U.S. Ambassador Links Israel Visa-Waiver to Yehudah and Shomron Travel for Palestinian-Americans

YERUSHALAYIM (Reuters) – The United States expects Israel, under a visa-waiver deal being discussed between the allies, to enable free passage for Palestinian-Americans into Yehudah and Shomron, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said in an interview on Wednesday.

Ambassador Thomas Nides said he expected an announcement soon on whether the number of Israeli applicants refused recent requests for U.S. visas had been kept to 3% or fewer, as required for a waiver deal. Israel would also have to ratify such a deal.

“Number three, we have to be clear about reciprocity. Reciprocity will mean that Palestinian-Americans will be able to freely travel from Detroit to Ben-Gurion [Airport] to Ramallah,” Nides told Yediot.

“And Americans who live in Ramallah will be able to go from Ramallah to Ben-Gurion back to Detroit,” he said. “When we get all those pieces working together, hopefully, then Israelis will not have to stand in line ever again to get a tourist visa – a visa to come to the United States.”

Asked whether Israel was preparing special provisions for Palestinian-Americans to pass through Yehudah and Shomron checkpoints, an IDF spokesperson said, “We have nothing new to relay.”

In an estimate that it says is based in part on U.S. census data, the Arab American Institute Foundation puts the number of Palestinian-descended Americans at between 122,500 and 220,000.

Some U.S. officials have privately put that number as being in the tens of thousands. The overall Palestinian population in Yehudah and Shomron is 3.2 million, according to a Ramallah census.

In the interview, Nides did not mention any arrangements for travel to the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian territory which Israel withdrew from in 2005 and which is now controlled by Hamas, an Islamist terror group blacklisted by the West.

There are a few hundred Palestinian-Americans living in Gaza, according to anecdotal accounts that Reuters could not immediately verify.