France Bars West Bank Settlement Council Head Yossi Dagan: Foreign Ministry Cites His Role in Settlement Policy
Yossi Dagan, head of Israel's Samaria Regional Council, disclosed on November 11 that after landing at a Paris airport last week he was pulled aside and questioned at passport control, then told he was banned from French territory and made to leave. He had been due to hold a series of meetings with French elected officials; after being turned away he traveled to Prague, where he spent three days meeting senior Czech government officials and members of both houses of parliament.
The French Foreign Ministry did not confirm that he had been turned back, but said Dagan is subject to an administrative ban from the territory because of his active role in implementing the settlement policy in the West Bank, adding that settlement activity is contrary to international law and undermines the two-state solution. According to Dagan, a border officer showed him documents citing his post as council head, his part in building settlements in the West Bank — the documents put the number at 35 — and his campaign to reestablish Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip; he said the officer told him France had decided on the ban in May or June.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said the decision was taken on clearly political and ideological grounds and was completely unacceptable. Dagan has led the return of settlers this year to Sa-Nur, Homesh and Ganim, settlements in the northern West Bank that Israel evacuated in 2005. In February 2024 France announced entry bans on 28 Israeli settlers it accused of attacking Palestinian civilians; Israeli media said there was no known previous case of a Western country directly barring the head of an Israeli regional council in the occupied West Bank.
Source: French Foreign Ministry
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：以色列撒马利亚地区委员会主席 Yossi Dagan 在约旦河西岸一处观景点（资料图）。CC BY-SA 4.0，经维基共享资源 / Yossi Dagan, head of Israel's Samaria Regional Council, at a viewpoint in the West Bank (file photo). CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
