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Friday March 12th, 2004
I have just been deported from Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, 15 hours after arriving from England. I was picked up at passport control and taken to airport security. Something sinister must have come up on 'Tom Clark computer check'? I was searched, everything in my bags examined, then taken to the Ministry of Interior office inside the airport and questioned intensely for an hour... who I knew... what I had been doing... where I stayed. I have Jewish invitations with addresses which I showed. Maybe I said too much? "Tell me everything" he said, "it will be better for you!".
I actually felt I had nothing to hide, except possibly a short meeting two years ago with ISM - The International Solidarity Movement, about which the Israeli authority is extremely aggressive. I talked about being Quaker/ Pacifist... coming from a tradition of peace building, conflict resolution; that I am helping several NGO's in civil society within Israel with small funding from the UK. This is work done with care, consultation and integrity. He seemed relaxed and interested. Told me I would have an answer in 20 minutes. In fact after another hour, by now over three hours altogether, I am asked back for 'a few more questions'.
So back in the Ministry of Interior he says; "We have a problem!". "Oh really!?" I say, "What's that?". "You were involved in illegal activities!". "No!, what do you mean?. What is illegal?". "Illegal!, it's the same in your country as in mine", he replies. "No!" I risk, "My country is a democracy!". Maybe that did it, but it didn't seem to affect him in the slightest. I am told to wait again and then by chance talking to a security person five hours after all this had begun he says: "Oh! weren't you told? You are going to be deported on the flight at 7 tomorrow morning".
Then formally I am told the reason: "Because you are a threat to Israeli security!". Gosh! I am speechless. I am taken to a locked cell in the airport. When the door clangs shut and you see there is no door handle, you know this is serious! I feel such an idiot, or a bit like an animal, or a bit like a terrorist.
I had called two Israeli colleagues before they took my mobile phone. The colleagues got busy...in no time the British Embassy rings even at 10 p.m. Ask slightly rhetorically "Are you being treated all right?". Then more interestingly an Israeli lawyer. She will come and see me by midnight. She can't stop the process now but, "If you sign power of attorney to me I will start proceedings to review your case. It will take a month or two. You must fight it Tom! This must be challenged!". I agree, I suggest to her that I got picked off because I am freelance, not connected to a major institution She said "Oh no! The Middle East Officer of the Ford Foundation got the same treatment a few weeks ago."
I was personally escorted to the back of the plane at 6 a.m. by two uniformed officers... an undesirable being led past scores of Orthodox Jews, horrified that they were sharing the plane with me. There I found Hala Jaber, a Sunday Times correspondent. She was being turned round back to England in two hours. Her crime, a provocative Sunday Times article a year ago.
I had found myself in a place that through fear and a sense of feeling threatened is free falling into really crude behaviour. People are coming with good intentions and are being man- handled. Peace-building is now classified as a 'threat to security'! The impulse to help in a fully non partisan manner got me locked up and deported.
As my Israeli acitivist friend Yael, distraught about this incident said on the phone; "We will fight this Tom!... I mean at least we should get your flight ticket reimbursed!" Fat chance!
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