Israelis to fly visa-free to the United States, FM Cohen says
The United States is expected to announce this week that Israelis will no longer require a paper visa to enter the country but will be able to fly to America with a discounted electronic permit, the Foreign Ministry announced Monday night.Why Israel-ASEAN ties matter
“This is great news for all Israeli citizens,” said Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. “Within a few weeks, Israelis will be able to visit the United States without the need for a long wait for a visa from the US Embassy.”
Instead, Israelis with biometric passports will be able to secure a visa within 72 hours of submitting their online request. Visas will be valid for up to 90 days.
Implementation of the decision is expected to take place in a few weeks, though practically, it will likely begin in November. A new "diplomatic achievement"
“Israel’s inclusion in the visa waiver program is a diplomatic achievement,” Cohen continued. “The visa waiver will contribute to the economy in general and tourism in particular, reducing bureaucracy and costs.
“I would like to thank US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State, my friend Antony Blinken, for their support and leadership in granting visa waivers to Israelis, and especially to outgoing US Ambassador Tom Nides for leading the project here in Israel,” the foreign minister continued. “I would like to especially thank the consular department of the Foreign Ministry who worked diligently in recent months to achieve this joyful outcome.”
The electronic form, priced at $21, is accessible to all Israeli citizens. To apply, individuals must complete the ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) questionnaire through the US border authorities. This form is in English and encompasses essential biographical data, including name, date of birth, and passport particulars.
The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is a political and economic union consisting of 10 nations in Asia. Like the European Union (EU), the different nations have varying policies and laws and so does their relationship with Israel. Nevertheless most of them do have a good relationship with Israel and yet there is additional roadway to pave in terms of future cooperation.The ‘Antisemitism Month’ of Arab Leaders
ASEAN emerged in 1967 when 5 nations - Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore came forth together with the goal to foster trade ties and maintain peace with their neighbours in the Cold War era. Today, the bloc has doubled in size and comprises 10 nations that are a mix of governments ranging from monarchies, communist states and democracies. It has over 600 million people along with a very diverse linguistic and religious landscape.
Of all the ASEAN nations Singapore and Philippines probably have the best relationship with Israel. Singapore is a highly developed first world nation. During the early years of Singaporean independence, they sought assistance from Israel to build up their own army that has also instituted conscription.
In 1947, the Philippines was notably the only Asian nation among the 33 others that voted in favour of the resolution for the establishment of the state of Israel. Decades later, ties remain strong and The Philippines has 30-50 000 foreign workers in Israel and many work as caregivers for the elderly. Then president Rodrigo Duterte visited Israeli in 2018. The most traded commodity going both ways is electronics. In addition, the Singaporean and Philippines militaries both use Israeli military equipment
Most ASEAN nations do not have heavy involvement in the Israel-Palestine Arab conflict and seem to maintain a more neutral stance.
There is another significant difference between antisemitism in the West and outside it that further explains the Abbas and Saeid outbursts. In the West, much of the time, antisemitism is a feature of disgruntled social movements that go through troughs and peaks in terms of their popularity, but whose grasp on power is fleeting; rarely do they win a sustained engagement with genuine political power. But in the Middle East, antisemitism emanates from the corridors of power, walking hand in hand with corruption, political repression, torture, racism and other reprehensible features of authoritarian rule.
Indeed, Abbas’s response to the group of Palestinian intellectuals and influencers who publicly objected to his latest verbal assault on the Holocaust is a perfect example of this tendency. No matter that this group forthrightly condemned Israeli “occupation” and “apartheid” in its statement, thereby repeating antisemitic tropes about Israel even as they condemned antisemitism. They had the temerity to confront Abbas, the Palestinian caudillo, over his crude, cringeworthy antisemitism, and were therefore worthy of denunciation as the “shame of the nation.” Mark as well how Abbas’s antics perfectly fit the approach of Arab dictators towards the Jewish state; when you are unpopular and when your disapproval ratings are at an eye-watering 73%, as are his, point the finger at the real culprits.
Saeid, meanwhile, operates with a similar logic. A conservative legal scholar who came to power in 2019 and has stalled Tunisia’s hesitant progress towards democracy ever since, his remarks about the floods in Libya—the fruit of Storm “Daniel,” a Jewish name that was chosen, said Saeid, because “the Zionist movement has infiltrated our minds”—are the second occasion this year that he has expressed antisemitic sentiment. On the first occasion, back in May, he told a meeting of Tunisia’s National Security Council that a deadly gun attack upon worshippers at a historic synagogue on the island of Djerba was not motivated by antisemitism. Mocking those “who talk about antisemitism when we are in the 21st century,” Saeid accused those who raised the issue of antisemitism of wanting “to sow division to benefit from this discourse.” The following day, in defiance of the actual historical record, he doubled down by pointing to supposed Jewish ingratitude, insisting that the Jews of Tunisia who survived the 1942-43 Nazi occupation did so because of the goodwill of their neighbors and not because the Allied armies trounced the Germans in North Africa.
As well as being an antisemite, Saeid is also a racist who has whipped up feelings against black migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. In a speech in February, he claimed that “hordes of irregular migrants” had come to Tunisia “with all the violence, crime and unacceptable practices that entails.” He argued that this was an “unnatural” situation, part of a criminal plan designed to “change the demographic make-up” and turn Tunisia into “just another African country that doesn’t belong to the Arab and Islamic nations anymore.” Following this rant, angry mobs attacked African migrants in several cities, while the police detained up to 1,000, deporting many of them.
This Islamist and Arabist form of supremacism—with its disdain for Africa’s black majority population and its barely concealed loathing of Jews—is no less threatening than any other form of bigotry. As long as it is left unchecked and unchallenged, we can anticipate many more “Antisemitism Months” from Arab and Muslim national leaders.
