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Honorary citizenship of the moon
By Amira Hass
Tags: Israel, Daniel Borenboim

"Daniel Barenboim, the world-renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has received Palestinian citizenship" and a Palestinian passport, the Haaretz English edition reported on Monday, using a Reuters story. The Ynet version said that the Palestinian Authority had granted Palestinian citizenship to Barenboim, whereas The New York Times reported that the Argentinian-born Israeli pianist and conductor had agreed to accept Palestinian citizenship and an honorary Palestinian passport.

The passport was given at the conclusion of a concert in Ramallah, in appreciation of the way (and this is the present writer's version) in which Barenboim has for years linked musical initiatives to his clear opposition to the Israeli occupation; of his willingness to come and visit Ramallah at a time when most Israelis see it as a bastion of terror; and of the way in which he became friendly with prominent Palestinians who were not popular with most Israelis, like Edward Said.

He received citizenship, he agreed to receive citizenship, citizenship was granted. What difference does the wording make? It could just as well have said that the PA granted Barenboim citizenship of the moon, since the PA has no authority to grant citizenship (or in its more correct definition: Palestinian residency) to anyone. Not to Yasser Arafat, not to Mahmoud Abbas and not to an 80-year-old refugee woman who lives in Ein el Hilweh in Lebanon and continues to miss the almond tree that her grandfather planted in the village of Lubia (today's Kibbutz Lavi).
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Arafat and Abbas, like several thousand other Palestinian Liberation Organization activists who returned to Israel in 1994, received their "Palestinian citizenship" and their Palestinian ID card (written in Arabic and Hebrew), because Israel permitted it. Because an Israeli civil administration clerk in the typed their details into the computer of the Israeli Interior Ministry, so that the ministry would permit the Palestinian Interior Ministry to print the ID card in its printing house, so that the data would appear on the computer screen of the last of the soldiers at the smallest of checkpoints.

The PA has no power to grant Palestinian residency to those who were born in pre-1948 Mandatory Palestine, nor does it have the power to grant residency to those born after 1948, within the borders of the State of Israel. It does not even have the power to restore residency to about 400,000 people who were born in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after 1948, and Israel did everything possible over the years so that they would lose their right of residency: It issued injunctions limiting their right to stay abroad, prevented their return from abroad in time, did not take into account those who were not present during the population census of August 1967.

Tens of thousands of them are living today in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in their homes, in their villages, but without official papers: They had temporary travel documents from various Arab countries when they went to study or work abroad. They returned to their homes as tourists. The temporary documents are no longer valid, and they are prisoners for all extents and purposes in their cities of residence. If they are caught at the checkpoints they will be expelled. Only through an exhausting process of "family reunification," which is controlled by Israel, can several of them become "citizens" of their homeland. During the past seven years only recently has the process been approved, for about 3,500 people, out of at least 65,000 in a similar situation.

The PA does not even have the power to change the residential address from Gaza to Ramallah unless an official in the Civil Administration (and behind him a member of the Shin Bet security services, and behind them the Israeli interior and defense ministries) approves. So does the "PA grant citizenship to Barenboim"?

