U.S. government employees are forbidden from traveling anywhere on personal business in Judea and Samaria except for Bethlehem and Jericho, according to the government’s latest travel advisory.
In language softer than previous warnings that scared the dickens out of anyone even thinking of visiting Israel, the advisory pointed out, “Over three million foreign citizens, including hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens, safely visit Israel and the West Bank each year for study, tourism, and business. The Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority make considerable efforts to protect U.S. citizens and other visitors to major tourist destinations. Nonetheless, U.S. citizens should also take into consideration the rules governing travel by U.S. government employees.”
For example, “U.S. government personnel are not permitted to use public buses anywhere in Israel or the West Bank due to past attacks on public transportation.”
That limitation was reinforced after a bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv late last year in which passengers were miraculously saved by quick thinking of a passenger and the bus driver, who evacuated everyone moments before the bomb left on the bus by a terrorist exploded.
According to that logic, Americans should stay off Interstate 81 in Maryland and Pennsylvania because of last month’s murder of a 28-year-old man who was gunned down on the highway near the border between the two states.
