I suspect that at present Wikimedians in Gaza would have difficulty
attending an event anywhere outside the Gaza strip - whether it was in
Israel or not. The censorship article says that explicit sexual
content is filtered out in Gaza, but it doesn't say whether that means
just a minority of Wikipedia pages are filtered out, or the whole site
is filtered out, or our whole site is allowed becasue the vast
majority of pages don't contain explicit sexual content.
In the context of Wikimania and also the board resolution on enabling
filters, it would be interesting to know whether Hamas is blocking or
even trying to block Wikipedia in the Gaza strip. Is there any chance
that someone connected with the Israeli chapter has a contact inside
Gaza who could test this?
WSC
On 29 June 2011 11:13, <dror1975(a)icqmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
Just to clarify a few points -
1. The term Palestinian-Arabs refers to people who identify themselves as
part of the Palestinian People, but they hold various nationalities. Many of
them are Israeli citizens, so they can arrive at Haifa just as any other
Israeli (and like other Israelis, they might register at the last moment,
since they don't need accommodations). Those who live in East Jerusalem are
not necessarily Israeli nationals, but they have free access to any place in
Israel (they hold Israeli IDs, which are more-or-less like Green Cards in
the US). Those living in Jordan and have Jordanian nationality should obtain
visa from the Israeli embassy in Amman. Those who live in the West Bank and
are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority enter Israel with
their Palestinian internal ID and a permit which the PA office obtain for
them from the Israeli authorities (so they need to file the request at the
local PA office). Many of them have a permanent permit - these are usually
WB residents who work in Israel. The main problem is with residents of the
Gaza Strip, due to the very delicate political situation there. It is
possible to obtain permits for them too, but it requires some coordinations
with the relevant authorities. I personally made some phone calls, and
received detailed information about how to start the process, but
unfortunately, I received no information about people from Gaza who actually
filed requests to enter Israel for attending Wikimania.
2. Palestinians have good access to Internet. Currently, the Palestinian
ISPs relies on the Israeli infrastructure, so it might seem as if they
connect from Israel, though in many cases I saw Palestinian Territories as
the designation of location for people connecting from the WB and Gaza. That
said, Wikipedia is not very popular among Palestinians, as far as I can
judge. Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects are extremely popular among
Hebrew-speaking Israelis, but Arabic-speaking Israelis and Palestinians in
the WB and Gaza are much more into writing blogs, posting comments in
various Arabic-speaking web-forums etc. When I was interviewed in Arabic
about Wikipedia, the Palestinian person who was interviewed with me was not
a Wikipedian, but rather the head of a Palestinian bloggers' union.
3. I talked with some Egyptians who considered coming to Haifa. It wouldn't
be fair to reveal information given to me in private conversations, but I
can say that the current situation in Egypt poses unexpected difficulties to
Egyptians who wish to visit Israel. The Israeli embassy in Cairo and the
consulate in Alexandria work normally, and visa procedures have not changed,
and yet being listed as someone who crossed the border to Israel is
something many of those I've talked with prefer to avoid at the current
state of affairs. I'm afraid this is beyond the control of any of us, and it
is an unexpected development of the past five months or so.
Dror K
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