2010年01月16日土曜日
（翻訳を怠けて原文で：パレスチナに旅する方必読、例えば、ベングリオン空港の出入国で、アラブ系のコンタクトは削除しておくなど）
No such thing as a Palestinian work visa - Stephanie RhodesLast week I was listening to John Oliver talk about his experience with visas in America. During one memorable visa renewal interview, he remembered, “The woman behind the booth looked at me and said, with a stone face, ‘Give me one reason why I should let you back into America to criticize our country again.’”
Turns out, Oliver later explained, it was simply an ill-timed effort at humor. With the current news of Ma’an editor Jared Malsin’s ongoing detention, though, it feels quite real.
That isn’t to say that press freedom doesn't exist in Israel. There are some great columnists who write thoughtful and often critical pieces about their own society. But I do think Jared’s situation speaks to other trends in the Israeli approach to controlling borders and territories: efforts to limit foreign influence in Palestinian areas. Just to be clear, when I say “foreign,” I don’t mean “terrorist infiltrator” foreign. I mean teachers and trainers and other professionals interested in building real capacity in Palestine.
It seems to me that Jared is being held not because he’s a journalist and not even really because he’s been critical of Israel. It’s that he’s doing so under the banner of a Palestinian news agency. Never mind that both Israeli and international media outlets routinely quote Ma’an; it’s still Palestinian.
When you’re entering or leaving Israel, the last thing you want is to be linked with anything Palestinian. I used to go through my wallet and remove East Jerusalem bus passes and random receipts, maybe edit the names in my phone – anything Arab had to go. It wasn’t because I was linked to anything shady. It was because any discernibly Arab contact marks you; at best it’s just harassment and at worst it’s being denied re-entry.
Many people do what it seems Jared may have done and rely on tourist visas to live, work or study in Palestinian areas, since Israeli-issued visas for those areas are nearly impossible to obtain unless you’re backed by a major international organization. Oddly enough, though, once I had a legitimate volunteer visa with a church in Jerusalem, I was deemed an even bigger security risk (a six rather than a five on the Ben Gurion International Airport scale) than I had been on a tourist visa.
The whole system feels like a Catch-22. You tell the truth about what you do and who you know and risk harassment or movement restrictions. You lie, and of course that’s grounds for trouble too.
What many people rely on is staying under the radar. If you publish anything, you don’t use your real name. You avoid non-violent demonstrations as though they were Sarah Palin rallies. You figure someone in some Israeli security agency knows who you are and what you’re doing; you count on being too boring for them to care. In short, you avoid having fans.
Inevitably, it begs the question: If your time among Palestinians is so unremarkable, what’s the point in being there at all? Too often, you’re forced to choose between doing nothing so you can stay or doing something before you’re put on the next flight home.
原文所在：
Ma'an News Agencyアーカイヴ：
IFJは「報道の自由へのこの堪え難い暴力」を非難する（01月18日）
