Otherwise Occupied / Can Israeli bureaucrats make job decisions at UNRWA? - Amira Hass

Ha'aretz - Amira Hass
...The case before us involves a 41-year-old U.S. native whose resume is laced with prestigious institutions like Harvard University and Oxford University, work in the United States regarding labor laws and immigration, and consulting for the greatly respected South African Constitutional Court.

This is Leila Hilal, whose application to reenter Israel for work was denied. She is going through the extensive hassle typically experienced by people - mostly businessmen or academics - who are coming to work not in Israel but rather in the Palestinian Authority, or for organizations that work in the Palestinian community.

She first came to our region in 2002, as a consultant hired by the British development consultancy firm Adam Smith International, which manged, inter alia, the research project for the Negotiations Support Unit of the Palestinian Liberation Movement. For the project, it hired legal professionals and international experts on matters related to permanent status issues. The young, zealously discreet experts, who looked like yuppies from good homes, with fine educations, fit in well amid the atmosphere Ramallah was trying to broadcast - businesslike, professional, aspiring to progress.

Hilal, an expert on the development of international organizations, was employed by Adam Smith between 2002 and 2008. And no, she is not of Palestinian origin, and she does not have family here. Her obstacle course has included two denials of entry to Israel (in 2006 and 2009), forced absence from work.......

.............Will Hacohen rule that an Israeli bureaucrat has the right to intervene in UNRWA's considerations and tell the UN organization to find another expert, in place of the one it has chosen   Full story