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Tired of long waits, hefty fees and unexplained rejections, Israelis hope the US will lift visa requirements

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Bar Shelly is hoping that the fourth time’s the charm when it comes to gaining entry into the United States. The 24-year-old first applied for a visa in 2019, shortly after his release from the Israeli military. He tried again in 2021 and 2022 and was refused each time.

People from 40 countries can enter the United States without a visa. But Israelis without other passports must apply for a visa online and then go through an interview at the consulate in Tel Aviv. One goal of their interviews is for consular officials to make sure they are not admitting people who intend to stay illegally after their visa expires.

Shelly brought ample evidence to his interview showing that he planned to return to Israel: his acceptance letter to an Israeli college, an invitation to an upcoming wedding of a close family relative and pay stubs from his job as a tennis coach. Still, he received a rejection letter saying that he did not demonstrate “strong ties overseas that indicate [his] return” from the United States to Israel.

“I brought all the documents and they didn’t even want to look at them,” Shelly told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview last month.

Undeterred, Shelly applied again and still hopes to make it to watch the U.S. Open in early September. He is part of a Hebrew-language Facebook group with several thousand members who have shared their frustrations with the lengthy and strenuous process they were required to undergo in order to visit the United States.

Like many other Israelis, they are hoping that the path will get easier soon, if the United States decides to approve Israel’s request to join its Visa Waiver Program. Acceptance into the program would add the United States to the list of 126 countries that Israelis can enter without a visa — and Israel could get the green light if it meets all of the requirements by Sept. 30.

“This will simplify the bureaucracy and make the process more accessible,” said Yacov Amsalem, whose tourism firm helps facilitate U.S. visas for Israeli customers. About 70% of these visa requests are for tourists seeking to visit the United States.

While Shelly and thousands of others have complained about rejections at the U.S. consulate, they are in a small minority. Some 97% of Israelis who apply for U.S. visas receive them. Still, the Israeli government has made entering the program a priority, endeavoring to satisfy U.S. State Department demands that Palestinian-Americans who travel to Israel will be able to enter the country with the same ease as other U.S. citizens.

Entry into the program may also be a boon for rank-and-file Israelis who have chafed at the visa application’s fees of at least $160, and the months of waiting and uncertainty they often must endure. Some say that entry into the program — and the elimination of the visa application process — will serve as a symbol of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship in addition to removing a bureaucratic headache.

“To say I have no visa is one thing, but to say I was refused a visa is another story,” said Or Amran, a gemstone seller who has demurred from applying for a visa because he fears the stigma of rejection. “I’ve seen all of Asia. It’s funny that I’ve never seen America, which is supposed to be Israel’s greatest friend.”

Amsalem said the 97% visa approval rate left out some people who haven’t even tried to get a visa to the United States. “In the past, there were many people who were afraid of going through the visa process, which includes personal interviews,” he said.

Or Amran says having a visa application rejected comes with a stigma. (Courtesy of Amran)

Some Israelis whose applications have been rejected have complained of demeaning treatment at the consulate. A visa applicant who asked to be identified by the name Veronika, fearing reprisal from U.S. authorities if she uses her real name, paid a visa processing company more than $400 in addition to the $160 fee to secure an expedited appointment. She hoped to fulfill her teenage daughter’s dream of attending summer school in the United States.

The two woke up at 4 a.m. to make the long journey from the northern coastal city of Nahariya to Tel Aviv in time for the appointment. When they got there, Veronika said, they met with an embassy agent who seemed angry even before they entered his booth. Thrown by his demeanor, Veronika said she mixed up the dates of her daughter’s travel and found herself being cross-examined by the clerk.

“I was crying and really scared of him,” she said, adding that she was told the visa request was denied. “We didn’t understand why. I begged for someone to explain but they kicked us out of the consulate like dogs.”

Veronika later received a letter explaining that she had not provided enough proof that her daughter planned on coming back to Israel, despite a letter from her daughter’s school.

“She’s my only child, why would I send her there forever?” she said. “After this, I don’t want to go to America ever. I don’t want to meet people like that ever again.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Israel declined to comment on Veronika’s case or other Israelis’ claims about their experiences at the consulate, characterizing them as private interactions.

