Washington – A handful of US Congress members, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, are pushing back against Israel’s desperate efforts to join the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which would allow visa-free entry of Israeli citizens to the U.S.
Americans for Justice in Palestine Actions (AJP Action) announced on Thursday that new Israeli procedures set to be implemented next month will greatly restrict their ability to travel to the occupied West Bank, live, work, teach, study, and reunite with family members there.
These procedures, the group said, will even force U.S. citizens to provide ‘Israel’ with “incredibly intrusive information about the personal details of anyone we plan to visit in the West Bank, as well as any property our family stands to inherit.”
“These procedures are meant to cut off relations between Palestinians in the West Bank and everyone in the outside world, deepen Israel’s pervasive surveillance of Palestinians, and to further dispossess Palestinian Americans of their land,” noted the group in a call for action statement.
“These new Israeli procedures are even more outrageous considering that Israel desperately wants to join the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which would allow visa-free entry of Israeli citizens to the U.S,” the group noted.
“However, this program requires that participating countries provide reciprocal, non-discriminatory treatment to U.S. citizens.”
“Instead of ending Israel’s discriminatory policies, these new procedures would dramatically increase the discrimination it metes out to U.S. citizens based on their ethnicity, national origin, religion, and political opinions, something which even the State Department acknowledges has been a huge problem for decades!”
AJP Action is a nonprofit group advocating for legislation supporting the human rights of the Palestinian people and endorsing candidates for office who support those rights.
The group said that some Members of Congress, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, have launched a petition, demanding information from the Biden administration to ensure that ‘Israel’ reverses its discriminatory policies toward US citizens.
The petition also seeks to ensure that the U.S. complies with its own laws and refuses to allow ‘Israel’ to enjoy this privilege “at the same time it is ramping up its discriminatory entry policies.”
The group said that Israel’s new procesures are discriminatory “because they explicitly only apply to Palestinian-Americans, people wishing to visit or live with Palestinians in the West Bank, and study or teach at Palestinian universities.”
