A few weeks ago a Palestinian-American woman, Sandra Tamari, traveling to the West Bank to visit her family, was stopped by Israeli airport officials and ordered to log on to her email account and provide her password so that the Israelis could read her private communications. They insisted this be done before they would allow her to enter the country. From reports we are receiving, this practice has become routine.
Disturbing? You bet it is. But even more upsetting was what happened when Ms. Tamari spoke to a U.S. official. As she relates their conversation:
U.S. Official: Hello. I got your number from_____. You are being questioned by Israeli authorities, I understand.Sandra Tamari: They are threatening to deport me.
U.S. Official: Are you Jewish?
Sandra Tamari: No.
U.S. Official: have you been in contact with the Israeli government or military before?
Sandra Tamari: No
U.S. Official: Have you been here before?
Sandra Tamari: Yes, several times. I am a Palestinian with family in the West Bank.
U.S. Official: Oh, you have family in the West Bank. Then there is nothing I can do to help you. In fact, if I interceded on your behalf, it will hurt your case with the Israelis.
Sandra Tamari: I don't understand. You are saying you can't speak with them. You have no influence. They are demanding to access my gmail account.
U.S. Official: If they have your gmail address, they can get in without your password.
Sandra Tamari: What do you mean? How?
U.S. Official: They're good!
Sandra Tamari: This is crazy. You mean you know about these requests to access emails and you have no problem with it.
U.S. Official: It is in our travel warning. They won't harm you. You will be sent home on the next flight out...
This story is infuriating on many levels. Israeli treatment of Americans of Arab descent is demeaning and disgraceful -- though it pales in comparison with the daily humiliation endured by Palestinians at checkpoints and borders. More disturbing is the acceptance of this behavior and the cavalier disregard some American officials have displayed to these violations of the rights of their own citizens.
I have been dealing with issues of this sort for 35 years. And I have, myself, been personally subjected to hours of frustrating and humiliating interrogations by Israeli officials. Since the 1970's, we have logged with the State Department the complaints of hundreds of American citizens of Arab descent traveling to or within Israel and the Occupied Territories who were: detained for hours of humiliating questioning; denied entry, turned away at airports and made to buy tickets to return home; forced to surrender their American passports and to secure, against their will, a Palestinian ID document; denied permission to exit; strip searched; or had property stolen or deliberately destroyed by airport inspectors. The stories are hurtful and have caused great distress to many. There are many Palestinian Americans who, because of their concern with this treatment, have simply stopped going to visit their families.
We have called successive U.S. administrations to task for failing to hold Israel accountable for these behaviors which are in clear violation of their treaty obligations to the U.S. In the 1951 U.S.-Israel Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation, Israel pledges to permit U.S. citizens "to travel freely, to reside at places of their choice; to enjoy liberty of conscience" and to guarantee them "the most constant protection and security."
We have also questioned why American officials have failed to deliver on the assurance implied on the opening page of every U.S. passport: "The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection."
Sadly, instead of protecting its citizens, the U.S. has all too often feigned powerlessness, thus enabling Israel to continue to violate the rights of Arab Americans with impunity. This is unconscionable since it relegates Arab Americans to the status of second class citizens.
Does the U.S. "special relationship" with Israel cancel out the right of American citizens of Arab descent to equal protection by their own government? From the comments of the U.S. official to Ms. Tamari, that would appear to be the case. The "travel warning" he pointed out to her specifically notes that "U.S. citizens with Arabic or Muslim names, those born in Muslim or Middle Eastern countries" can be expected to be treated differently by "Israeli border authorities." To understand just how infuriating this warning is, substitute "Jewish" for "Arabic" and "Jordanian border authorities" for "Israeli border authorities." Then ask yourself what the reaction of the State Department and Congress would be if that were the case? Would they merely issue a "warning" or "advisory" to American Jews -- as if this behavior were some "act of nature" to be lamented but accepted? And yet this is exactly what happened to Sandra Tamari and it is what has happened repeatedly for decades to countless other Arab Americans traveling to and within Israel and the Occupied Territories.
I have been assured by many Secretaries of State that there is but one class of U.S. citizenship, that our rights, as Arab Americans, will be protected and that this matter will be taken up with Israeli authorities. They have done so, and yet the systematic discrimination against and harassment of Americans of Arab descent by the State of Israel not only persists, it has worsened.
This is because after the initial protest is ignored by Israel, our government shrugs its shoulders as if to say "there is nothing more we can do." Well there is something more they can do. They just either cannot or will not muster the political courage to protect the rights of my community when Israel is involved. And they admit as much with their pathetic travel warning.
Follow James Zogby on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AAIUSA
Is this all countries or just Israel that this would apply to?
Some of them were born in the United States.
Israel doesn't want CRAZED ANTI-ISRAEL HATE ACTIVISTS to enter Israel. James Zogby does.
Normal Americans are READILY WELCOMED to visiting Israel.
