The staff of Israel’s Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria is unusually busy this month. To mark Ramadan and especially Eid al-Fitr, the festival that marks the end of the fast, they are issuing hundreds of thousands of permits to Palestinians from the West Bank who want to visit Israel and vacation there. Palestinian border crossings in every zone are opened to just about anyone who submits a formal request and passes Israel’s security inspection. Buses full of tourists leave the cities of the West Bank every morning and drive straight to Israel’s vacation sites or to relatives living in the country’s Arab towns.

This policy of opening border crossings during holidays was first initiated and implemented a year ago by the chief of the Central Command, Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon. Back then Alon claimed, and rightfully so, that given the decline in violence and the positive general atmosphere in the territories, there were no grounds to prevent tens of thousands of families from the West Bank from visiting Israel for reasons of security. On the contrary, Alon believed that these holiday outings would offer the people of the West Bank a new perspective on Israeli society, and that the encounter with Israelis could be a significant step toward re-establishing trust between the two peoples.

The first time that the Palestinian masses were allowed to enter Israel and fill its beaches and lush parks, especially in the Tel Aviv region, was a rather surreptitious affair. No advance notice was given to the Israeli media so that right-wing groups such as the leaders of the settlers or the Judea and Samaria Council, who are already at odds with Alon over his pragmatic positions, would cause the program to fail.

During the many years he served in a number of senior positions in the occupied territories, even Alon’s most inconsequential statements praising the Palestinian leadership or the level of cooperation with Palestinian security forces earned him sharp criticism from his opponents and calls to remove him from his post. The same was true of any decision he made to make life easier for the Palestinian public. While he served as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division of the IDF, settlers even stoned his vehicle and beat it with sticks, and attacks against him and his family had become a matter of routine. At one point, former Defense Minister Ehud Barak was even forced to ask the attorney general to find a legal means to put an end to right-wing incitement against Alon and his wife, who is active in the left-wing Checkpoint Watch group.