Airport security as political bullying
An American graphic designer named Ann Petter who flew to Israel to take part in political demonstrations has been barred from the country as a “security risk” and has been detained since June 23rd.
Petter is employed by Simon and Schuster publishers and by New York’s Museum of Modern Art. According to sources, she arrived in Israel with photography equipment and accompanied by a friend, a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, “to document her journey in Israel and the territories.” She also planned to attend the wedding of some Israeli friends.
According to her Israeli lawyer:
“since her friends overseas found out she’d been arrested, we’ve received numerous letters from her friends and employers attesting to her being a non-violent peace lover, without a criminal record, an artist and exemplary professional woman who has no dangerous tendency and certainly none of a security nature. No one is hiding the fact that she is a left-winger or that she is a peace activist.”
Apparently this is not the first time the Israeli authorities have given the “3rd degree” to left wing people:
“A recent trip by Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 79, to see for herself what is happening to Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza ended with shocking humiliation.” … “Epstein, whose parents were killed during the Holocaust and was saved because she was smuggled out of Nazi Germany in 1939, says the airport checks were the final indignity in a trip full of horrors.”
At least, that’s the word from Al Jazeera.
To help Ann, please contact the Israeli and U.S. officials listed below:
Interior Minister Avraham Poraz
(fax: 011 972-2-5666376)(fax: 011 972-2-6701628)
(fax: 011 972-2-6701585)
phone: 011 972 2 02 670 1402
Email: [email protected]
Enav Golomb
Justice Ministry
State Attorney’s Office
Fax: 011-972-2-646-6655
Email: [email protected]
Silvan Shalom
Foreign Minister
Fax: 011-972-2-530-3367
Phone: 011-972- 530-3111
Email: [email protected]
U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv
tel. 011 972-3-5197575
Email: [email protected]
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
tel. 202-647-4000
is Ann Petter with ISM?
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=14063
which reminds me, you should add Josh Harvey to the old roll. He’s quite good – fair, and very sharp. Especially with data.
http://www.weirdchicken.com/jmh/b2evolution/blogs/
peace
cc wrote : is Ann Petter with ISM?
yes
Bottomline, she shouldn’t be allowed in Israel. Send her to the Sudan where there is hereditary slaverty and thousands of africans are being slaughtered by arab militias.
She shouldn’t have refused to go back to the states when Israeli security first gave her that option. That, and I have no pity for ISMers.
Funny that mobius neglected to state she’s a member of the ISM.
funny that i didn’t write the post, cock
“peace activist”
At least here in Israel, the media (more or less) has finally adopted the more proper term ‘left wing activist’ rather than the misleading and heavily biased ‘peace activist’.
On the other hand, it is still widely assumed that you are either in the ‘nationalist’ or right-wing camp, or the ‘peace camp’ as if right-wingers don’t want peace.
As for ISM, it should be stated at every single opportunity that they are NOT peace activists and they do not hide that they are the International Solidarity Movement for Palestinian Freedom from the Israeli occupation(all of Israel).
so what if she is involved with ISM ?
where is the evidence that she represents a clear and present threat to national security
Any member of ISM represents a potential threat to Israel’s national security. The threat does not have to be clear and present, that’s not the standard used for refusing entry. In the past, ISMers have, amongst other things, offered refuge to known terrorists. I don’t care what their opinions are, but ISM has clearly crossed the line. I have no sympathy for Anne, especially since she refused to return to the US and chose to be incarcerated.
Send Ann home, now. The electricity in her holding cell at the airport that comes from burning coal at the power station that has to be shipped from who-knows-where is a burden on my tax dollars.
But first read about a typical ISM training session at the URL below about how lying is a standard tool by ISMs.
Then use all the numbers that JohnBrown provided to insist people like Ann not be allowed to enter Israel.
Solidarity With Terror
By Lee Kaplan
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14063
Sorry,
tax shekels.
I don’t think anyone has ever even alleged that ISM people gave refuge to people they knew were terrorists.. only that they had met people who they later found out were suspects of some sort
And even if they did, is Ann guilty of what someone else did ?
Do you believe in guilt by association ?
articles really don’t come more biased and full of distortions and ad hominem attacks than that piece of crap from Front Page “magazine”
Granted, the Frontpage article lacked a certain measure of polish and journalistic detachment. However, nothing described in the article conflicts with what I’ve been told by others who’ve been involved with the ISM. None of it is surprising at all, it merely confirms what we’ve known all along. I eagerly look forward to ISM’s response.
With respect to guilt by association, well… if you belong to an organization that is dedicated to flagrantly breaking the laws of a particular country, you ought not be surprised when said country excercises its sovereign imperative and bars you from entering its borders.
