The “only democracy in the Middle East” once again resorts to force in order to silence dissent:
“[T]he American academic Norman Finkelstein has been arrested and ordered deported from Israel. Finkelstein arrived in Tel Aviv earlier today on his way to the Occupied Territories. He was immediately detained and told he is banned from Israel for ten years. He’s expected to be deported tomorrow. Finkelstein is known one of the most prominent academic critics of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.”
Apparently Finkelstein was arrested on “security” grounds, illustrating once again that Israel’s definition of “security” is far removed from the conventional use of the term. He can at least count himself lucky that he is not Palestinian, in which case he would now be facing the very real possibility of torture and years of detention without trial, or else he might simply have been shot.
Activist Sam Bahour writes:
‘Dear friends,
ACT NOW: Flood the Israeli Ministry of Interior with faxes, emails, calls. DEMAND THAT DR. FINKELSTEIN BE PERMITTED TO ENTER ISRAEL IN ORDER TO REACH THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY!
Minister of Interior Mr. Meir SHEETRIT
Israeli Ministry of the Interior
2 Kaplan St., Qiryat Ben-Gurion
P.O. Box 6158, 91061 Jerusalem
Tel. +972-2-670-1411 / +972-2-629-4722
Fax: +972-2-670-1628or
Mr. Meir SHEETRIT’s numbers at the Knesset
Telephone 1: +972-2-640-8410
Telephone 2: +972-2- 640-8409
Fax: +972-2- 640-8920
Email: mshitrit@knesset.gov.ilIt is now Friday night and the Ministry will be closed through Saturday for the Jewish Sabbath. Thus, if you are in the US please call your congressman and senator NOW and advise them a Jewish American U.S. citizen is being denied access to Israel!!
Also, CALL the STATE DEPT’s Hotline for American Travelers: 202-647-5225 and let them know this is happening and is in violation of international law.
If you are an Israeli, please start working the phones…this denial of entry is all being done in your name!!
The only ‘democracy’ in the Middle East strikes again,
Sam’
You heard the man.
It is Saturday morning in the USA, afternoon in Britain, but this incident is still not being picked up by mainstream media including on-line newspapers.
Thanks for the complaint sources.
Try spending your life writing bad things about the USA (true or not is irrelevant), then meeting with the USA’s sworn enemy (Al Qaeda for example), publicly stating that said enemy is the good-guy in the conflict and then showing up at the US border in transit to Mexico two months later and see what happens to you!
The state department isn’t going to do shit about this. Finkelstein was a fool if he actually expected to be let into that country and if he was from any country other than the USA I doubt the Americans would let him in either.
Finkelstein had already been to Israel fifteen times in spite of his critique of Israel’s human rights record and the use of the Holocaust to justify its military occupation and colonization in the Palestinian territories.
You’re right in a sense: Israel’s behavior has been covered by censorship and propaganda in the US ever since the brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when over 20,000 civilians were killed by Sharon and the IDF, and, of course, the Sabra and Shantila refugee camp massacres. And since 9/11, the twisting of reality….see the documentary, Peace, Propaganda, & The Promised Land.
Finkelstein is a spoiler with his truth telling, and that cannot be permitted. His presence in Israel would only have stirred up more controversy, and God forbid, more headlines.
which is that, as the Israeli’s claim, he was deemed a security risk due to his activities in Lebanon. He was therefore detained, questioned and then kicked out.
Try doing the same thing yourself and getting into the country. If you are not a US citizen then try doing that and getting into the United States.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone who has ever travelled is surprised by this.
This kind of thing happens all the time.
As I stated above,
“Finkelstein is a spoiler with his truth telling, and that cannot be permitted. His presence in Israel would only have stirred up more controversy, and God forbid, more headlines.”
And that is all that there is to it. And not many are surprised given Israel’s large investment in censorship and propaganda, not the least of which is the depiction of resistance organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups. Israel has intentionally killed 10-20 times more Shiite Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, if accept that intentionally killing civilians is a terrorist action.
But there are a few people still around who would take your view and the views of the Israeli propagandists.
whether or not Hezbollah is a terrorist organization isn’t relevant. It’s a straw man.
I think most people who have travelled internationally, who know the facts here, will take my view that Finkelstein’s deportation is no surprise, and was, in fact, predictable. Facts the diarist chose to leave out of this misleading diary.
No one has the right to enter a foreign country. It’s a privilege. Finkelstein pushed it too far in Lebanon.
Thanks for diarying this, heathlander!
Finkelstein says:
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has it about right:
It appears that he travelled to lebanon and met with some members of Hezbollah a few months ago. There is more to this than him simply being barred for his views on Zionism.
He also made the following statement:
Quite frankly. Had I done something similar I wouldn’t expect to be let into Israel (or the United States for that matter).
The US State Department Middle East affairs desk is now being run out of Jerusalem.
Strangely, the parallels here to the actions of South African Afrikaaner Apartheid government in the 1980s are direct. Reagan, the most antiBlack president of modern times, and State supported that government, and listed antiApartheid groups as subversives and communists. Today, under another Republican administration, we have Hezzbollah and Hamas, organizations, which arose to in 1982 and 1987, respectively, to fight Israeli occupations in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories as “terrorist” organizations. Any thinking person would rather note that it is Israeli state terrorism (by its new definition: intentional killing of civilians) that has dominated recent history.
