16 April 2012, Alternative Information Center http://www.alternativenews.org (Israel)
Michael Warschawski
Hundreds of security personnel are busy closing Israel’s borders to international citizens whose only goal is to come, see and testify. By doing so, our Interior Minister confesses that Israel has a lot to hide. Nothing new indeed.
(Photo: Israeli Minister of Interior Eli Yisha is busy closing Israel's borders to Nobel Prize winning authors and human rights activists)
I doubt if Israeli Minister of Interior Eli Yishai ever red one line of Gunter Grass’ literature, and I am almost sure he never heard about the Nobel Prize laureate before the latter published a poem on the danger that Israel represents for the future of our planet.
Nevertheless, Yishai put Gunter Grass on a black list and forbid his entry to Israel. By doing so, Yisha may hope to divert local public opinion from the upcoming conclusions of the Inquiry Commission on the huge fire in Mount Carmel last year, and the expected harsh recommendations on the failure of his ministry in this regard.
Poor Gunter Grass! The author of The Tin Drum, who is very much welcome in each and every country of our planet, will not be able to come to Israel! Yishai, however, did not keep only Grass out of the country. He closed the borders to several hundred activists who intended to come to Bethlehem – not to Israel –to express their solidarity with the Palestinian population which suffers under 44 years of colonial occupation. The problem that should have been dealt with a long time ago by the Palestinian Authority is the lack of possibility to reach the occupied Palestinian territory without having to pass through Israel's borders; as long as the Palestinians will not have sovereignty over their borders, in the West Bank as well as in Gaza, any talk about "a Palestinian state" is nonsense, even if they will be granted a seat in the United Nations. Statehood is, first of all, sovereignty over borders, and the absence of such sovereignty makes the "Palestinian state" a mere Bantustan.
In order to grasp the severe mental illness of the Israeli authorities, one should read the letter addressed by Amnon Shmueli, head of the immigration Authority at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, to the airlines companies and the open threats included in this document:
"To all Airlines
Subject: Denied entry
1. 1. Due to the statements of pro-Palestinian radicals to arrive on commercial flights from abroad to disrupt the order and confront security forces at friction [sic] points,, it was decided to deny their entry in accordance with our authority according to the Law of entry in Israel (1952)
2. 2. Attached is a list of passengers that are denied entry to Israel. In light of the above mentioned, you are ordered not to board them on your flights to Israel.
3. 3. Failure to comply with this directive will result in sanctions against the airlines [my emphasis, MW]
4. 4. This list is partial and at a later stage you will be advised of additional names.
Most likely there will be additional activists, that their names we will not be able to advice in advance, that their entry to Israel will be denied"
Poor us! Like with the Gaza-bound 2010 Freedom Flotilla, like with other flotillas and flytillas, hundreds of security personnel are busy closing Israel’s borders to international citizens whose only goal is to come, see and testify. By doing so, our Interior Minister confesses that Israel has a lot to hide. Nothing new indeed.
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