Suddenly Israel Welcomes Palestinians

October 29 - Last night I was with Fadi and Abeer in their living room, sipping herbal tea, and sharing conversation with them, their other American guests, and occasionally one of their young adult children.  Abeer said that she had applied to her church for a permit to go to Jerusalem this Friday for a major Lutheran church holiday. Typically such pernits are for one day only. What she received was a permit lasting 3 months and allowing her to go anywhere in Israel she wanted, even to stay overnight, as long as she didn't come by car. At first I couldn't believe my ears.  Abeer showed me the paper permit and translated its contents from Arabic.
Why is Israel suddenly opening its borders to a free flow of (only Christian?) Palestinians, when just last week I was interviewing a married college graduate whose husband had to sneak illegally into Israel to find work?  My mind was swimming, as we all sought to answer this question.  We came up with several overlapping reasons, none of them complementary to Israel.
First, Israel's economy is in bad shape and will benefit from Palestinians shopping, especially during the upcoming Christmas season.  Second, during Gaza Palestinians boycotted Israeli products on a broad scale.  That boycott is effectively nullified if Palestinians go do their holiday shopping in Israel.
Third, travel into and out of Gaza has been severely restricted, such that family members have not been able to see each other for years.   By giving Christians in Gaza permission to enter and stay in Israel AND the West Bank and East Jerusalem,  maybe, just maybe, some of them will not want to return to their imprisonment in Gaza. years.  In that scenario, Gaza would become exclusively Muslim, and thus more easily isolated by propagandists as a terrorist enclave.
Fourth, happy Palestinian shoppers will forget about the attacks on Gaza.  For Fadi this would be the worst outcome of the new permits.
Fifth, if Palestinians spend their money in Israel, they will not spend it in Palestine, further undercutting the already devastated economy.
Sixth, but probably not last, desperate Palestinians will use the 3 month period to get temporary jobs inside Israel (even though work is not permitted under these new regs).  This fact makes it harder for churches to take a principled stand against the permit. If churches oppose the new regulations for the reasons I have just stated, they will also be blocking a possible source of income for families that are really hurting financially.
Further, Israel  might have made this move as a way to drive a wedge between Christian and Muslim Palestinians, something they have been doing by other means in an effort to divide and conquer.
We should keep in mind that the Christian population of Palestine, once as high as 10 %, is now at about l.2% and they continue to emigrate in disproportionately high numbers.  Some of my Christian friends say that from forty-five to eighty Christian families from the Bethlehem area left Palestine  just since  the recent war on Gaza. They worry that soon there will be no more Christians in the land of Jesus' birth.
I later learned that just last Sunday, (Oct. 26) the Knesset voted to allow  Palestinian males over 60 and females over 50 to enter Israel without a permit, just by showing their ID. Even lacking details about how this will work, it sounds like another corollary to the new "leniency" with dubious motivations.