After giving its weak legal basis for banning Elor Azaria, it says:
The steps to impose visa restrictions on an additional group of individuals in the West Bank are being taken under the visa restriction policy Secretary Blinken announced in December 2023, pursuant to Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.The Blinken announcement on December 5 was open to a great deal of interpretive latitude:
Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security, or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities. Immediate family members of such persons also may be subject to these restrictions.According to Israel haters, the very existence of Jews on their ancestral homelands of Judea and Samaria is inherently restrictive to Palestinian lives - they take up space, they drink water, they have the right to freely travel through Area A.
This announcement was not only for the tiny number of Jews who pro-actively attack Palestinians, but all Jews in what the world pretends are "Palestinian lands". There is nothing in this language that limits the application of this rule to literally any Jew in the territories or Jerusalem - and arguably, even Jews inside the Green Line can be accused by a malicious administration of limiting the rights of Arabs to do whatever they want whenever and wherever they want as long as they claim they are "essential services and basic necessities."
To some Palestinians, the right to wantonly kill Jews is considered a basic necessity.
A look at Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.does not instill any confidence that this rule would be applied judiciously:
An alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible.This is so broad, it can give any Arab state the ability to veto any Jew from entering the United States by claiming that such entry would hurt US relations with that state.
There is an exception in clause (ii) for officials, and another exception in clause (iii) that is no exception at all:
An alien, not described in clause (ii), shall not be excludable or subject to restrictions or conditions on entry into the United States under clause (i) because of the alien's past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States, unless the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien's admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.
A Secretary of State who doesn't like some or all Jews could easily decide to exclude them from entering the United States as long as they can claim that it would hurt US foreign policy. And anything could hurt US foreign policy if a foreign nation decides it would.
There are no safeguards whatsoever on applying these broad rules.
When US policy is absolutely certain that Jews living in Judea are the major obstacle to peace, this gives them the legal right to ban them, whether they do anything or not.