I mean, am I missing something? Does this not seem perfectly reasonable?
ah sorry about that mobi, its just that everytime i read a far-left post on jewschool i automatically think its you.
Send her home, Israel, as a soverign nation, Isreal is still a soverign nation isnt it? Has the right to refuse entry to anyone it wishes on whatever ground it chooses. It certainly has the right to refuse entry to a woman who has declared that she will help to obstruct the nations security forces. You may disagree with those security forces, But unless you refuse to recognize the sovregnty of the nation, overi ts own borders, then you really cant argue that they have to let her in. And if you do refuse to recognize Israel’s sovreignty over her own borders, well then you can take a flying…… whateva
Frontpage magazine’s article was simply laughable. I loved how they described B’Tselem as “one of the most prominent Israeli leftist groups working to aid the PLO.”
That’s HILARIOUS. Ok, so you disagree with any Israeli policy? Even one? You document human rights abuses? You’re “working to aid terrorists”!
That was the general intellectual level of the article, and it was obvious that the ISM people quoted were far less moronic and bigoted than the article’s author.
What an odd little story. JohnBrown, you signpost it writing that An American graphic designer named Ann Petter who flew to Israel to take part in political demonstrations has been barred from the country as a “security risk” and has been detained since June 23rd.
But that’s clearly false. She has not been detained since June 23rd.
She requested entry to the State of Israel on June 23rd. The State of Israel refused her request on June 23rd. And, since that day, she has been hanging out in international airspace, because she doesn’t feel like going home. Detained? That’s called making things up.
But, then, you choose to rely on a Web site which does so regularly — and which seems unable to distinguish between news and editorializing: At least, that’s the word from Al Jazeera. Great. Will Jewschool be gracing us with many more words from Al Jazeera Web (as distinguished from Al Jazeera the TV network, which is a separate operation)? ‘Cause, you know, that’s great stuff they’re putting out.
Ok, so you disagree with any Israeli policy? Even one? You document human rights abuses? You’re “working to aid terrorists”!
I missed that, Sam. You say the FrontPage article stated or implied that disagreeing with any one Israeli policy is the same as working to aid terrorists?
uh the “at least that’s the word from al jazeera” is an addition i made as editor. john/babs’ is not responsible for that.
The whole tone of the article, including the title “Solidarity with Terror”, made the point that Palestinians are terrorists and wanting to help them for any reason equals wanting to help terrorists. Totally absent from the article was any indication that the Palestinians could need or use help from anyone on any matter or in any situation that would have anything to do with anything other than terror and generally killing Israelis. It was dehumanizing and racist.
uh the “at least that’s the word from al jazeera” is an addition i made as editor. john/babs’ is not responsible for that. I’m a bit lost, but it sounds like: you added the source credit, john/babs did the actually relying-on and quoting.
I’m happy with the sourcing. I’m less happy with relying on the source. There are lots of halfway reputable news sources out there; why rely on one so obviously racist?
The whole tone of the article, including the title “Solidarity with Terror”, made the point that Palestinians are terrorists and wanting to help them for any reason equals wanting to help terrorists.
Sam, it’s good that your position is evolving beyond the caricatural, at least. You no longer claim that disagreeing with any random policy is, in the eyes of the article being subjected to all this scrutiny, tantamount to agreeing with terrorism. Instead, you now claim that the article sees disagreeing with some policies as working with terrorists.
Which is, I guess, the sort of thing that can be debated; that’s been done to death here. As it happens, I disagree with the article, but I don’t feel the need to caricature it for kicks — honesty works better, ’cause the alternative is exactly the kind of dehumanizing you say you can’t stand:
Totally absent from the article was any indication that the Palestinians could need or use help from anyone on any matter or in any situation that would have anything to do with anything other than terror and generally killing Israelis. It was dehumanizing and racist.
Bullshit. The article was from my point of view stupid. Some of the assertions are, I think, invalid, particularly with regard to questioning the peoplehood of Palestinians: it remains me of the majority of anti-Israel discussion (most of which pretending to be “leftist” — but I digress) which goes into great detail about where Jews are really from, where they should really go “back” to, and why they don’t exist except as a collection of religious beliefs, books, and dead bodies.
Is that a racist assertion the article is making? Yeah, I’d be prepared to go that far, although it would require calling a great deal of what is said “racist”. But dehumanizing, especially on the grounds you cite (absence of a long list of caveats and disqualifiers)? That’s just silly, and sounds like nothing so much as the “requirements” that ostensibly pro-Israel commenters require of any article which so much as dares talk about Israeli policy without trotting out clichéd lines as to being surrounded by enemies, and on and on.
uh the “at least that’s the word from al jazeera” is an addition i made as editor. john/babs’ is not responsible for that. I’m a bit lost, but it sounds like: you added the source credit, john/babs did the actually relying-on and quoting.
no, he had the source there. i didn’t like the way he had the link (it simply said [al jazeera]) so i changed it to say, “at least that’s the word from al jazeera.”