Stop repeating Israeli hasbara (propaganda) and get educated to realities.
if I pulled the shit he pulled in Lebanon and tried to get into the United States and the US Border service was aware of it I would probably get treated a lot worse than Mr. Finkelstein was treated by the Israeli’s and I would very likely be banned from travelling to the USA FOR LIFE.
He did nothing in Lebanon except talk to people. Israel knows that he’s not a “security” risk, and is thus abusing its (illegitimately acquired) control over the occupied territories by refusing to let him in on those grounds.
since you conveniently left out his recent activities in Lebanon to give the impression that he was detained (which he was, happens all the time) due to his writing. If you have any intellectual honesty you should either update it so people have the facts in the case or delete it.
There are plenty of things to criticize Israel about without raising straw men by leaving out essential facts in this case.
That would be true only under a Republican administration, where freedom of speech has been curtailed in the US since 9/11, if you have been awake at all and noticed. One way to defend Apartheid in Israel, military occupation/colonization in the West Bank, and the seige in Gaza is to still and censor all critical voices.
Finkelstein’s experience is nothing less than more Israeli censorship.
For as long as I can remember crossing the border the United States (including during the Clinton years) border service has asked the absurd question “have you ever said anything against the government of the United States”. Of course everyone lies and says “NO” because who in the world hasn’t, at one time, said something against the United States?
People lie because they don’t want to be detained, questioned then booted out of the United States! In this case, not only had Finkelstein been (rightly or wrongly) publically crapping on the government of israel for years he had recently been cavorting around a neighbouring country schmoozing with Israel’s sworn enemy – a fact btw, that the diarist dishonestly left out of this diary.
Everyone in here who is acting all shocked by this either has an axe to grind against Israel or has never set foot out of their country.
For as long as I can remember crossing the border the United States (including during the Clinton years) border service has asked the absurd question “have you ever said anything against the government of the United States”.
Hmm, over the last 20 years I have entered the US at least a hundred times (I’m not a citizen/permanent resident) – mostly at NYC-area airports, but also several in the south & west coast. That question has never been posed to me (the immigration/visa form will ask whether you have ever been a member of a communist party). Most common (and usually the only) question is ‘what is the purpose of your stay?’.
last time wasn’t though. Instead I was asked if I had ever been fingerprinted – which is an odd question. I was then detained and almost missed my flight.
I suspect the reason I was asked “have you ever said anything against the government of the United States” was because I was you long-haired DFH at the time.
Which, btw, is beside the point.
Let me ask you, since you are not an American. If you had:
a) spent the last 12 years writing diatribes against the United States
and…
b) had recently met with and publically praised the leaders of Al Qaeda
be the least bit surprised if you were detained, questioned and then denied entry to that country? I would be surprised if that was ALL that happened.
Just back home, and see that I am subjeted to some rather silly, hypothetical questions with no relevance to the diary or discussion.
And, BTW, why do you keep conflating Al Qaeda and Hezbollah?
Your quote in another comment above mention that “[t]he U.S. government has labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization.”
The US government also labeled the ANC a terrorist organization and its leader, Nelson Mandela, remained on the no-fly list until a couple of weeks ago…
The rest of the world does not share the US paranoia wrt Hezbollah, only a very few nations have given it the same label; e.g.,the EU has not designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Finkelstein (BTW; the quote attributed to him above seems to make a lot of sense) appears simply to be a bit ahead of his time in ‘talking to the enemy’. It was only a few days ago that we could observe these headlines:
Syria and Israel officially confirm peace talks
and
Lebanon rivals agree crisis deal
So Lebanon is back to a coalition government that includes Hezbollah. Remember, Lebanon, where the US supported democratic elections (but hated the outcome).
Looking at your comments above, it seems to me as if you have a nasty tendency to skew the discussion away from its substance, while labeling other participants as dishonest. It made me curious as to your previous participation at the site. There weren’t many comments from you in archives, but lo and behold, I saw that a bit over a year ago I had seen fit to give you a troll rating, and with good reason.
The rest of them suggest to me that you are a provocateur with no interest in honest discussion with members of this site.
The archives contain some scary things.
As I mentioned above. The US is at war with Al Qaeda therefore known sympathizers won’t have an easy time at the border. Israel is at war with Hezbollah so therefore known sympathizers are unlikely to have an easy time at the border. Whether or not you or I consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization is irrelevant. Israel does and it is they who decide who does, and does not, get into their country.
Please note as well that to this day it remains difficult to get into many Arab countries with an Israeli stamp on your passport. These are simple facts of international travel. Finkelstein crossed a line and had trouble at the border.
Big Deal. This happens thousands of times a day in practically every country on the planet.
It can be argued that because Finkelstein is a Jew and Israel is the Jewish homeland he should automatically have a right to go to Israel no matter what. I am not Israeli so I am not going to wade into that particular debate.
As for your donuts. Whatever turns you on bud. I just think people here should know all the facts in this case – facts the diarist left out of his diary. If that makes me a “provocateur” in your eyes I will not lose any sleep over that. Please note tho that I do have the third highest uid in this thread, I have been coming here for a while (and, in fact was coming here a long while before I registered to post) & just because I don’t post frequently and you don’t always agree with me when I do that does not make me a troll.
The editorial is a mixed bag, but it makes the key point that Finkelstein – regardless of who he has met and what views he holds – is clearly not a “security” threat. That is, the reason he was refused entry to visit his friends in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories was not because he posed a security risk but because of his political views.