Travel-restrictions and the Blue ID for Palestinians
as recently (November 2006)
explained to me
by a Palestinian inhabitant of Jerusalem
Travel-restrictions
"In response to your queries, I will try to respond to your question in points regarding how things currently are going. Things keep changing quickly, so new changes might happen any moment. In the past three years we have been witnessing new negative entry policies and landscape transformations on a daily basis so one doesn't know what will happen the next moment.
1. There are many Palestinians towns and cities which are not separated by checkpoints. For example, Palestinians in Bethlehem wanting to go to Beit Sahour do not need permits because there are no checkpoints in between. Yet in many cases there are temporary checkpoints that show up from time to time , like the Surda checkpoint between Ramallah and Birzeit. It used to be there in the beginning of the current Intifada, it's not there now, but if the political situation gets tense and there are relevant attacks by Palestinians inside Israeli areas, the soldiers might show up any moment. .
2. Palestinian West Bank citizens wanting to reach other West Bank areas separated by an Israeli zone have to pass through dangerous bypass roads . For example someone from Ramallah wanting to go to Bethlehem has to pass through a dangerous road (Wadi Al-Nar road which means the 'Valley of Fire'). These dangerous long roads usually make the distance between two nearby towns/villages separated by an Israeli town (which would take for example 20 minutes) a very long journey that sometimes takes hours.
3. West Bank residents trying to enter Jerusalem or other areas outside the West Bank need permits which take a long time to be issued and they have to be closely checked in the terminals. As a result, there are many West Bank Palestinians who have never been to the Holy Sepulchre or Al-Aqsa Mosque or who dream to see the sea of Jaffa. At some Christian celebrations, some West Bank Christians are entitled to apply for permits to come to Jerusalem, but they do not always get it or randomly some members of the family get it and others don't . An example is the case of student I know from Beit Sahour. Her whole family applied to a permit to come to Jerusalem in Easter. The permit was refused to everybody, except her (18 years old). Her family did not allow her to go to Jerusalem alone because they were worried she would be lost because she has never been there. We finally convinced her family that we would pick her up in Bethlehem, take her to Jerusalem and return her back to Bethlehem so she wouldn't miss the chance.
4 . Gaza Strip: West Bank residents and Palestinian Jerusalemites (carrying a Jerusalem Israeli ID), wherever they are located, are not allowed to go into the Gaza Strip without permits and vice versa.
5. West Bank citizens who carry American passports (originally from Palestinian areas) are not allowed to be in Jerusalem without a permit.
6. Palestinians carrying special Israeli blue IDs are allowed to pass through the better roads used by settlers but when they reach the checkpoint and the soldiers find they are not Israeli, their cars are subjected to extra-security searching.
7. Note that the tricky thing is that some areas of Jerusalem which included a large demographic number of Palestinians suddenly became considered by Israel as West Bank for political reasons (to have a higher demographic percentage of Israelis in Jerusalem) (examples are Al-Ram and Al-Dahieh on the main road between Jerusalem and Ramallah). Residents of these areas previously carried Jerusalemite IDs but suddenly Israeli declared that their areas are considered as West Bank. So they are now separated from their families/extension in Jerusalem . In many cases now, the parents carry Jerusalem IDs and the children don't, because they are registered in those areas.
This leads to many complications. It led to a sudden move to the Jerusalem city center (especially the Old City and Wadi Al-Joz) by different people living in these areas, and you now often find cases where the whole family is living in one room in the Old City because they do not want to lose their Jerusalem citizenship or insurance benefits. I know many actual examples of that and have many friends living that way. Some try to get away (continue living in Al-Dahieh for example but register themselves in Jerusalem) but it is difficult. Many times Israeli intelligence people come to check whether they are actually living in the place where they are registered. The brother of a friend of mine did that (registered himself in the family house in the City Center) and when the police found out he is living in another area, they completely deprived him of entering Jerusalem without a permit. So one feels like an illegal immigrant in her/his own country.
