AMMAN Ñ Jordan has demanded financial guarantees that Palestinians
entering the kingdom will leave within a few weeks.
Jordanian officials said the Hashemite kingdom has issued new
regulations meant to prevent the migration of Palestinians from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. The regulations are meant to stop Palestinians from
entering Jordan as tourists and staying permanently in the country.
Under the regulations, Palestinians wishing to enter Jordan must pay
5,000 dinars [$7,500] to obtain a visa. The money guarantees that
Palestinian visitors will leave the kingdom within three weeks.
Palestinians can either pay the money or have a Jordanian citizen issue
a financial bond for the visitors. Officials said Jordanian authorities have
been strict with the new regulation and have rarely waived the requirement.
The bond has affected Palestinians who want to enter Jordan on their way
to other destinations in the Arab world. This has affected the entry by
Palestinians to the Hashemite kingdom on their way to such countries
as Iraq and Syria.
Hundreds of Palestinians are said to have registered for entry into
Iraq, officials said. Many of them seek to be recruited into the military to
defend Iraq against any U.S.-led invasion.
On Wednesday, the pro-government A-Rai daily reported that Jordan has
refused citizenship to 100,000 Palestinians and their ancestors who arrived
from the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war. The newspaper quoted a Jordanian
official said Amman's refusal represents its policy of rejecting the use of
the kingdom as
a second Palestinian homeland.
Officials estimate that around 150,000 Gaza-origin Palestinians have
been issued Jordanian passports. About 25,000 of them live in the refugee
camp in
Jarash, north of Amman.
Jordan has undergone three waves of Palestinian immigration over the
last 54 years.
The first was during the establishment of Israel in 1948. The second was
during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the final wave was during the Iraqi
occupation of Kuwait in 1990.
Officials said Jordan is concerned that any U.S.-led war against Iraq
would prompt another wave of migration into the Hashemite kingdom. They said
Palestinians have transferred billions of dollars from banks in the West
Bank and Gaza to financial institutions in Jordan.