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From a comment by Amnesty International Australia's Facebook account, since deleted, with a screenshot having 212 retweets and 235 likes (text courtesy of the Algemeiner)

The countries that banned the passport have done so for a reason. They are aware of the atrocities committed by the Israel Defence Force and have seen Palestinians being displaced from their homes for the illegal settlements.

I know that motivation questions aren't allowed, so rather than trying to look at motivations, I'll look at dates - whether the purported cause occurred before the effect. I've done some searching, but while there's plenty of articles mentioning the ban on Israelis, I haven't found so far mention of when the bans started.

Did the ban on Israelis postdate the construction of Israeli settlements which involved Palestinians being displaced?

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    Several of those countries have never recognized Israel and presumably not accepted its passports. Many of them may say that Palestinians started being displaced in 1948 (the year of Israel's independence, when more than 700,000 Palestinians either left their homes or were expelled) or earlier. Wikipedia has several articles
    – Henry
    Commented Feb 4, 2017 at 1:56
  • @Henry were those displacements being done to create illegal settlements?
    – Golden Cuy
    Commented Feb 4, 2017 at 2:04
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    One can argue that the whole of Israel is an 'illegal settlement', just like the British 'illegally' took over Israel's modern territory in the first place. Your question is therefore primarily opinion based.
    – JonathanReez
    Commented Feb 4, 2017 at 9:32
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    @JonathanReez - one can argue that Arabs illegally took over that territory that belonged to Jews in 7th century and on. Let's stick to the actual legal claims, such as they are, and not political rhethoric.
    – user5341
    Commented Feb 4, 2017 at 12:40

1 Answer 1

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Wikipedia has a handy map of countries that have ever recognized Israel:

enter image description here

The Muslim-majority dark-pink countries (such as Saudi Arabia) have never recognized Israel and never accepted Israeli documents in the first place. However there are four countries that withdrew recognition:

  • Iran: severed relations after the Islamic Revolution in 1979
  • Chad: withdrew recognition in 1972, however Israeli travelers are not banned
  • Mali: withdrew recognition in 1973, however Israeli travelers are not banned
  • Cuba: withdrew recognition in 1973, however Israeli travelers are not banned

Therefore the claim is false: Iran severed relations for unrelated reasons and the other three countries still admit Israeli passports.

Also note that Amnesty International Australia themselves withdrew their claim and apologized for the statement:

On Tuesday 31 January, a comment was posted on the Amnesty International Australia Facebook page regarding travel restrictions on Israeli passport-holders. The comment did not reflect Amnesty International’s position on this issue, and as such we would like to apologise for any misunderstanding this comment has caused.

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