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Haaretz
 The Jordanian MIRS chirps on the table. `Where`s Nur?` asks
the woman on the line from Amman. `She`s standing next to
me,` replies her husband in Azariyeh, east of Jerusalem. A
chirp every few minutes. Yihye Bassa, a 40-year-old date
merchant, has for several years been forbidden for security
reasons to travel to Jordan; Nibin, his wife, 26, is
forbidden to come here. He barely knows the two girls,
4-year-old Nur and 1-year-old Talin. They are with their
mother in Jordan. Yihye met Nur for the first time two years
after her birth, when he was still allowed to travel to
Jordan; he met Talin for the first time a few weeks ago, on
the Allenby Bridge.
In an unusual and very moving humanitarian gesture, Israel
let the couple meet for three hours on the Allenby Bridge,
after preventing them from seeing each other at all for
about two years. Family reunification: a half-meeting on the
bridge, without refreshments, as a `pre-High Court of
Justice petition` gesture. Moreover, Israel allowed Nur to
join her father for a few months, and now she is here, in
Azariyeh. But 18-month-old Talin was not allowed to join her
father. All for security reasons. Yihye says that his
problems began when the Shin Bet security services wanted to
recruit him as a collaborator and he refused. Since then he
has been refused permission to leave.
Now Yihye is sitting in the offices of the new community
center in Azariyeh that he runs on a voluntary basis. Nur is
still confused by the new person in her life and the foreign
landscape, and Nibin chirps from Jordan on her MIRS every
few minutes to ask if everything is all right. Oh, the
Israeli occupation.
Yihye Bassa is a Hebrew-speaking businessman, who buys dates
in the Arava and the Beit She`an Valley and sells them in
the West Bank and in Gaza with an Israeli partner. His
paternal grandmother was Jewish. When he was still allowed
to travel to Jordan, he had a company there too, which
bought dates in Iraq and sold them in Jordan. Six years ago
he married Nibin, a Palestinian from Jordan. Yihye divided
his life between Amman and Azariyeh. Nibin has submitted
several requests for an Israeli visa at the embassy in Amman
- and was refused with the explanation that she is too
young. The couple ran their lives with interruptions, in
their home in Jordan. Yihye`s parents, his family and his
business are here.
Four years ago, when Yihye was once again making his way to
his wife and his business, he was arrested on the Allenby
Bridge: Banned from crossing. Why? he asked. `Take a note,
return to the area and go to the Shin Bet.` Yiyhe went to
the Shin Bet and there, he says, `Captain Yariv` told him:
`Help us - and we`ll help you.` He told them: `Why should I
help you? I have money, work, what deal would I make with
you?` In short: He refused an offer he couldn`t refuse.
Yariv tried again: `Go to your family, come and we`ll talk,`
and again: `Help us and we`ll help you.` For the next two
years, Yihye was prevented from traveling to Jordan. He
turned to the civil rights organizations and with the help
of his attorney, to the military court in Beit El. Meanwhile
their daughter Nur was born in Jordan; Yihye did not see
her. Two years later the court allowed him to travel to
Jordan and he once again visited with his wife and daughter.
Nur was already two years old when she saw her father for
the first time. After two visits - he was refused again.
This time, he says, security people offered to let him go
for four years, without the possibility of returning. Yihye
refused this temporary expulsion. In 2005 he was arrested on
suspicion of attempting to murder a collaborator. He was
released on bail. Yihye says that it was a false arrest.
Exactly a year ago, in February 2006, they came to his house
to arrest him again. This time he was placed in
administrative detention for half a year, without a trial,
and as is usual in administrative detentions, the reason is
unknown. Yihye is an avowed Fatah activist, but his
attorney, Walid Zahalka, says that he is not involved in
terror. Half a year ago, he was released from detention.
Last week the judge, Major Dror Sabrensky, ordered the
erasure of the indictment against him, because of which he
was arrested the first time, File 3405/05.