Israel’s quest to join the Visa Waiver Program has been at the forefront of U.S.-Israel relations. One of the last sticking points has been easing entry of Palestinian-Americans in and out of Israel. Israel is piloting a program allowing Americans of Palestinian origin to enter the country through Ben Gurion Airport, rather than overland through Jordan and the West Bank, as they are required to now.

Groups of U.S. lawmakers have sent dueling letters on the issue: One urges the U.S. to find a compromise that would allow Israel into the program by the deadline of Sept. 30. The other asks the government to keep Israel out.

To date, Israel has not met the requirements and still has “significant work” to fulfill them within a short timeline, a U.S. embassy spokesperson told JTA. In the coming weeks, Israel would need to prove it could extend “reciprocal privileges to all U.S. citizens and nationals, including allowing Palestinian Americans to travel to and through Israel.”

“We seek equal treatment and freedom to travel for all U.S. citizens regardless of national origin, religion, or ethnicity,” the spokesperson said.

As the situation has remained uncertain, Amran, the gemstone dealer, went to great lengths to help Israel enter the visa program. He decided to fly back to Israel to vote in the November 2022 election for the Yamina party, which was headed by Ayelet Shaked, because she had worked on legislation aimed at meeting the visa program’s criteria.

But Shaked’s party did not get enough votes to enter Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. According to Amran, his family still makes fun of him for “wasting his vote” on her.

Rubi Segal’s hopes of flying to the United States serving as the sandak, or godfather, at his American nephew’s bris circumcision ceremony over the summer were dashed with the receipt of a letter last month declaring that the U.S. consulate had “adjudicated and refused” his visa application — with no explanation given.

“I’m not able to pull myself out of this depression. Truly. I also don’t understand why it happened. I’m so sad to miss my brother’s [son’s] bris,” Segal said. “I’m the most normal person in the world — there’s no way they think I want to stay there. I have business here, I own a home, a wife and kids, no debt, no criminal record, I just don’t understand the reason.”

Bar Shelly is on his fourth round of visa applications. (Courtesy of Shelly)

Even if Israel is accepted to the Visa Waiver Program, Segal would still need a visa and an interview. The visa waiver will not apply to anyone who has been denied entry.

Other Israelis are in wait-and-see mode, hoping that within months they will be allowed to skip the unpleasant experience at the U.S. consular office on their way to America.

Shay Rimo, 39, never bothered applying for a visa. “I’ve wanted to go for many years but it just never made sense to pay the money — which isn’t a negligible amount — and go through the whole process. So I always pushed it off.”

Rimo’s sister lived with her now-husband in the United States for three years when they were students, but because of the visa process, none of the family ever went to visit them.

“The second it opens up, I’ll go,” Rimo said. “In the meantime, it’s better to just go to Thailand.”

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The post Tired of long waits, hefty fees and unexplained rejections, Israelis hope the US will lift visa requirements appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist

The Jewish community of Beit El in Judea and Samaria. Photo: Yaakov via Wikimedia Commons.

Louis Theroux first visited the West Bank in 2011 to film a documentary titled Louis and the Ultra-Zionists, part of his long-running series for the BBC. Back then, he at least seemed to possess a trace of journalistic curiosity. Even the title signaled a degree of editorial caution — framing his subjects as a small, ideological fringe rather than representative of Israeli society as a whole.

At the time, Theroux made an effort to clarify that he was profiling a narrow segment of Israelis. He showed legally purchased Jewish homes (sold by Arab landowners, no less) and acknowledged the regular — and at times deadly — terror attacks faced by Israeli civilians living in the area, often requiring military protection. There was condescension, certainly. But there was also context.

Fast-forward to 2024, and the curiosity is gone — though the bemused, slightly smug expression remains. His new BBC documentary, Louis and the Settlers, drops even the soft qualifiers. No “ultra.” No nuance. Just “settlers.” And with that, Theroux makes it clear: half a million Israelis living in the West Bank are one and the same — extremists who, we’re told, want every last Palestinian removed from the land.

This time, the documentary doesn’t begin with questions. It begins with conclusions. And Theroux uses a brief, unrepresentative snapshot of life in the West Bank to draw sweeping indictments of the entire Israeli state.

