The Maldives is pausing plans to ban Israelis from entering the country, as the blanket law could impact some of the 2 million Arab citizens of Israel, the Algemeiner reported on Monday.
Ahmed Usham, the nation’s attorney general, reportedly told journalists at a conference last week “The biggest concern is that there are many Palestinians with Israeli passports, millions of them. What happens when we impose a blanket ban?”
Lawmaker Qasim Ibrahim reportedly critiqued the bill as singling out Jewish Israelis, telling fellow parliamentarians “When we decide that a person with Israeli nationality can’t come to the Maldives, that means we’re talking about deciding that Jews can’t come."
Ibrahim further noted, "Therefore, as they are people who have believed in prophets of a religion revealed by Allah, we need to think very deeply about the chance of us doing such a thing, from that perspective. We need to think about that very carefully.”