In spite of the wealth of information published in recent years, especially in Haaretz, about Israel's control of the Palestinian Population Registry, the facts are not absorbed. The PA is seen as a "state" with the sovereign right to grant "citizenship." For Israelis in particular it is hard to understand the extent of our domination over the Palestinians: After all, every Jew in the world has a right to come to Israel, and within a few days to become an Israeli citizen and to live not only in Israel proper but in any illegal settlement and any illegal and unauthorized outpost.
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  1.   Genocidal enemiis need to be controlled and even occupied... 10:10  |  Joel Stein 16/01/08
  2.   Honorary citizenship 10:19  |  Ralph 16/01/08
  3.   ARABS HAVE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST JEWS FOR CENTURIES ! ! 10:34  |  Lou Knee 16/01/08
  4.   for ONCE, hass is completely correct 10:46  |  Michelle 16/01/08
  5.   Amira Hass the Dominatrix of Haaretz 10:49  |  Henry Moore 16/01/08
  6.   don`t u know, pals claim the moon already, mohammad flew there?? 10:57  |  mary for jews 16/01/08
  7.   Amira Hass doesn`t get it at all 10:57  |  David 16/01/08
  8.   amira does not understand the word illegal 10:57  |  v hardman 16/01/08
  9.   #1 Whooooosh! What was THAT, cries Joel.. 11:00  |  Johnboy 16/01/08
  10.   One way of making illlegal Israeli immigrants legal 11:01  |  John 16/01/08
  11.   Arabs humiliated by Israelis for 60 years 11:02  |  Ahmed 16/01/08
  12.   Amira Hass & her usual... 11:04  |  Miriam H 16/01/08
  13.   #5 immigration 11:04  |  Warren 16/01/08
  14.   SOMEBODY tel Amira about the hourly Qassems.A non fashionista 11:13  |  PETER SM 16/01/08
  15.   Citizen Barenboim 11:40  |  Gabe 16/01/08
  16.   #14 PETER SM refuses to address the point 11:42  |  Johnboy 16/01/08
  17.   Any of you lot ever been ordered around by foreign soldiers? 11:43  |  Michael 16/01/08
  18.   Arabs humiliated by Israel 11:48  |  Richard 16/01/08
  19.   #10 john the green man and the line is illegal 11:58  |  v hardman 16/01/08
  20.   #17 dear michael and the palestine mandate 12:03  |  v hardman 16/01/08
  21.   Some people here ... 12:34  |  Edith 16/01/08
  22.   # 7 Amira 12:35  |  Gaby K 16/01/08
  23.   Amira Hass, you have my support 12:39  |  Edith 16/01/08
  24.   Amira Hass # 5 12:39  |  Lisa S 16/01/08
  25.   And feeble minded persons should be locked up or worse 12:39  |  Michael N 16/01/08
  26.   THE AMERICAN STANDARD OF ACCURACY 12:45  |  indrajaya 16/01/08
  27.   # 7 Amira Hass 12:46  |  Larry B 16/01/08
  28.   Amira Hass is great. More Jews like her would lead to peace 12:56  |  US taxes fund Israel 16/01/08
  29.   Palestinians can keep Barenboim 13:14  |  Allon Cohen 16/01/08
  30.   Johnboy, the intolerable conditions are the results of the 13:15  |  chris w 16/01/08
  31.   Peace is the fruit of Justice. 13:23  |  jack 16/01/08
  32.   #28more rubbish !us taxes do not fund isreal 13:35  |  v hardman 16/01/08
  33.   One Jewish State is Solution 13:44  |  Rafi 16/01/08
  34.   What interest does Israel have... 13:45  |  Denise Thompson 16/01/08
  35.   Amira & her problem with Israzel 13:49  |  Barbara B 16/01/08
  36.   # 18 Arabs humiliated 13:56  |  Michael B 16/01/08
  37.   Cham al hayareach 13:59  |  Rowan Berkeley 16/01/08
  38.   #30 Chris whacks up Another Straw Man 14:05  |  Johnboy 16/01/08
  39.   Amira & her friends 14:14  |  Malcolm ex Harrogate 16/01/08
  40.   3 Lou Knee,30 chris w. the shoe is on the other foot! 14:15  |  lakshmi 16/01/08
  41.   Arab accountability 14:44  |  Denise Thompson 16/01/08
  42.   The Hypocracy of the Claim of "Jewish"State 14:54  |  Yaakov Sullivan 16/01/08
  43.   Hey Sullivan, do you know the official names of Egypt and Syria? 15:11  |  George 16/01/08
  44.   You are kidding, right? 15:12  |  Joe 16/01/08
  45.   #14 Michael 15:13  |  Uzi 16/01/08
  46.   Jack 31, don`t you know that over 95% of Palestinians are Muslim? 15:21  |  Terry 16/01/08
  47.   The average Israeli is a stupid racist warmonger 15:22  |  POP 16/01/08
  48.   Strangle Arabs Death Mercenaries Reservoir occupying Jewish Lands 15:22  |  Joseph E . 16/01/08
  49.   to Denise Thompson #34 15:22  |  zeev 16/01/08
  50.   Only a few more decades and Hass will retire... 15:35  |  Fortuna Benmayor 16/01/08
  51.   The Palestinians are already de-facto citizens 15:35  |  Velvl Shmerlson 16/01/08
  52.   amira is an "amira"a princess" 15:38  |  a.j. 16/01/08
  53.   Denise 41 if Pals took hold of their own lives the IDF`d shoot. 15:41  |  Michael 16/01/08
  54.   How ARAB LEAGUE has treated Haas Pals 15:46  |  B 16/01/08
  55.   mary for jews 15:59  |  Rozz 16/01/08
  56.   Arab and Jewish define different things 16:00  |  Yaakov Sullivan 16/01/08
  57.   to Denise Thompson #41 16:05  |  zeev 16/01/08
  58.   Can Anyone Recall any other State 16:17  |  Joseph E . 16/01/08
  59.   Hass next in line for Eurabia fiction award 16:18  |  Bob 16/01/08
  60.   45 Oh dear, Uzi, have I touched a nerve? Good. 16:21  |  Michael 16/01/08
  61.   #6 mary for the jews 16:22  |  Jimmy 16/01/08
  62.   The Pals continue their hatred 16:24  |  Meir 16/01/08
  63.   #51 Velvl Shmerlson 16:26  |  Boycott 16/01/08
  64.   #56 Sullivan, you are wrong 16:39  |  George 16/01/08
  65.   `indefensible` borders nowhere to be found 16:45  |  bozhidar balkas 16/01/08
  66.   Hass`s "proof", the arabs gave a 5th columnist "citizenship" 17:16  |  smarter then hass 16/01/08
  67.   Joel Stein - The same rhetoric was said of jews 17:31  |  Euro 16/01/08
  68.   Ahmed, fewer Arabs have been killed by Israel 17:37  |  Jacob Blues 16/01/08
  69.   As opposed to the average Arab, POP? 17:43  |  Jacob Blues 16/01/08
  70.   Yaacov, of course you question Israel as a Jewish state 17:46  |  Jacob Blues 16/01/08
  71.   No Euro, you`re wrong 17:57  |