"BernardZ" <DontBother@NOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1f6057ef889bb0dd9899ce@west.Usenet-News.net...

In article <1156914220.718399.162100@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com>,
vesuvian.doppelgange@lycos.com says...

*Accidental emigrant *

By Amira Hass

This past March, 44-year-old Hayan Ju'beh's tourist visa expired, and
he
had to travel to Amman in order to receive a new one - a routine
procedure for him over the last 10 years. "Three to four days and I'll
be back," he promised his four children.

On the day of his expected return, his wife, 34-year-old Sawsan Quaoud,

took their four children to a mall at El Bireh. The kids played games
and she sat and watched them, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette.
It was then that she received a call from her husband.

The authorities didn't allow him to pass through the Allenby border
crossing, he told her.

What? At first she thought she misheard him, then she didn't take him
seriously. But he wasn't joking.

Hayan Ju'beh was born and reared in Jerusalem, and lived there until he

left to study theater abroad. He married an Irish citizen (who also has

a British passport). In Britain their children 13-year-old Yussef and
11-year-old Sophie were born.

In October 1995 his wife passed away. Ju'beh decided to take the kids
and move back to Jerusalem, to raise them among his large local family.

The Oslo Accords and the hope of peace provided further encouragement
to
return to the city of his birth. He found a job working for the
Jerusalem office of the MBC television network.

But in mid-1996, when he applied to renew his "laissez passer" travel
certificate, which is issued to Palestinians when they travel abroad,
Israel's Ministry of the Interior told him: "You are not a resident."

No rights at home

In December 1995 the Ministry of Interior began implementing a
systematic policy of revoking the Jerusalem residency status of
thousands of Palestinians who were born in the city, but for whom,
according to the ministry, Jerusalem was no longer "the center of their

lives" - and therefore their permanent residency permit had "expired."
This applied to all those who lived abroad in the past or at that time,

as well as those Palestinians who lived in neighborhoods just outside
Jerusalem's municipal boundary. There was no official declaration of
this policy. It only manifested itself as such when an increasing
number
of people discovered at the border crossings or at the offices of the
Ministry of Interior that they were no longer defined as residents, and

not as Jerusalemites, and were being stripped of rights in their own
town.

Ju'beh was one of these people. His attempts to regain residency for
himself and his children failed. He was without "identity," without any

legal document to prove his existence. Distraught, he applied for Irish

citizenship, and received it. Since then he has been forced to leave
his
homeland every three months, to return as a tourist.

At the MBC office he met Sawsan Quaoud, a Nablus native and a Ramallah
resident. In 1997 they married, and settled in Ramallah. In 1999 they
established a television film production company; they also had two
children. When they lost all hope of Ju'beh regaining his Jerusalem
residency, they asked the Israeli authorities (through the Palestinian
Ministry of Interior) for "family reunification" in Ramallah. That is,
they asked Israel to allow him to become a resident of the Palestinian
Authority. Israel did not do so; indeed, in all such cases since
September 2000, has put the applications on indefinite hold.

Ju'beh's two children from his first marriage are also considered
tourists by law, and worse - as law-breaking tourists. They did not
exit
with their father every three months to renew their tourist visas, due
to the high cost of such trips and the fact that they would miss
school.

After Ju'beh was not let back in, Quaoud ran around for a month and a
half between various government offices and lawyers. She called the
Irish embassy, where the staff told her they had called the Israeli
Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Interior to protest and asked for

explanations, but received no answer. In the meantime, Ju'beh decided
to
try his luck at the Sheikh Hussein border crossing at Beit She'an.

On May 3 Ju'beh was permitted to return through Beit She'an, but was
granted only a month-long visa. Both he and his wife thought they would

be able to extend it through the Palestinian Ministry of Interior.

Despite the severed relations between the two sides, in certain cases
it
is possible to extend a visa for spouses of Palestinian residents
without having to exit the country.

However, this is only possible three or four times, after which the
spouse must exit again - with no guarantee of return. Exasperated after

not succeeding to extend his visa, in early June Ju'beh left for
Britain.

Ju'beh decided not to act illegally, as some people do, by remaining in

the country after his visa expired, to fight for his right to stay
"from
the inside." That would have turned him into a prisoner in Ramallah.
Indeed when traveling to work outside the city, at every checkpoint in
the area, a soldier could have discovered his "crime" and would have
the
authority to deport him.

Gradually the couple accepted that there was no other solution: The
entire family had to leave, and join Ju'beh in Britain.

Quaoud took care of all the arrangements on her own: She dissolved the
company she and her husband established, apologized to the six
cameramen
who had lost their livelihoods, rushed to complete a film she had been
working on for the last six months, packed, bid her farewells, and
prepared the children for the move - everything in a rush to make it in

time to enroll the children in school in Britain.

"We surrendered," admitted Quaoud, on the eve of her forced departure
to
Britain.

The Israeli authorities that revoked Ju'beh's residency of his native
Jerusalem did not allow reunification with his wife in Ramallah, and
finally also decided that even as a tourist, he does not have the right

to live in his homeland.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/755375.html
----------------------------------------

*A policy of no-return *

By Amira Hass


Since April 2006, Israel has imposed a sweeping ban on the return to
the
country of Palestinians of Western nationality, primarily Americans,
who
have been living and working in the West Bank for many years. The
Interior Ministry and Civil Administration have not made an official
announcement about this, and the people affected have only learned of
the directive upon arriving at the border crossings.

On learning of the ban, Palestinian citizens of Western countries who
have family, work and assets in the territories have sought help from
their respective embassies.

Israeli officials have told Western diplomats that entry into the
occupied territories through the crossings by Palestinians who are
foreign nationals will be restricted to a minimum. The diplomats say
they cannot intervene in Israel's sovereign decisions.

Most affected by the directive are Palestinians who were born in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip and were stripped of their residency status
after 1967, while abroad for work and study purposes. The hope they had

of returning to reside in the territories was boosted by the Oslo
Accords.

Spouses of Palestinians - business people, academics and teachers who
are not of Palestinian origin - are also affected by the ban. Until
recently, Israel allowed them to remain in the territories as tourists,

and to renew their visas every three months.

Citizens of Arab states (whether of Palestinian origin or not) have
been
prevented from entering Israel since 2000, even if they're married to
Palestinian residents. Since the Hamas election victory, this policy
has
been expanded and now applies to American and European citizens, too.

There have been an increasing number of cases in which entire families,

primarily of a middle-class background, have had to emigrate because of

this situation. (Amira Hass)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/755373.html

What has it to do with ethnic cleansing? Beside why does he not live in
the region under the PA which is right there too.

HEY IDIOT! THE MAN WAS BORN IN JERUSALEM, UNDERSTAND? STUPID!