Are Israel's border police blocking entry of human rights activists?
Human rights organizations claim that Israel’s border police prevent the entry of activists who are critical of the government's occupation policy.
Last August, Israel's Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan decided to set up an interagency task force to bar foreign nationals who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement from entering the country. Knesset members Roy Folkman of the center-right Kulanu Party and Bezalel Smotrich of the ultra-right HaBayit HaYehudi Party authored similar legislation that has already received preliminary approval, even by opposition head and leader of the center-left Zionist Camp, Isaac Herzog.
But what started out as a measure against anti-Israel boycott supporters has in the past few weeks been expanded to include human rights activists. On Feb. 8, Israeli border police detained Jennifer Gorovitz, the vice president for operations and administration of the New Israel Fund.
In a Feb. 16 piece in Haaretz, Gorovitz shared her feelings about her experience at Ben Gurion Airport. "My privilege as a Jew means I never imagined that Israel could or would deny me entrance,” she wrote. “And so I was not prepared for a passport control officer to sneer at my explanation that the New Israel Fund (and Shatil) support civil society: ‘You mean Palestinian civil society.’ … After multiple interrogations focusing on NIF’s work, it became clear that I had been detained for political reasons — no other explanation fit."
Gorovitz was eventually released only after the intervention of the NIF president, attorney Talia Sasson.
