian state from the Palestinian state… and we submit!!
Where’s the Palestinian Authority from this? What solutions do they provide? What is the point of all negotiation attempts if we are the weak party?
