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| King (left), Latham |
Iowa representatives Steve King, Tom Latham and Bruce Braley are cosponsoring
H.R. 938, which Glenn Greenwald, of the Guardian,
explains here:
In order for the US to permit citizens of a foreign country to enter the US without a visa,
that country must agree to certain conditions. Chief among them is
reciprocity: that country must allow Americans to enter without a visa
as well. There are 37 countries
which have been permitted entrance into America's "visa wavier"
program, and all of them - all 37 - reciprocate by allowing American
citizens to enter their country without a visa.
The American-Israeli Political Action Committee (Aipac) is now pushing legislation that would allow Israel to enter this program, so that Israelis can enter the US without a visa. But as JTA's Ron Kampeas reports,
there is one serious impediment: Israel has a practice of routinely
refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to
enter their country or the occupied territories it controls; it also
bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights. Israel refuses to relinquish this discriminatory practice of exclusion
toward Americans, even as it seeks to enter the US's visa-free program
for the benefit of Israeli citizens.
As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel's membership in the program
while vesting it with a right that no other country in this program
has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free
right of entrance. In other words, the bill sponsored by these American
senators would exempt Israel from a requirement that applies to every
other nation on the planet, for no reason other than to allow the
Israeli government to engage in racial, ethnic and religious
discrimination against US citizens.
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