Why would they. I wish all countries would be more diligent in tracking down and stopping the entry of anarchists from all over the western world who love to turn local protests into riots.
This is just silliness.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/sandra-tamari-was-banned-from-entering-israel-like-her-father-before-her.html
"In 1966, my father came to the United States for work. Soon after, Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. Israel conducted a census of residents of the Occupied Territories in 1967 to create a population registry. Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 270,000 Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories before the war were absent during the census for study, work or because they fled the conflict. Many Palestinians, including my father, were denied their right to regain residency status. When my father returns to visit his family, he must do so on a tourist visa granted at Israel's discretion."
Democracy exists in the middle east BUT ONLY IN THE JEWISH STATE OF ISRAEL,
A real state has defined borders.
Ask them the status of Jews and Christians in most of these theocracies and dictatorships shall we. Hindus and Ba'hias too eh?
"western democracies doesn't have state religions" eh? Go ask THE QUEEN!
Go ask ONE POINT THREE MILLION MAINLY MUSLIMARABS WITH MORE RIGHTS IN ISRAEL THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE MUSLIM MIDDLE EAST
Next
To the barricades!
When will the displaced Jews from Arab countries be allowed to return? How silly of me! There are no displaced Jews -the ones who were ethnically cleansed and dispossessed from MuslimArab countries post 1948 -because Israel took them all in (all 750-800000).
The only reason there were displaced Arabs is that the Arab nations refused to take in their Arab refugees so that they could be then used as a 64yr and counting political tool- and this issue of the Arab refugees has been used ever since against Israel. Be honest,the only thing the Arab nations want is the destruction of Israel.
Right. That's that that ridiculous pally wood dross propaganda put to bed.
(Ha'aretz, October 8, 2004)
"Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine. Many Palestinian communities were destroyed in 1948, and some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled, or fled, from the borders of historic Palestine. Those who left
did not do so of their own volition. In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations. Some came of their own free will; others arrived against their will." (Professor Yehouda Shenhav, Tel Aviv University)
More than that, Hammad stated that the true regional background of most "Palestinians" is not in "Palestine."
"Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis," exclaimed the Hamas minister.
Arab leader, Abd al-Mahdi, testified before the Peele Commission in 1937 as follows:
"There is no such land. Palestine is a term invented by the Zionists. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our land was for hundreds of years a part of Syria."
More to follow
- Commentary Magazine, Jan. 2000, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/0001/letters.html
* "As early as the first months of 1948 the Arab League issued orders exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries, later to return to their abodes in the wake of thevictorious Arab armies and obtain their share of abandoned Jewish property."
- bulletin of The Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1957
Next
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/18/border-agency-listening-conversations_n_1607581.html
are yu all outraged at this as well? will this be mr.zogby'sNEXT story on 'our government failing
to protect the rights of US citizens?
Your rights in Israel is an entirely different matter.
Great stuff Hex
No one in diplomat corps would ever talk like this to someone on the phone.
Better to have someone "demeaned", than to have a "Major Hassan" sneak into the country.
" it pales in comparison with the daily humiliation endured by Palestinians at checkpoints and borders."
Humiliation which is a direct result of earlier Arab terroristic activities, and continued terror attempts.
"these violations of the rights of their own citizens."
No one has the "right" of free entry into a sovereign country. Heck, I am an American, and I cannot get into my own country without taking my shoes off, my fingerprints (and often the rest of my body) scanned, and my private luggage examined and man-handled with only a note left behind.
"the right of American citizens of Arab descent to equal protection by their own government? "
All American citizens have equal protection, regardless of color, religion, ethnicity, etc. A caucasian priest that might be subject to special examination and even restriction by the Israeli authorities would have no different protection from his government.
"Would they merely issue a "warning" or "advisory" to American Jews -"
You mean like they do, for Jews traveling to Saudi Arabia, and most other Muslim countries?
http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2010/06/activists-disrupt-caterpillar.html
Mr. Zogby does not mention this obviously relevant information. Representing her as the hapless victim of nothing but racial discrimination is a severe distortion of the reality. Attempting to influence public opinion by selectively suppressing important facts is unfortunately a typical feature of Mr. Zogby's articles.
"The U.S. Congress is advancing a proposal that would enable Israeli investors to obtain a special two-year visa to the U.S. • If passed, Israel will be only the fifth country whose citizens are entitled to apply for the special visa."
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3073
Historical fact :Ariel Sharon is a native and Arafat was a Egyptian -born foreigner.
- Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, quoted in Battleground by Samuel Katz
Need more Cyn. Got plenty.
The lies of u pallackies will no longer be allowed with impunity. NEVER AGAIN
In 1967 5 days after Israel captured the West Bank it demolished the quarter where thousands of Palestinians lived, not waiting until everyone had time to get out killing an elderly woman. It then demolished a 1000 year old mosque. The Morrocan quarter bulldozed and was replaced by the Western Wall plaza.