The Silent Expulsion

[idontwantaname]

The Silent Expulsion / Palestinian businessmen wonder why Israel wants them out of the territories

By Amira Hass

In the middle of the conversation in the spacious CEO's office at the Palestinian National Beverage Company in Ramallah 10 days ago, Zahi Khouri's mobile phone danced on the table. It was M., from the Palestinian Standards Institute, calling for a worried consultation: He had to go to Jordan, but what should he do if they did not let him back into the country?

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Khouri is a Palestinian and a U.S. citizen. He was born in Jaffa in 1938. "We left during the nakba," he says. Since 1948, he has lived in Lebanon, Germany, South America, the Gulf States and the U.S. He returned to live in the country after the Oslo Accord, convinced that a state would be built through investment. Like tens of thousands of other Palestinians, he lives here as a tourist, renewing his visa every few months. It has been this way for years: Israel retains the sole authority to grant residency and identity cards for residents of the occupied territories. Until 2000, Israel issued permits only to a few hundred of the tens of thousands who sought to return to live in their homeland each year. After 2000, this too was halted. The renewal of visas every few months was a kind of compromise.

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According to Khouri, the Civil Administration said it was a matter of an "administrative misunderstanding." These procedures have always been on the books, they explained, and are only now being implemented. In other words, border officials were always meant to refuse the continual re-entries of Palestinian tourists or tourists heading for the West Bank.

Khouri does not welcome the special treatment he receives, "while other good Palestinians are being required to leave Palestine." According to Khouri, "when a Palestinian state is established alongside Israel, it will not be in Israel's best interest for Silicon Valley to have Mogadishu next to it. If the intention is transfer - that will not happen. If the idea is to leave poverty-ridden neighborhoods here, that will not help Israel. Israel must come back to its senses. The world is afraid to criticize Israel, that is why it gets away with any policy, even if it hurts its own interests."

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Khouri wrote a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, not only about business people but also about all the Palestinians with foreign citizenship who are being denied entry by Israel. He has spoken with American diplomats, who gave him the impression that Rice was shocked. As far as he knows, the U.S. Consulate is working on it.

He still has not spoken about the matter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who he has met a few times. "Once his head gets clearer, I'll meet him and tell him. I'm sure he is unaware of this lack of logic," he says.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/758169.html