“Another Kind of Israel” - by Khaled Abu Toameh
As most Arab countries continue to impose severe travel restrictions on Palestinians, Israel authorities announced this week that tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank territories would be granted permits to visit Israel as tourists by the end of 2011.
This could of course have a positive impact on the Palestinian tourists’ views toward Israel. For many years, these children have been taught that most Israelis are bloodthirsty murderers whose only goal in life is to get rid of the Palestinians.
That is basically why both Hamas and Fatah are opposed to such visits. The two parties do not want children participating in summer camps to visit Israel lest they are exposed to good things inside the Jewish state. Hamas and Fatah see these visits as part of efforts to achieve “normalization” between Israelis and Palestinians – something that the two Palestinian parties are strongly opposed to.