APACHE JUNCTION AZ (IFS) -- As Israel's subsidy from the United States is coming due to the sum of $1.7 Billion Dollars. Israel forgot that these two women have the power to deny them that money as they have the vote between them and their fellow members. Israel is going to pay the price for this bad decision.
Israel barred two Muslim US congresswomen from a planned visit to East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, after pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has accused the Democratic politicians of anti-Semitism. Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who have been scathing critics of both Mr. Trump and Israeli human rights violations, will not be allowed into the country, Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told Israel’s Reshet Bet Radio.
The government said that they were barred entry under a controversial Israeli law that allows it to ban visitors, including Jews, who support a movement to boycott Israeli products and companies until it ends the occupation of the West Bank. Rightwing Israelis have regularly conflated the Boycott, Divest and Sanction Movement, which is popular in Europe and US college campuses, with anti-Semitism.
“It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit,” Mr Trump tweeted on Thursday. “They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. They are a disgrace!” Both of the barred US politicians are women of colour who have assailed Mr Trump in recent months and become frequent targets of the president. In the past weeks, Israel has welcomed dozens of US politicians, including Democrats, who have offered little or no criticism of Israeli policies regarding Palestinians.
Ms Omar called the decision an affront. “The irony of the ‘only democracy’ in the Middle East making such a decision is that it is both an insult to democratic values and a chilling response to a visit by government officials from an allied nation”, she said in a statement. David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, said the US “supports and respects” Israel’s decision, and that the country “has every right to protect its borders against those activists in the same manner as it would bar entrants with more conventional weapons.”
The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, said in a tweet that while it disagreed with the congresswomen’s support for the BDS Movement, “We also believe every member of Congress should be able to visit and experience our democratic ally Israel firsthand.” Ms Tlaib and Ms Omar had made tentative plans to engage “with Palestinian civil society and to provide them with an opportunity to see the reality of occupation for themselves,” according to the Palestinian Initiative for Global Dialogue and Democracy, which was helping organise their visit.
Nearly 3m Palestinians live under occupation in the West Bank, and another 2m under an Israel and Egyptian blockade in the Gaza Strip. “Like all prolific human rights abusers, Israel wants to impose a blackout on the reality in occupied Palestine and prevent congresswomen Tlaib and Omar from having direct contact with the Palestinian people, who are subject to Israel’s cruel regime of colonization, oppression, and land grab,” the organization said. The decision was taken by Aryeh Deri, interior minister, after consulting with Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister, and other members of the cabinet, the ministry said.
Ms Tlaib, whose parents were born in East Jerusalem and near Ramallah, both in the occupied West Bank, would be allowed to make an application to visit her family on humanitarian grounds, the interior ministry said. Mr Netanyahu said he had approved the decision because the US politicians had not scheduled any meetings with Israeli officials, had said they were visiting Palestine, not Israel, and were likely to engage in a campaign to negate Israel’s legitimacy. In the midst of a fierce re-election campaign, Mr Netanyahu has hinted at annexing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which house more than 500,000 Israelis in housing units considered illegal under international law.
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