The message is unmistakable: Israel is the problem. Settlers are the villains. And Palestinians are passive, blameless victims of a colonial project.

Within the opening minutes, Theroux plants his ideological flag. He refers to the West Bank as “Palestinian territory” and describes every Israeli community within it as illegal under international law — a sharp departure from his more qualified approach 14 years earlier.

And while his personal views seep in throughout the film, they become crystal clear during one exchange at a checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier casually refers to their location as “Israel.” Theroux shoots back: “We’re not in Israel, are we?”

And just like that, the BBC and Louis Theroux have redrawn Israel’s borders. No Knesset debate needed.

Erasing History to Blame the Massacre

The timing of this return trip is no accident. The film comes in the shadow of the October 7 Hamas massacres — the day 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, families were burned alive in their homes, and children were dragged into Gaza. And yet, Theroux barely mentions it.

The few passing references to October 7 serve not to inform the audience — but to imply that Israel may be exploiting its own dead to justify further expansion. It’s not an investigation. It’s an accusation. And it allows him to skip over thousands of years of Jewish history in order to frame the current war in Gaza as a convenient cover story for Israeli “aggression.”

Take Hebron, for example. Theroux tells viewers that “in 1968, the year after [the West Bank] was occupied by Israel, a community of Jewish settlers moved in illegally. They now number some 700.” He fails to mention that in 1895 — decades before the modern state of Israel existed — Hebron had a Jewish population of 1,429.

Jews have lived in Hebron since antiquity — it’s where, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs. Modern records date the community back centuries, despite discrimination under Ottoman rule and bans on Jewish prayer at holy sites. In 1929, Arab rioters carried out a massacre, wiping out Hebron’s Jewish population. Dozens were murdered; the rest were expelled. Under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, Jews were banned from the city entirely. When they returned after the Six-Day War — not as colonists, but as a displaced community coming home — Theroux picks up the story there and calls it “illegal.”

On the Six-Day War itself, Theroux offers no context. No mention of the Arab armies preparing to destroy Israel. No mention of Israel’s preemptive strike against an existential threat.

According to The Settlers, Israel simply “occupied” — full stop.

Palestinian Terrorism? Not Even a Footnote.

Theroux visits Evyatar, a small Jewish community near the Palestinian town of Beita, and uses it as a stand-in for the entire West Bank. Beita is depicted as a symbol of peaceful resistance: a proud, ancient Palestinian village standing firm against violent settlers backed by IDF soldiers.

It’s a neat story. Too neat. Because missing from the story are years of organized, violent riots from Beita — complete with Molotov cocktails, burning Stars of David, and Nazi swastikas. All carefully omitted to preserve the narrative: Palestinians peaceful, settlers aggressive. Facts that don’t fit? Left on the cutting room floor.

Meanwhile, Israeli nationalism is treated as something sinister and unsettling — a moral aberration to be examined. The notion that Jews might want sovereignty or security is met with thinly veiled suspicion. Yet Hamas’ goal of a Jew-free Palestine, explicitly laid out in its charter, is never mentioned. Nor is the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” policy, which literally incentivizes terrorism by rewarding those who murder Israelis — including women and children.

These aren’t fringe details. They’re central to understanding the region. And Theroux knows it. He just doesn’t care.

The BBC’s Complicity

That The Settlers aired on the BBC — a publicly funded broadcaster once seen as a gold standard of global journalism — says plenty. Not just about Louis Theroux’s agenda, but about the institutional direction of the BBC itself. This wasn’t a rogue filmmaker sneaking bias past the editors. This was bias built into the foundation — signed off, packaged, and broadcast under the banner of credibility.

There is, of course, no problem with scrutinizing Israeli policy, and no issue with questioning the settlement enterprise or highlighting the tensions in the West Bank. But journalism — real journalism — demands context. It demands precision. It demands at least a passing familiarity with the full scope of the story.

Theroux offers none of that. He arrives with a predetermined script and casts his roles accordingly: Hero. Villain. Victim. Oppressor. And when reality refuses to cooperate? It’s left out.

