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US student barred from Israel over alleged BDS support to fight case US student barred from Israel over alleged BDS to fight case in court
(about 11 hours later)
A US student refused entry to Israel over alleged support of a pro-Palestinian boycott movement has chosen to stay and fight the ban in court, an Israel official said on Tuesday. A 22-year-old American student who has been held for a week at an Israeli airport accused of supporting a pro-Palestinian boycott campaign has become the focus of a debate around the country’s growing intolerance of critics.
Immigration authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad told AFP late on Tuesday that Lara Alqasem was being held at an immigration facility but was not under arrest. Lara Alqasem, a US citizen with Palestinian grandparents, arrived at Ben-Gurion airport last week with a valid student visa, but authorities barred her from entering and ordered her deportation.
“She can fly back to the United States whenever she likes,” Haddad said. “She decided to appeal and is being held in the facility for those refused entry,” the spokeswoman said. “She is not under arrest, she is refused entry.” An immigration authority spokeswoman, Sabine Haddad, said late on Tuesday that Alqasem would contest the ban in court.
Haddad said the appeal would be heard in the Tel Aviv district court but gave no date for the hearing. “She can fly back to the United States whenever she likes,” Haddad said. “She decided to appeal and is being held in the facility for those refused entry,” she added. No date was given for the hearing.
She added that judge Kobi Vardi issued a ruling on Tuesday saying that Alqasem was not obliged to remain in the airport holding facility and was free to return home and have the Tel Aviv hearing held in her absence. While free speech is broadly protected in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration and its parliamentary allies have waged a campaign against domestic and international critics.
In March 2017, Israel’s parliament passed a law banning the entry of supporters of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, inspired by measures against South Africa before the fall of apartheid. Last year, parliament passed a law banning entry into Israel for those who support the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, echoing measures against South Africa during the apartheid era.
Alqasem, reportedly of Palestinian descent, was stopped at Israel’s main international Ben Gurion airport on Tuesday last week and denied entry under that act. The prime minister has tasked the ministry of strategic affairs and public diplomacy to lead the fight against BDS, which Israel sees as a strategic threat, particularly as it has grown in popularity among university students.
The Jerusalem Post has reported that during her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida she was president of a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which often leads boycott campaigns against Israel. Alqasem is the former president of the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The group is aligned with the BDS movement, which holds among its demands an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
It quoted her mother, Karen Alqasem, as saying she had enrolled for a one-year master’s course in human rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for which she had an Israeli visa. “We work to prevent the entry of those who promote the antisemitic BDS campaign,” said the strategic affairs minister, Gilad Erdan. “We’ll continue to expose the lies of the BDS, including regarding the prevention of entry of those who promote it.”
The university has applied to the Tel Aviv court for leave to join her appeal against deportation. “This student wants to come here and study at the Hebrew University for one year,” its president, Professor Asher Cohen, told Israeli army radio on Tuesday. However, Alqasem has argued that she never actively took part in boycott efforts. “We’re talking about someone who simply wants to study in Israel, who is not boycotting anything,” said her lawyer, Yotam Ben-Hillel. “She’s not even part of the student organisation anymore.”
He argued her treatment was actually strengthening the BDS campaign to boycott goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Her former Hebrew teacher at the University of Florida described Alqasem as an open-minded and curious student who had a “positive attitude toward Judaism, Jews, and the state of Israel”. Alqasem had registered to study a master’s degree in human rights at Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which has said it would support her appeal.
“There is a difference of opinion with the state on the interpretation of the law. In our opinion in this instance the law does not apply to this student,” he said. “It is for the court to decide.” A number of vocal Jewish critics without BDS links have also been detained and interrogated about their political views while entering the country this year. And in July, parliament passed a law that allowed for a ban of groups critical of the armed forces or the state from entering schools and speaking to students.
Earlier, Israeli internal security minister Gilad Erdan said he would consider allowing Alqasem to take up her university place if she publicly denounced BDS. “If Lara Alqasem states in her own voice, not by all kinds of evasions by lawyers, that she doesn’t think now that support for BDS is something legitimate and she regrets what she has done on this subject, we shall certainly re-evaluate our petition,” he told army radio. Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to this report
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