One current solution is Kufor Aqab, an area right after the Qalandya checkpoint (before reaching Ramallah). It is considered a Jerusalemite area even though it's like an island in the middle of the West Bank. It is a haven for Jerusalemites married to West Bankers who have no other solution but to live together in one apartment without the Jerusalemite losing the ID. Yet the long-term fate of this area is unknown. I hope it will remain as it is and will not turn to another "West Bank" area, depriving families from their rights to be in Jerusalem.
Such a Kufor Aqab example is one of my best friends. She is from Jerusalem, her husband is from Bethlehem. They do not have anything to do with Ramallah. But the only place they can officially live in is Kufor Aqab
(so that she will not lose her Jerusalem ID and insurance benefits). To visit her family in Jerusalem, my friend has to pass through the Qalandya terminal and her husband has to go through the 'Valley of Fire' road to see his family in Bethlehem. Whenever their child is sick, they have nobody to help them because they are cut off from family and friends.
8. Israeli Palestinians (Palestinians of the Israeli side of the Green Line) are now not allowed to be in the West Bank without permits. Some who work in International organizations like USAID or the Red Cross can pass but the rest are not allowed to without permits. Israel believes that this is for the 'security' of Israelis (but at the same time this hides the reality of its policies in the West Bank to Israelis who want to see the truth with their own eyes, as an Israeli friend once told me).
9. Current scenarios which are expected to be implemented (hopefully not). In some cases, like Nablus, it is currently not always easy for a Jerusalemite to go inside Nablus with one's car without a permit, but it's allowed to do it by public transportations . We don't know what are the upcoming complications for other areas! There are rumors that Jerusalemites wanting to go through Qalandya with their cars will need permits but it is only a rumor so far (hopefully it stays a rumor).
The blue ID-card
All Israelis carry Blue IDs. This applies to Palestinians holding
Israeli passports as well as those considered by Israel to be living
in Jerusalem.
When Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 the city's inhabitants
were previously under Jordanian rule. Israel granted them Israeli
(blue) ID cards as well as insurance benefits (in return for tax and
insurance payment). But on the ID card they have been considered as
'residents' and their nationality was considered 'Jordanian'. It was
directly printed on our IDs but on the new ID cards
issued after 2005 these details have been replaced with asterics only.
Usually a Jerusalemite ID holder is someone born, raised and living in
an area considered by Israel as Jerusalem, and whose family hold
Jerusalemite blue ID cards and pay the compulsory Israeli taxes. They
have to show up these documents. A blue ID is granted to
someone when he/she is 16 years old.
When you stop living in
Jerusalem and move to the West Bank, you lose the Jerusalemite ID.
If a Jerusalemite lives abroad without coming back frequently and without paying Israeli taxes, he loses the ID. Similarly,
if a Jerusalemite living in Jerusalem does/can not pay Israeli taxes, the
blue ID is at risk.
One can also have a Jerusalemite ID by marriage. Israeli law allows
Jerusalemites to have family unification for their spouses and
children (living in the West Bank or other countries like Jordan). It
was easier before (it took a couple some years but it was possible at
least). Now this is almost impossible and couples wait several years with
their cases in court without any results. Sometimes, after a period being married, the spouse gets a temporary permit to be in
Jerusalem without getting the Jerusalem ID. It is easier for husbands
who are over 35 years old. Sometimes, after a long procedure in court
they get the Jerusalem ID. This is seen as a big
achievement.
This explains the dilemma mentioned above. A
Jerusalemite whose husband has complications to be in Jerusalem will
ultimately prefer to live on the West Bank. If you do, your blue
ID is at risk, which means you are cut off. This connects -you can say - to what is called by the Israeli historian
Ilan Pappe as 'Ethnic Cleansing'.
In the Armenian Quarter for instance, a number of young people engaged to fellow Armenians in
nearby Arab countries have left. With the complications to bring their
spouses here, most of these people have decided to leave to their
spouses' countries. It is seen every day how the small Armenian community is
getting smaller, caused by this silent deportation policy.
All this violates many basic international human rights: the right
to life, to live with one's spouse and children, etc."