US bans visas for Palestinian passport holders
US bans visas for Palestinian passport holders
The US has stopped accepting Palestinian passports for visa applications, current and former US officials have told Middle East Eye.
According to The New York Times, which first reported the story, the directive was outlined in a message sent on 18 August to all US embassies to temporarily refuse visas to holders of passports issued by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The move appears to have come after pressure was exerted on the administration of US President Donald Trump by far-right activist Laura Loomer to stop injured Palestinian children from Gaza from travelling to the US, officials in the region told MEE on Monday.
The children were evacuated from Gaza via Egypt, where their US visas would have been obtained. Loomer, who has emerged as an influential voice for the Trump administration, called the wounded children “a national security threat” and falsely claimed the US was “actively importing Gazans into the US”.
The new restriction is much more sweeping and effectively bans any visas to applicants using Palestinian passports in the occupied West Bank or abroad. The decision means Palestinians will not be able to visit US citizen family members in the US, or travel for medical, business, or tourism purposes.
Some visas could still be issued to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who hold Jordanian passports. Jordan controlled the territory from 1948 until 1967, when it was captured and occupied by Israel.
The banning of Palestinian passports comes as part of a broader push to discredit the idea of a Palestinian nation-state.
The State Department announced last week that it was “denying and revoking visas” from members of the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organisation ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. That decision includes a ban on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from attending the UN General Assembly, which opens on 9 September.
The US cited in its decision the PA's support for the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court's war crimes and genocide cases against Israel.
The PLO and PA are dominated by the Palestinian political party Fatah.
Palestinian passports were first issued in the 1990s after the PLO renounced armed resistance and in exchange for limited self-governance in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The PA has historically received US backing. It was envisioned as a precursor to an eventual Palestinian State. However, Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank makes a contiguous state virtually unachievable today, experts say.
Nonetheless, France and other countries say they will recognise a Palestinian state in September. The UK says it will join them unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. Nearly 150 countries already recognise a Palestinian state.
Israel plans to annex large swaths of the occupied West Bank in retaliation for countries recognising a Palestinian state, according to media reports on Monday. The Trump administration has condemned efforts to recognise Palestine. Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is a proponent of Israeli annexation.
During his first term in office, Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. According to international law, East Jerusalem is occupied, and Palestinians envision it as the capital of their future state.
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