• AIPAC pushing for legalized discrimination of U.S. citizens
By Mark Anderson
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is having two of its stooges in Congress, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) introduce bizarre legislation that includes a provision to allow Israel to discriminate against Americans in the United States Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013, in effect, it makes it harder for Americans to enter Israel while permitting unfettered access for Israelis entering the U.S.
Thirty-seven countries have been permitted into America’s visa-waiver program. All of them return the favor by allowing American citizens to enter their country without a visa. But under this bill, Israel would be allowed “to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance,” meaning that it “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 U.S. citizens,” wrote Glenn Greenwald in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper on April 13, 2013.
Israel routinely refuses to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country or the occupied territories it controls, and it often excludes critics of Israeli actions and those supportive of Palestinian rights.
This broad bill also strongly enhances the boundless military-related aid that the U.S. gives to Israel.
“The bipartisan legislation includes important measures to expand the already robust security relationship between the United States and Israel,” Senator Boxer’s news release on this bill explains. “Specifically, it would authorize an increase to $1.8B of the value of the U.S. weapons stockpile in Israel and require that the Administration take steps to include Israel in the top-tier category of the Strategic Trade Authorization program for license-free exports of certain U.S. technologies and products. It also would require the President to study and submit to Congress a feasibility study on the establishment of a joint United States-Israel Cyber Security Center, and expresses the Sense of the Congress that Israel is a Major Strategic Partner.”
The bill covers U.S.-Israeli cooperation in the area of energy, as well as in defense and cyber-security.
Mark Anderson is AFP’s roving editor. Listen to Mark’s weekly radio show and email him at [email protected].
