Yesterday, despite an invitation from the Palestinian Authority and the Bethlehem mayor, and a special request to the French Foreign Ministry, more than a hundred internationals were denied entry into the West Bank via Jordan. “They did not even let us get off the bus,” said French organizer Olivia Zemor, who intended to visit school children on a nine-day trip with a European human rights group.
At 7:30 pm on August 26, Israeli officials, controlling all access to the Palestinian Territories, said the border crossing was a “a closed military zone” and refused to allow the official guests of the civil administration to enter. Zemor said:
‘They collected our passports and a few minutes later returned them with each and every passport stamped ‘Entry denied’. The soldiers refused to give any explanation, they just said – that’s it, your entry is denied, go back to Jordan.’
Organizers from Zemor’s group, Bienvenue Palestine, or Welcome to Palestine, are familiar with Israel’s de facto “no entry to the West Bank unless you’re a settler” policy. Earlier this year during the “flytilla,” activists were promptly deported after landing and announcing to passport security their intent to visit Bethlehem. As well, in Europe, participants expecting to board planes to the Middle East were kept from the Palestinian territories vis-à-vis coordination between Israeli officials and aviation companies. Three flights were outright cancelled before take-off and Lufthansa Airlines, Brussels Airlines and EasyJet all “blacklisted” a number of passengers based on “Israel’s orders,” according to a letter airline officials sent to passengers.
Despite last spring’s debacle Bienvenue Palestine was not deterred from seeking to enter the West Bank. Heeding the advice of border officials who advised entering through Jordan by land, and not the Tel Aviv airport, Zemor’s group tried again. “So we did try to get through the Jordan bridges, and now we got a definite answer from the government of Israel,” she said.
The activists’ deportation comes on the heels of a government envoy banned from entering the West Bank for meetings with the Palestinian leadership earlier this month, and the well-publicized deportation of two Palestinian-American tourists whose privacy was violated by airport security. In June of this year Najwa Doughman and Sasha Al-Sarabi were sent back to their homes in New York City from Ben Gurion airport after guards searched through their email accounts to verify that the two were of Arab descent.
The cases confirm racist and invasive practices are at the core of Israel’s airport security apparatus. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that when Israeli security procedures were exported to Boston in 2011, the flagship “behavior profiling” program was criticized one year later as “rife” with “racial profiling.” Alex Kane reported, the victims of New Age Security Solution’s excessive interrogations sparked calls for a congressional hearing over charges of discrimination.
h/t Sid Shniad.
It’s more than just activist. Israel denies entry to everyone, diplomats from other countries that try to visit the Palestine authority and West Bank, UN officials,and not just Richard Falk, everyone.
Think about it….here we have this rouge country illegally occupying the West Bank and acting like they own it and that their illegal squatter settlements are a legal part of Israel. When this monster spawn of the zionist finally explodes of it’s own vile hubris there are going to be celebrations in high and low places all over the world.
Israel expels UN official
Richard Falk
On December 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel to carry out my UN role as special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.
I was leading a mission that had intended to visit the West Bank and Gaza to prepare a report on Israel’s compliance with human rights standards and international humanitarian law. Meetings had been scheduled on an hourly basis during the six days, starting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the following day.
I knew that there might be problems at the airport. Israel had strongly opposed my appointment a few months earlier and its foreign ministry had issued a statement that it would bar my entry if I came to Israel in my capacity as a UN representative.
At the same time, I would not have made the long journey from California, where I live, had I not been reasonably optimistic about my chances of getting in. Israel was informed that I would lead the mission and given a copy of my itinerary, and issued visas to the two people assisting me: a staff security person and an assistant, both of whom work at the office of the high commissioner of human rights in Geneva.
To avoid an incident at the airport, Israel could have either refused to grant visas or communicated to the UN that I would not be allowed to enter, but neither step was taken. It seemed that Israel wanted to teach me, and more significantly, the UN a lesson: there will be no cooperation with those who make strong criticisms of Israel’s occupation policy.
After being denied entry, I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems. At this point, I was treated not as a UN representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed.
I was separated from my two UN companions who were allowed to enter Israel and taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away. I was required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room and taken to a locked tiny room that smelled of urine and filth. It contained five other detainees and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food and lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.
Of course, my disappointment and harsh confinement were trivial matters, not by themselves worthy of notice, given the sorts of serious hardships that millions around the world daily endure. Their importance is largely symbolic. I am an individual who had done nothing wrong beyond express strong disapproval of policies of a sovereign state. More importantly, the obvious intention was to humble me as a UN representative and thereby send a message of defiance to the United Nations.
Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp criticism of Israel’s approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practising effectively a politics of distraction.
The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that have been fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot. The wrongfulness of firing such rockets is unquestionable, yet this in no way justifies indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the entire civilian population of Gaza.
The purpose of my reports is to document on behalf of the UN the urgency of the situation in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Palestine. Such work is particularly important now as there are signs of a renewed escalation of violence and even of a threatened Israeli reoccupation.
Before such a catastrophe happens, it is important to make the situation as transparent as possible, and that is what I had hoped to do in carrying out my mission. Although denied entry, my effort will continue to use all available means to document the realities of the Israeli occupation as truthfully as possible.
(informationclearinghouse.info)
Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.
/The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets/
Some rockets,
some , unspecified number , unpleasant for sure but nothing to make too much of a fuss about.
/ that have been fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot./
And Beer Sheva and Ashkelon and Ashdod , every village around Gaza strip.
Mortar fire , sniper fire , an anti tank missile at a school bus.
Trivial , some, what are they getting so worked up about these Israelis, should have gotten used by now.
Tell them to try and get through the Gaza strip next time.
In view of the kind of people many Israelis have become and their well documented illegal, often terrorist, behavior it seems to me visas should now be necessary for all Israelis wishing to visit those countries from whose citizens they demand visas. Then their antecedents can be examined and if there is any evidence or suspicion that they have or may become engaged in unacceptable activities a visa can be refused.
1945: Allies deny entry to Occupied German territory to internationals invited by the Nazis.