Louis Theroux didn’t return to Israel to understand it. He returned to flatten it. To reduce its complexity to a morality play — and to ensure everyone knows the antagonist is.

The Settlers isn’t a documentary. It’s a hit piece. And the BBC handed him the camera — then applauded the performance.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl

Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Photo: Screenshot

The Indian government announced on Thursday that its military forces had killed “Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist,” who was connected to the 2002 murder of Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

On Wednesday, India launched “Operation Sindoor,” which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims is targeted at dismantling “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The operation came after Pakistani terrorists killed 26 Hindu tourists in Kashmir last month amid escalating tensions between the two countries.

In a post on X, the BJP confirmed that during this week’s operation, the Indian army killed Islamist terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar, who was involved in numerous terrorism plots, including the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, and the 2016 Pathankot Air Force base attack.

Azhar’s involvement in the 1999 hijacking led to the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born al-Qaeda member with close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services, who later was involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of 38-year-old Pearl, who was covering the war on terror as a journalist when he was abducted.

In a statement on X, Pearl’s father, Judea, addressed initial reports regarding Azhar’s death and his connection to his son’s murder.

“I want to clarify: Azhar was a Pakistani extremist and leader of the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. While his group was not directly involved in the plot to abduct Danny, it was indirectly responsible. Azhar orchestrated the hijacking that led to the release of Omar Sheikh — the man who lured Danny into captivity,” he said.

In 2002, the Jewish-American journalist was abducted and killed by a group of Islamist terrorists connected to Azhar’s militant network, which had ties to al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terror group aiming to separate Kashmir from India and incorporate it into Pakistan.

On Jan. 27, 2002, an email was sent to several Pakistani and US media organizations, which included several photos, stating that Pearl was being held in “inhumane” conditions to protest the US treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba. Photo: Screenshot

Originally stationed in New Delhi as the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Pearl later moved to Pakistan to investigate terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.

After kidnapping Pearl at a restaurant in Karachi, southern Pakistan, the Islamist terrorists, who identified themselves as the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, accused him of being an Israeli spy and sent the United States a list of demands for his release.

However, Washington did not meet their demands, and Pearl was ultimately executed after being held captive for five weeks.

His wife, Mariane Pearl, gave birth to a baby boy, Adam D. Pearl, in Paris later that year. On the Daniel Pearl Foundation website, she said, “Adam’s birth rekindles the joy, love, and humanity that Danny radiated wherever he went.”

The post Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete. Photo: Screenshot

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete just days before the Tunisian island was set to host its annual Jewish pilgrimage, which is expected to draw thousands of visitors.

On Wednesday morning, two Jewish men — owners of a jewelry shop in the center of the island, located off Tunisia’s southeast coast — were physically assaulted by a man carrying a large knife.

Although the attack was halted when one of them screamed — alerting members of the local Jewish community who subdued the assailant — one of them was left severely injured.

According to local media reports, the attacker had surveyed the island the day before, visiting several stores to identify those owned by Jews. Local police arrested him shortly following the assault.

After the attack, one of the owners was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. The 50-year-old Jewish man had his fingers severed during the assault and underwent surgery to reattach them.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the attack and expressed his wishes for a swift recovery to the victims.

“This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.

“I call on the Tunisian authorities to take all necessary measures to protect the Jewish community,” Saar continued.

Djerba is home to the majority of Tunisia’s Jewish community, numbering about 2,000 people, and is also where the renowned El Ghriba Synagogue, one of North Africa’s oldest synagogues, is located.

The attack comes just a week before Jewish pilgrims are expected to arrive on the island for the Lag B’Omer holiday, when thousands gather annually for three days of festivities. The annual pilgrimage to El Ghriba Synagogue, scheduled for May 15 and 16 this year, draws visitors from around the world.

The synagogue has been targeted in multiple terrorist attacks over the years, including in 1985, 2002, and 2023.

Two years ago, a shooting at the synagogue claimed the lives of two Jewish cousins and three police officers. Aviel Hadad, a 30-year-old Israeli goldsmith, and Ben Hadad, a 42-year-old Frenchman who had traveled to join the festivities, were among the victims.

The post Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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