US Consulate: Israel issuing new 'PA-only' visa stamps

Seems logical that if you only have business in the west bank you can't travel to Israel.

On edit: I think the reason for this is pretty clear, to keep people who claim to have business in the west bank from entering Israel and doing the country harm.

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"The U.S. State Department on Wednesday criticized Israeli restrictions placed on foreign nationals entering the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge, calling the new regulations 'unacceptable'.

"We have repeatedly told the Government of Israel that the United States expects that all American citizens to be treated equally, regardless of their national origin or other citizenship," a statement issued by the State Department said Wednesday.

The statement added "we have let the government of Israel know that these restrictions unfairly impact Palestinian and Arab American travelers and are not acceptable."

For about the last three months, border control officials at the Allenby Bridge have been stamping visitors' passports with a visa and the additional words "Palestinian Authority only." Officials from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), who are also present at the Allenby crossing, have in some cases told visitors that they must apply to the Civil Administration for a permit to leave the West Bank and enter Israel.

The new restrictions heavily affect foreign nationals who enter the country because they have family, work, business or academic ties in the West Bank. It now restricts their movements to "the Palestinian Authority only." The people concerned are citizens of countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel, mainly Western countries.

In imposing such restrictions, Israel is in breach of the Oslo Accords."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1108644.html

At the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco:

San Francisco, CA, June 2, 2009 -Artist Susan Hiller's chance encounter with a Berlin street called Judenstrasse (Jews Street) in 2002 was the unexpected experience that set into motion an arduous three year journey to find and photograph every street in Germany with the prefix Juden (Jews) in its name - a surprising 303 sites in all. Hiller was initially shocked, but mostly confused by this strangely ambiguous commemoration of people who had been exterminated not so long ago. "The Jews are gone," she says, "but the street names remain as ghosts of the past, haunting the present."

Susan Hiller: The J.Street Project, an evocative exhibition that includes Hiller's photographs and a film, is the result of her long and fascinating look at this ambiguity. It is on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum June 18 through August 18, 2009. A limited edition companion book is also available in the Museum's gift store.

A snowy country lane lying along the railroad tracks, while charming, attests to a long and bleak legacy of discrimination and segregation when Jews were not allowed to use main roads and were restricted to paths on the outskirts of villages and towns. Some streets mark ancient Jewish settlements from as early as the 11th Century indicating the historical depth of Jewish life in Germany. A narrow city alley is a testament to how cramped and oppressive ghetto streets were.

http://www.thecjm.org/index.php?option=com_pressroom&scope=archive&task=detail&id=178