Washington orders sweeping visa ban on Palestinian passport holders
The Cradle | September 1, 2025
The US State Department ordered a suspension of visas for nearly everyone holding a Palestinian passport, the New York Times (NYT) reported on 31 August.
The report said the restrictions go well beyond an earlier order under US President Donald Trump, which temporarily froze visitor visas for Gaza residents pending what officials described as “a full and thorough” review.
A diplomatic cable obtained by CNN and signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 18 August instructed embassies and consulates to deny applications “effective immediately” from “all otherwise eligible Palestinian Authority passport holders” using that document.
The order covers nonimmigrant visas of all categories, including those for students, professors, tourists, businesspeople, and medical patients.
The cable noted that the refusal policy does not apply to immigrant visas or to applicants using a different passport, but said the ban includes diplomatic and official visas, while stressing that Washington “does NOT recognize the PA as a ‘foreign government.’”
NYT cited unidentified officials as the source of the expanded measures.
On 29 August, Rubio revoked visas for Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders who were scheduled to attend the UN General Assembly in New York.
The State Department justified that step by pointing to PA payments to families of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, as well as PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s plan to issue a “constitutional declaration” for an independent Palestinian state at the assembly.
Washington also criticized Palestinian efforts to pursue Israel for war crimes before international courts.
“The Palestinian Authority must also cease its attempts to circumvent the negotiations through international legal campaigns, including appeals to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and efforts to secure unilateral recognition of a possible Palestinian state,” the department said in a statement.
It added that such steps had “contributed significantly to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages and the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire talks.”
The Palestinian Presidency responded with “deep regret and astonishment at the decision.”
Fox News described Rubio’s order as a “historic departure” from past US practice of allowing participation in UN forums.
The announcement came one day after Rubio met Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in Washington. When asked about a Palestinian state, Saar told the Jerusalem Post that “there would not be one.”
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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