Upon his release from detention, he wanted once again to
travel to Jordan, to visit his wife and daughters. In Amman,
meanwhile, Talin was born, and he had never seen her. Again
they offered to let him go for four years, without the
possibility of returning, and again he refused. He is
unwilling to cut himself off from his parents and his
business dealings, his home is here. His attorney demanded
one of two things: either he should be allowed to leave, or
his wife should be allowed to enter.
In contacts between his attorney and the authorities, before
turning to the High Court, the state prosecutor made a
creative suggestion: a meeting on the bridge. Attorney
Raanan Giladi of the State Prosecutor`s Office wrote on
January 17, in the name of the State of Israel:
`Urgent. Re: Pre-High Court of Justice petition 562/06.
1. As you have been informed orally, the state is willing to
allow a meeting between the petitioner and his family who
live in Jordan.
2. The meeting will take place at the Allenby Bridge
terminal, tomorrow, January 18, 2007.
3. We have been informed in writing by the manager of the
Allenby Bridge terminal, Mr. Gideon Shikloush, that the
meeting on the aforesaid date has been approved and that an
appropriate place will be allocated for the purpose.
4. According to the details you have sent us, the family
members who will be able to meet are as follows: Yihye,
Nibin, Nur and Talin.
5. In case unexpected difficulties arise, we can be
contacted by phone.`
In the morning Yihye got up and went to the bridge to meet
his wife, his elder daughter, whom he had met twice, and his
younger daughter, whom he had never met. At the terminal he
was greeted by Sammy, who said he would take care of
everything. But Sammy had an exam at Tel Aviv University and
he soon disappeared. Yihye waited for three hours on the
Israeli side, Nibin and the girls waited for three hours on
the Jordanian side, until at about 1 P.M. they started
walking toward one another. Yihye wanted to buy refreshments
for his wife and daughters in the cafeteria on the Israeli
side, but he was not allowed to do so, he says. They were
placed in the VIP room at the terminal and were allowed to
stay together until 4 P.M. Three hours after two years,
quality time for the parents and the girls. `Nur knows me.
She knows who I am. The little one doesn`t know who I am,`
he said dryly.
When the meeting ended, Yihye wanted to take the girls with
him for a visit to Azariyeh. No problem, they told him, but
after a little while things became complicated: Nur could
stay with her father, but only starting the next day. Not
today. Why? Because. And how would he come to take her? And
how would she cross the bridge alone? Only Nur, who has a
Palestinian passport, could cross. Little Talin does not yet
have a passport, a Palestinian passport can be issued only
in the territories, and that`s why she can`t come in. A
`catch-22.`
Yihye called Asaf, whose phone number appeared on the state
prosecutor`s letter, in case `unexpected difficulties
arise.` But in vain. Not today and not Talin. Nibin cried
and Nur, who was promised that she would go with Daddy, also
cried. He returned alone and despondent to his house in
Azariyeh, without his younger daughter, without his elder
daughter.
The spokesman for the Civil Administration, Captain Tzidki
Maman: `From an investigation, it turns out that for
security reasons resident Yihye Bassa is forbidden by
security factors to travel to Jordan. As far as the entry of
his wife and daughters, in the existing lists we found no
documentation of requests to enter to visit the region. If
requests are submitted in the usual manner, they will be
examined in accordance with the instructions and the
existing policy, with an emphasis on the humanitarian
circumstances.`
Attorney Zahalka dismisses the response of the spokesman: `That`s
nonsense. After all, we asked for one of the two, either
that he be allowed to leave, or that his wife be allowed to
enter.`
The end of the story: Last week Yihye`s mother went to
Jordan, and on Shabbat she returned with her granddaughter
Nur to Azariyeh, for a first visit with her father. Talin is
still refused entry, as is her mother. Yihye pulls out three
pictures from an envelope: His wife and his two daughters.
Now Nur is playing with the computer in the pleasant and
spacious community center run by her father, which was built
with money from the German government, and asking where her
mother is. This week her father registered her for the
kindergarten in Azariyeh, until she goes back to her mother
in Jordan. Occasionally the MIRS chirps and asks: `How is
the child doing?`
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