Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumBarbara Boxer, AIPAC seek to codify Israel's right to discriminate against Americans
In order for the US to permit citizens of a foreign country to enter the US without a visa, that country must agree to certain conditions. Chief among them is reciprocity: that country must allow Americans to enter without a visa as well. There are 37 countries which have been permitted entrance into America's "visa wavier" program, and all of them - all 37 - reciprocate by allowing American citizens to enter their country without a visa.
The American-Israeli Political Action Committee (Aipac) is now pushing legislation that would allow Israel to enter this program, so that Israelis can enter the US without a visa. But as JTA's Ron Kampeas reports, there is one serious impediment: Israel has a practice of routinely refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country or the occupied territories it controls; it also bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights. Israel refuses to relinquish this discriminatory practice of exclusion toward Americans, even as it seeks to enter the US's visa-free program for the benefit of Israeli citizens.
As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel's membership in the program while vesting it with a right that no other country in this program has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance. In other words, the bill sponsored by these American senators would exempt Israel from a requirement that applies to every other nation on the planet, for no reason other than to allow the Israeli government to engage in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination against US citizens. As Lara Friedman explained when the Senate bill was first introduced, it "takes the extraordinary step of seeking to change the current US law to create a special and unique exception for Israel in US immigration law." In sum, it is as pure and blatant an example of prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over the rights of US citizens as one can imagine, and it's being pushed by Aipac and a cast of bipartisan senators.
Israel's religious- and ethnicity-based entrance exclusions of American citizens are so well-documented and pervasive that even the US State Department provides an official warning about it in its official travel advisory for Israel, noting:
<snip>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/13/barbara-boxer-aipac-israel-discrimination
choie
(4,102 posts)Boy, is she lying down with the devil.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)what an embarrassment to both the US and the Democratic Party
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)You know, to... what's the word? "Explain"?
GeoWilliam750
(2,519 posts)The interests of the US and its citizens should come first and foremost.
Boxer and Blunt are the Senators from California and Missouri, not Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Imagine if Britain or China or Saudi Arabia attempted this.
Loyalty is inversely proportionate to what you receive, and directly proportionate to what you give.
The United States is unstintingly loyal to Israel.
LeftishBrit
(41,190 posts)Apart from such facts as that America did not seriously investigate Saudi actions in connection with 9-11,despite the fact that most of the hijackers were Saudi citizens: there is a situation parallel to the one reported here, but significantly worse. In Saudi Arabia, you need an exit visa to get out; and America from what I've heard has no power to get exit visas for its own citizens once they are in Saudi Arabia. One implication of this is that American mothers who are divorced from husbands living in Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia does not recognize divorces obtained in the USA) cannot go back to visit their own children without risking being permanently trapped there; and there have been a number of cases of abductions of children of US citizens, with the US being apparently powerless to intervene.
The UK also kowtows to Saudi Arabia on lots of things. Oil is a powerful currency.
The idea that Israel is the exception to everything is wrong whether on the pro-Israel side ('no other country has ever had to deal with terrorism on its borders' - yes, they have) on on the anti-Israel side ('the USA supports Israeli interests more than those of any other country' - no, they don't).
As for Britain: Britain and the USA are pretty much joined at the hip on foreign policy. The influence, I'd say, is more from America on Britain, but it certainly goes both ways. Certainly, the dear departed Maggie Thatcher seems to have influended Ronnie quite as much the other way about.
Though to be honest, Israel and Saudi Arabia are about equal in how much nuzzling US lawmakers do - they are the primary two angles of our mideast policies. One's the carrot, the other is the stick.
LeftishBrit
(41,190 posts)shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)so why would anyone take it seriously?