The Southern Cross, June 12 to June 18, 2019
LIFE
9
Christian families torn apart by law Palestinian families are torn apart by many Israeli regulations. Foreign spouses of Palestinians are affected by them as well, as JUDITh SUDILOVSKY reports.
visa’s expiration date when she Campaign, which tries to provide submitted it to them to see if her information to spouses and highlight their plight, an estimated visa could be extended. Her request was denied because 25 000 foreign spouses remain in her husband, who was abroad at the the Palestinian territories with only time, had not accompanied her a tourist visa, are denied any norwhen she applied, and so she pre- malised status and have family unipared once again to leave but by fication requests pending. The tourist visas that spouses are then her visa date had already exissued must be renewed often, repired. More than two weeks later, fol- quiring spouses to travel abroad. HAT was meant to be one lowing a Catholic News Service in- Sometimes the visas are renewed of the happiest of occaonly for three months, quiry into her case, the sions for the Zoughbi famother times for longer, and Israeli defence ministry’s ily became a nightmare because of Coordinator of Govern- ‘Israel’s intent many now are only singleIsraeli policy on family reunificavisas. ment Activity in the Teris to force entry tion for foreign spouses of PalestiniSince Israel controls the ritories (COGAT), which ans. oversees the visa process families to borders, including those in For almost 30 years, US-born Palestinian territories, it defor foreign spouses of Sandra Elaine Lindower, 56, has leave cides which foreigners are Palestinians, informed been married to Dr Zoughbi allowed into the West Sandra that she would Zoughbi, a well-known and internaPalestine’ Bank, including foreign be permitted to enter if tionally respected Catholic Palestinspouses of Palestinians. she places a bond. – Israeli ian peace activist, and founder of Under the Oslo Accords, She must enter the Bethlehem conflict transformathrough the Allenby lawyer Yotam the Palestinian Authority tion centre Wi’am. was granted the authority Bridge Crossing along They have raised their four chilBen-Hillel to administer the populathe border with Jordan dren together in the ancestral tion registry and grant perand will receive a threeZoughbi home compound in Bethmonth visa. The agency said the manent residency to foreign lehem in the West Bank. “entry of holders of foreign citizen- spouses of Palestinian residents of Sandra was scheduled to return the Palestinian territories. ship...is not a given right”. from a trip to the United States in But in reality, Israel still controls “Love can’t be based on borders April in time to help begin planand politics or on countries. It is a the Palestinian population registry ning the wedding of her son—the basic human right to create a family and determines which foreigners first of her children to be married. married to Palestinians can receive together,” said Dr Zoughbi. Instead, the family was thrust resident status in the context of into a whirlwind of Israeli regulaConstant state of limbo family reunification, with the Palestions when Sandra was denied entry Sandra Lindower and other for- tinian Authority acting as a rubber at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in Tel eign spouses of West Bank Palestinistamp. Aviv. ans say their requests to receive a Foreign spouses say that, in reAfter being detained for hours permanent status based on the right cent years, the visa system has been without food or water, or any expla- of family reunification are being deadministered with no clear criteria. nation at the airport, she was de- nied, leaving them in a constant For some time, family reunificaported back to the US for “safety state of limbo. tion for Palestinians in general has and security” reasons, charged with Essentially, the opportunity for a only been possible under “special having overstayed her visa. foreign spouse to obtain status humanitarian circumstances”, She says her overstay was the re- through family unification has which do not include marriage. sult of the civil administration been frozen since 2009. holding her passport till after her ‘Racist demographic’ plan According to the Right to Enter In March, German national Josefin Herbach and her husband, Abed Salaymah, a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, took their case to the Israeli Supreme Court, demanding that her status as a foreign spouse be normalised. The court gave the state until September to provide its new policy regarding the status of foreign spouses, said Israeli lawyer Yotam Ben-Hillel, who is representing the couple. “The suspicion arises that the real reason behind the decision [not to normalise a status] is a racist-demographic one. Namely, to prevent the inclusion of new people in the population registry in the territories and to encourage others, such as the plaintiff, to leave the West Bank,” said Mr Ben-Hillel. In addition to the family unification freeze, the past two years have also seen an “alarming escalation” Morgan Cooper works in the family garden with her son Kamae in in denials of long-term visas to forRamallah, West Bank. She is from the US and her husband, Saleh Totah, eign spouses and in the “frequency is Palestinian. Morgan says that she can’t leave the West Bank without and range of arbitrary demands and conditions” imposed by the Israeli knowing whether she may ever return to her family.
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Zoughbi Zoughbi, a Palestinian Catholic, with his sons, Tarek and Rafiq, near the door of a cave that was the ancestral home of his family in Bethlehem, West Bank. Dr Zoughbi’s wife Sandra was deported by Israeli officials when she tried to return to Bethlehem for her son’s wedding. (Photos: Debbie hill/CNS) authorities on such long-term visas, he said. “Altogether, this has left Palestinian families with foreign spouses without the ability to reside in the [West Bank], with the intended purpose of forcing families to leave Palestine,” said Mr Ben-Hillel.
‘They want us to leave’ Most foreign spouses are hesitant to go public with their stories for fear that it will jeopardise their ability to renew their visas, said one US foreign spouse, a Catholic who asked that her name not be used. COGAT officials also monitor social media accounts belonging to foreign spouses to see if they post what are deemed to be “political” posts, she said. “They just want people like us to leave,” she said. “It just keeps getting worse and worse.” Foreign spouses must sign Hebrew-only documents to renew their visas. Requirements or prohibitions are changed without warning; they are detained at the borders, denied entry and required to make security deposits as high as R280 000 to be permitted to return to their homes for a few months. With that bond, Sandra was able to attend the wedding of her son on May 26. Once an Israel airport border security officer told her she should “take her Palestinian husband and go to America” if she wanted to avoid all the visa hassles, said Morgan Cooper, 38, an American who has been married to Saleh Totah since 2012. The Totah family, whose origins are Catholic, is one of the four founding families of the Palestinian capital Ramallah, but most of the extended family has emigrated.
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“Saleh will never consider leaving Ramallah. It is so important to him to raise his son Palestinian and make this stand as a Christian,” Morgan said. “I’ve put down roots here like I have never put down anywhere else,” said Morgan, sitting on the sun porch of her Ramallah home as she watched her two-year-old son Kamae search for a lost turtle in the side garden. Her husband runs an adjacent café, serving some dishes made from the organic vegetables they grow on their home’s rooftop garden. They are building an arboretum on land on the outskirts of Ramallah. Though it seems like Morgan has carved out a little slice of paradise for herself, it is more like a gilded prison that she cannot leave. “If I leave, I may never be able to come back. And if I stay, I may never be able to leave,” she said. As with all foreign spouses, Morgan has permission only to be in the West Bank, called “Judea and Samaria” by Israel. She is not allowed to work or volunteer anywhere and must regularly renew her visa to be able to remain in Ramallah with her family. In Bethlehem, it has been a difficult time for the Zoughbi family as they simultaneously prepared for the wedding and struggled to find a solution that would allow Sandra to rejoin them for the wedding. Still, Dr Zoughbi said he has kept his faith. “Faith and hope are two values I believe in. Nothing will break that. Nothing will push me to lose faith,” Dr Zoughbi said. “Of course, there is some anger, but I transfer my anger to hope. Faith keeps my sanity alive.”—CNS
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