I think it’s great how Westerners and Jews are able and willing to argue such vast political differences among themselves. It’s a gift
And a curse.
8opus:
“The Tel Aviv District Court postponed for two days a hearing into the case of Anne Robinson-Peter, an American peace activist, held at Ben-Gurion International Airport for the past 12 days.
Peter, a 44-year-old graphic artist from New York who is an activist with the Palestinian-Israeli peace group ISM, has been held for the past week at Ben-Gurion Airport’s detention center on the grounds that she poses “a security risk to the state.”
The Interior Ministry denied Robinson-Peter entry to Israel when the U.S. citizen landed last Wednesday from New York, saying that it was complying with “the request of the security establishment.”
After her lawyers, Yael Barda and Shamai Leibovich, challenged the decision in Tel Aviv District Court last week, Judge Nissim Yeshaya issued an interim order forbidding her deportation.
Robinson-Peter is being held at the airport pending trial, since the judge refused to release her under restrictive conditions.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/448150.html
8opus … “The Tel Aviv District Court postponed for two days a hearing … Judge Nissim Yeshaya issued an interim order forbidding her deportation.… the judge refused to release her under restrictive conditions.”
Well, you’ve graduated to making things up by implication, rather than stating them outright. That’s either progress or its opposite, I suppose; who knows?
You pretended that this woman refused entry into israel was being held against her will — which she is not. Your selective quoting seems to be designed to imply that “forbidding her deportation” and not releasing her “under restrictive conditions” are a sort of detention which prevent her from going home. Try this instead, though:
– The court forbade the border authority from deporting her from the country before the hearing. That means she’s still allowed to hang out on Israel’s doorstep if she wants to. Apparently, she wants.
– The court failed to release her under restrictive conditions. That means the State of Israel has decided not to let her past the doorstep, into Israel, with some caveat — reportiing in once a while, let’s say, or some other restrictive condition.
Ms. Petter’s staunch defenders are touchingly eager to spot conspiracies, but on this score they can probably relax. She can go home anytime she likes. Or, should she prefer, she can even continue to try and travel to other countries that for whatever reason aren’t interested in her tourist business. The world awaits!
“My name is Danny Dworsky. I’ve served in the occupied territories since August of 1976 when I volunteered for active duty. I am one of 6 soldiers that survived my original platoon. I was honorably discharged from full duty in September of 1979 I am currently a reservist in the IDF serving as a field agent for the Military Justice Department METZACH since 1992. I am a first Sergeant and my military ID is DN BDRK 2297771. If the ISM is Guilty of anything they are guilty of making things not as bad as they could be. Last October I was doing my duty as an investigator. Armed gangs wearing morning prayer parafernalia were terrorizing innocent women and children during an olive harvest in the village of Yousouf. These actions were sometimes carried out in broad daylight in front of Civilian Police and IDF armored and infantry patrols. No one interceded on the part of these people. They were verbaly abused obsenely in arabic spoken in distinct Brooklyn accents. They were shot at and their tools were grabbed away from them. I caught much of this on film and Digital video up until the time I was attacked and my camera’s were smashed. What I managed to capture was the Police and soldiers faces and the numbers on the vehicles that brought them to the scene. All police deny having seen, heardor even having found the place. This is a lie. The soldiers were less than three feet away. The two police men, who couldn’t find the place, were leaning against the patrol car between me and the Settlers when I was told that if I pursued the matter, I would have a bullet fired “accidently” into the back of my head. Who were the bad guys here? ISM keeps the Sharon and Mofaz’s IDF and lunatic Settlers wearing Tephilin and Talis’ like some nightmare version of Fiddler meets Lord of the flies, from carrying out ethnic cleansing. They preach non violence to Palestinians. These ISM kids are my hero’s. They save lives. They are practicing the purest form of what the great Rabbi’s called “Tikun Olam” (*Tikun* – Repair) (*Olam* – World) It is upon all of us a Jews to “Repair the world”. As a jew I owe a terrible debt to the humanity of these volunteer peace makers who are paying my tab with their own blood. My Family is available and our Home is open to everyone of these kids. They know that they have a hot meal and a bed waiting for them anytime they need it. We’ve been to funerals for realatives wounded and children lost to suicide bombers. If I thought for a second that the ISM had anything to do with terrorism, would I help them? As my kids would say, “Not!” Hugs not Slugs, Daniel M. Dworsky ”
excerpt from Meet the peace activists…