The next stage : a visa to Europe
Une excellente idée, que l’Union européenne impose un visa aux Israéliens (comme elle le fait pour les Palestiniens)
Haaretz By Amira Hass | Feb. 12, 2014 |
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.573710
The successes of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement are impressive, but they’re not enough. Israel needs braver, more stringent messages from friendly countries in order to understand just how much its ordinary life is based in obscene and perverted policies. Jewish Israelis need more than just symbols like Scarlett Johansson’s recent entanglement in order to realize that there are much more important things at stake than the settlements’ villas and their boutique wineries. One such thing, for example, is their children’s and grandchildren’s future in this region.
Therefore, European states must cease automatically giving Israelis tourist visas upon arrival at their borders. Instead, they should require us − as they do Palestinians − to request visas at their consulates ahead of time. Disruption of our freedom of movement and the chances of being refused visas would be a well-placed warning sign, telling us that our normality is nothing more than an illusion.
Such a move would measure up with European states’ declarations of opposition to settlement construction and expansion. Theoretically, it would be logical to apply such restrictions only to individuals who are violating international law: those who live beyond the Green Line, including East Jerusalem, which according to the EU is occupied territory, no less than Givat Ze’ev is. Issuing visas in such cases should be subject to the consulate official’s judgment, though perhaps such classification is beyond the scope of consolatory bureaucracy.
Another solution could be that Palestinians living in territory conquered in 1967 be immediately granted the right to come and live within Israel, at the Israeli government’s expense. Absurd, you’ll say, and rightly so: Even within the West Bank, Israel restricts their residency rights. In 2013, Israeli authorities demolished the homes of 1,103 Palestinians in Area C and East Jerusalem, including 558 children. Right, those constructions were erected without permits. But Israel’s known, transparent policy, which the EU continues to condemn, is to prevent Palestinians from building on their own territory.
How many normal Israelis (excluding government ministers) does it take to demolish the homes of 1,103 Palestinians? In other words, to commit war crimes without firing a single shot? They include: inspectors from the Civil Administration, Jerusalem municipality and Interior Ministry, then officials on the municipal and CA planning committees, then higher-ranking officials from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories’ office, military jurists, translators and secretaries, pilots in their helicopters circling above and photographing every “illegal” portable bathroom stall, bulldozer drivers and soldiers.
Dozens of soldiers (and their supportive, loving parents) are involved in every act of demolishing Palestinians’ homes. If European visa request forms included the question: “Were you involved in demolishing homes and transferring Palestinians in the last 10 years?” tens of thousands of Israelis would most likely choose to brazenly lie, and answer “no.”
Due to the increasing amount of Israelis involved in violating the principles of international law that are binding in European states, and the difficulty in identifying them, the solution is to require all of us to request entry visas in order to travel to Europe. Only Palestinian Israeli citizens should be exempt from this requirement.
Only moves like this have a chance of weakening Jewish Israelis’ support for the colonialist policies of our government, and the ethnic discrimination that stems from them. Europe has a historic responsibility for what goes on here: It must prevent another disaster and further bloodshed of Syrian proportions. If not for the sake of the two peoples that live here, for its own sake. Does Europe really want to absorb millions more refugees, and Jews as well?