c. 2004 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Donald Rogers, the Jerusalem-based country representative for Catholic Relief Services, needs to renew his Israeli visa and those of his family in the next few weeks.

He’s praying it will go smoothly.

“It’s been more difficult to get a visa the last couple of years,” says Rogers, whose visa will soon expire. “Last year when I applied, it was held pending for a number of months, but then the Interior Ministry did give me a one-year, multiple entry visa.”

Rogers’ wife and kids weren’t as fortunate. “My family’s visa doesn’t permit multiple entries, so whenever they leave the country and return, they do so on a three-month tourist visa. In fact, my wife’s first visa was for only one month. Now our visas are running out and we have a meeting with the authorities on May 10. We’re hoping for the best,” the administrator says.

Rogers is one of hundreds of foreign aid workers and members of the Christian clergy who have encountered problems obtaining or renewing their Israeli visas.

During the past two years or so, Israel’s Ministry of the Interior has made it much more difficult for the various churches and humanitarian aid organizations to procure B1 residency/work visas for their clergy and staffers. By all accounts the process is much more bureaucratic and can take several months. Sometimes the visa requests are denied altogether, which has led to a great deal of ill will.

This get-tough policy was sparked by the presence of more than 200,000 foreign workers who either entered the country illegally or whose valid entry permits have since expired. Despite the security situation, migrants flock to Israel due to the relatively high wages offered. In the past year alone, the immigration police have arrested and deported tens of thousands of illegal workers.

One such sweep for illegal migrants resulted in the arrest of a Catholic priest whose request for a new visa had been pending for months. Following a dressing down from representatives of the Catholic Church, Avraham Poraz, the interior minister, instructed the police not to arrest Christian clergy, regardless of their residency status.

The Catholic Church, which in the past has declined to speak to journalists about the visa problem, broke its silence following the arrest. On April 1 Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the head of the Apostolic Delegation in Jerusalem, publicly rebuked the Israeli government at a Tourism Ministry event for Christian clergy.

“It’s an important item which can create a lot of misunderstanding and friction here in the Holy Land in the Christian world,” Sambi told the gathering. “The question is not to arrest them (clergy lacking a permit); the question is to put them in a legal situation, granting them resident visas in Israel.”

An estimated 130 Roman Catholic priests and nuns are living in Israel without proper permits, according to church officials. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of clergymen and clergywomen from other Christian denominations are in the same position, as are many of their lay staffers. Most have lived in Israel for years, sometimes decades.

Additionally, more than 200 employees of aid organizations have been unable to obtain working visas, according to the Association of International Development Agencies.

The vast majority of AIDA’s 70 member organizations are European and provide relief to Palestinians or Israeli Arabs. They do not assist Jewish Israelis. More often than not they are headquartered in Jerusalem, which is under Israeli rule.

“Mainly, the Israeli government has stopped granting visas for international organizations working in humanitarian aid,” says Fabricio Lomanto, AIDA’s humanitarian facilitator. “We work in the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israelis say it’s not under their jurisdiction.”

Lomanto laments that “the majority have not received the B1 visas they have been requesting for the last year, although they meet all the requirements of the ministries of Labor and the Interior. It’s their right to get visas. It’s their duty and mandate to help the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is impeding this work.”

Gadi Golan, the head of the Religious Affairs Bureau at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, places much of the blame on abuses by some of the organizations and churches that have requested the visas.

“If you ask the registration office at the Interior Ministry, they would say that visas were sometimes requested for people who were not entitled to them, for example workers who work for the church but who are not monks or nuns or priests. The law is very clear. If you’re a worker, you receive one type of visa. If you’re clergy, you receive a special ecclesiastical visa. There were irregularities that put a halt to the whole process and created a very difficult situation,” Golan says.

Golan expects this situation to improve in the coming months, thanks to a recent turnaround by the interior minister.

“The Sunday before Passover the minister convened his staff, including those in the registration office, and gave firm instructions to solve the remaining problems,” Golan says of the unpublicized meeting.

Ministry spokeswoman Tova Ellinson adds that “the minister has told our staff to give the churches priority. When we receive specific names, we take action. Without the proper details, there’s nothing we can do.”

Ellinson says that much of the delay stems from security concerns. “Many of those requesting visas are coming from Arab countries, and we are required to pass along all such requests to the security services. All countries have similar procedures. The process takes time.”

While the American Embassy has interceded a number of times following frantic phone calls from Americans being denied entry at, say, Ben-Gurion Airport, it prefers to allow the Israelis to decide who may or may not enter the country.

“Often, people come as tourists and have other plans when they get here,” says Paul Patin, the press liaison at the embassy’s Tel Aviv office. “It’s not easy to tell when someone is a tourist (versus) a peace activist. That’s part of the problem.”

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During the past couple of years, several American and British young people posing as casual tourists have instead moved to the West Bank and Gaza and become “human shields” between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. At least two volunteers have been killed in this way.

The International Solidarity Movement, the most famous “human shield” program based in the Palestinian Authority, gives potential volunteers pointers on its Web site on how to trick Israeli officials into believing they are simply tourists.

“We believe that it’s less suspicious if you come through Israel but you have to have a really good story about why you are coming, and must not mention anything about ISM or knowing, liking or planning to visit Palestinians,” the ISM Web site advises.

“You must play it as though your visit is for other, Israel-based reasons, like tourism, religion, visiting an Israeli friend, etc.”

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“We have a State Department travel advisory urging American citizens to avoid travel to the West Bank and Gaza,” Patin says.

“We don’t think Americans should be traveling there because it’s too dangerous, and we’ve urged any American citizens living in Gaza to get out.”

Alyn Dhynes, an American who assists Palestinians in the territories for World Vision Jerusalem, doesn’t agree. His application for a B1 visa is pending.

“My visa has expired again and this really is a very involved bureaucratic process,” Dhynes says.

When asked why he puts up with the difficulties of obtaining an Israeli visa, Dhynes provides his personal history.

“I specialized in the Middle East in my studies. My personal work is in advocacy and peace-building. My mother is of Palestinian origin and as a Palestinian I struggle with some of the issues leading to our dispossession.”

Dhynes says that the work World Vision does in the region has been worth the hassle. “Our mandate is to serve the poor and our work is unapologetically Christian-motivated. We’re not an evangelical organization, but we have been called to the work by Christ,” Dhynes says.

DEA/PH END CHABIN