Israel has launched a diplomatic offensive to persuade the United States to exempt Israelis from requiring a visa to enter the country.
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Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom raised the issue with Secretary of State Colin Powell two weeks ago and has ordered the ministry's North America desk to prepare a plan of action. Powell advised Shalom to exploit Israel's good relations with Congress in the case.
Shalom's initiative follows new regulations that became effective yesterday, making it much harder to obtain a visa. Under the new rules, prompted by the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and subsequent fierce domestic criticism of America's visa procedures, all Israelis between the ages of 16 and 60 must have a personal interview with an American official before getting a visa.
This is expected to create huge delays - travel agents predict up to several months - since the embassy has received no extra funding and hired no additional staff to carry out this task.
Applications can no longer be made directly to the embassy or consulate but must be handled by a registered travel agent. The agent not only provides the forms and submits them to the embassy, but it is the agent rather than the applicant whom the embassy informs of the applicant's interview date. When the applicant arrives for the interview, he will have to leave his passport with the embassy until it reaches a decision on the application, and at some point in the future, fingerprinting will also be required.
Contrary to popular myth, the U.S. is not strict about issuing visas to Israelis because it fears their staying on in the country illegally. According to the most recent report of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, of about one million people picked up for visa violations in the year after 9/11, only 350 were Israelis, although 316,000 Israelis entered the country legally that year, including tourists, businessmen, students, legal workers and government officials. About 4,000 Israelis get green cards for permanent residence every year, half of them after marrying Americans.
Last year, after American law enforcement agencies began merging their databases, Israeli consular officials reported a sharp increase in the number of Israelis arrested for visa violations though there are no official statistics. That same year, the American embassy in Tel Aviv processed 140,000 visa requests from Israelis and others were handled by the consulate in Jerusalem.
The new policy President George Bush signed into law on May 14 is being applied without distinction to all countries from which the U.S. requires visas. Nevertheless, it has offended Israel, which cannot understand why one of the world's main victims of Islamic terror should be treated by the U.S. as a suspect country.
The hassles to which U.S. border officials have subjected Israelis born in Iran or Iraq, including Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and the singer Rita, have merely deepened the sense of insult.
There are only 27 countries, almost all of them European, whose citizens are allowed to enter the U.S. without a visa. For a country to join this list, less than 3 percent of visa applications from that country must be rejected every year. Israel has not yet met that criterion, although it was close before the intifada began. According to U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, about 94 percent of Israeli visa applications are accepted.
Additionally, the U.S. must be convinced of the country's political and economic stability. Last year it reinstated a visa requirement for Argentine citizens due to the economic crisis there.
It is therefore hard to see the U.S. exempting Israel from the visa requirement while the intifada and recession continue
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