US academic deported and banned for criticizing "Israel"
Source: Tayyar.org, 13-06-2008
Norman Finkelstein, the controversial Jewish American academic and fierce critic of 'Israel', has been deported from the country and banned from the Jewish (Zionist) state for 10 years, it emerged yesterday. Finkelstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor who has accused 'Israel' of using the genocidal Nazi campaign against Jews to justify its actions against the Palestinians, was detained by the 'Israeli' security service, Shin Bet, when he landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Friday.
Shin Bet interrogated him for around 24 hours. He was accused of having contact with al-Qaida. But Finkelstein rejected the accusations, saying he had travelled to 'Israel' to visit an old friend.
"I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me," he told an 'Israeli' newspaper in an email exchange.
"I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn't much more to say for myself: alas, no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organisations. I've always supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. I'm not an enemy of 'Israel'."
Finkelstein is one of several scholars rejected by 'Israel' in the increasingly bitter divide in academic circles, between those who support and those who criticise its treatment of Palestinians.
Last year, 'Israel's' most contentious "new historian", Ilan Pappe, left his job as senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa after he endorsed the international academic boycott of 'Israeli' institutions, provoking the university president to call for his resignation.
Finkelstein was also refused tenure last year at Chicago's DePaul University for attacking several staunch 'Israel' supporters and academics such as Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz.
The Association for Civil Rights in 'Israel' said the deportation of Finkelstein was an assault on free speech.
"The decision to prevent someone from voicing their opinions by arresting and deporting them is typical of a totalitarian regime," said the association's lawyer, Oded Peler.
"A democratic state, where freedom of expression is the highest principle, does not shut out criticism or ideas just because they are uncomfortable for its authorities to hear. It confronts those ideas in public debate."
Finkelstein said he was held in a cell and encountered "several unpleasant moments with the guards" and that eventually he borrowed the mobile phone of another detainee and called a friend who in turn called a lawyer.
Although entitled to appeal against the entry ban, Finkelstein said he would not contest it.
Norman Finkelstein, the controversial Jewish American academic and fierce critic of 'Israel', has been deported from the country and banned from the Jewish (Zionist) state for 10 years, it emerged yesterday. Finkelstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor who has accused 'Israel' of using the genocidal Nazi campaign against Jews to justify its actions against the Palestinians, was detained by the 'Israeli' security service, Shin Bet, when he landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Friday.
Shin Bet interrogated him for around 24 hours. He was accused of having contact with al-Qaida. But Finkelstein rejected the accusations, saying he had travelled to 'Israel' to visit an old friend.
"I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me," he told an 'Israeli' newspaper in an email exchange.
"I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn't much more to say for myself: alas, no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organisations. I've always supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. I'm not an enemy of 'Israel'."
Finkelstein is one of several scholars rejected by 'Israel' in the increasingly bitter divide in academic circles, between those who support and those who criticise its treatment of Palestinians.
Last year, 'Israel's' most contentious "new historian", Ilan Pappe, left his job as senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa after he endorsed the international academic boycott of 'Israeli' institutions, provoking the university president to call for his resignation.
Finkelstein was also refused tenure last year at Chicago's DePaul University for attacking several staunch 'Israel' supporters and academics such as Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz.
The Association for Civil Rights in 'Israel' said the deportation of Finkelstein was an assault on free speech.
"The decision to prevent someone from voicing their opinions by arresting and deporting them is typical of a totalitarian regime," said the association's lawyer, Oded Peler.
"A democratic state, where freedom of expression is the highest principle, does not shut out criticism or ideas just because they are uncomfortable for its authorities to hear. It confronts those ideas in public debate."
Finkelstein said he was held in a cell and encountered "several unpleasant moments with the guards" and that eventually he borrowed the mobile phone of another detainee and called a friend who in turn called a lawyer.
Although entitled to appeal against the entry ban, Finkelstein said he would not contest it.
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