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TEL AVIV – The latest internship in Lara Alqasem 's career in the field of social networking and social media, discussing how to interact with the social media.
Alqasem is a 22-year-old American graduate student at the Hebrew University graduate program in Jerusalem, and obtained a student visa from the Israeli consulate in Miami.
The university semester starts on Sunday, October 14th, and had she been allowed into the country Alqasem would like to be on the go.
Benjamin Netanyahu – following a series of decisions that were deeply offensive to the American Jewish community and caused unprecedented Israel-diaspora friction – managed to unify its supporters and its detractors in opposition to its detention of a young Floridian who seems to pose no danger to the state.
On October 2, 2005, Ben-Gurion International Airport, Alqasem was barred from entering Israel on the grounds that it supports Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS), the anti-Israel movement with growing popularity on American college campuses.
In the first test of Israel's 2017 anti-BDS law, Alqasem has been held at the airport by the United States.
One fact is not disputed: While a student at the University of Florida, from which she graduated in May, Alqasem served as President of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an organization affiliated with BDS, which advocates a wide-ranging boycott of Israel.
One of the Israeli states is that Alqasem participated in a boycott of Sabra hummus, a brand owned by the Israeli food conglomerate Strauss.
""Alqasem came to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was accepted, paid money and was issued to a visa How does that fit with advocating boycott?""
– Alqasem's Attorney Yotam Ben Hillel
In an affidavit filed on Thursday, Alqasem claims that it has been in the past two years, and it does not support a boycott of Israel, pointing to its desire to study at an Israeli university as proof.
But the state was not having it.
At Thursday's session at the Tel Aviv district court, Yossi Tzadok, the state's attorney, explained that Alqasem remains a proponent of BDS based on her "clicking" attendance at SJP events, "including the post about Sabra Hummus, which was presented to the court in the form of the screenshots of her train Facebook page ..
Since Alqasem deleted her profile before arriving in Israel, Tzadok said, "we have no way of showing it as evidence."
Responding, Alqasem's attorney, Yotam Ben Hillel, asked "if someone clicks 'attending' on Facebook – does it mean she actually participated in the event? Is this the evidence you have? "
This, along with a few other Facebook posts, is pretty much what the state had.
Ben Hillel pointed out that Israel's anti-boycott law defines actionable activity as "deliberately avoiding economic, cultural and academic ties because of its association with Israel." Alqasem, he said, "came to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was accepted , paid money and was issued a visa. How does that fit with advocating boycott? The state has not answered this. "
Ben Hillel said, "which is not the case here. She invested money and time in Israel. She does not have a job to return to the United States and to this point it is too late for her to matriculate to an American academic program. "
Israel's law blocking foreign BDS activists from entering the country is passed in March, 2017.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Aryeh Dery waxed sardonic about Alqasem's possible motivation for choosing to study in Israel.
"It's about time we show some national pride," he said on a morning radio news program. "She acted against Jewish students. She remains detained as a matter of her own choice. What's the deal? Did she finally see the light emanating from Zion? Are not there universities in the United States? "
"Israel more secure. But it powerfully helps the prejudice … that Israel is a discriminatory police state."
– Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss in the New York Times
Perhaps the underscoring of the arbitration application of Israel's law, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, who spearheads the Israeli government's anti-BDS efforts, said on Wednesday that he heard Alqasem "in her own voice apologize and forsake any belief in BDS, I'd consider letting her in. "
In a highly unusual step, the united Hebrew University Alqasem's appeal. Barak Medina, the university rector, asked on Thursday, "Why is the state concerned by this 22-year-old girl? What can possibly happen? "
Alqasem's case was bolstered by Dr. Abend-David, who trained UF Hebrew professor, who wrote a letter to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz lauding his student with "an open and positive attitude toward Judaism, Jews, and the State of Israel."
Alqasem's detention has become a famous cause within Israel and abroad. Two opposition lawmakers who visited her in detention attended Thursday's short session.
The Israeli Association of University Heads expressed its opposition to Alqasem's denial of entry, claiming, in a statement signed by Tel Aviv University President Joseph Klafter that, "The damage caused to Israel and Israeli academia as a whole, to the Israeli universities particularly to Israeli scientists and researchers by Israel, "permitting Israel".
He further endorsed the ministry of strategic affairs of reneging on an agreement to "make prior contact with the host institution or researcher inviting international students or foreign scientists to Israel – before an order to detain them at the airport is issued."
Several of Alqasem's Florida professors also filed letters on her behalf with the court.
In one, Eric Kligerman, a professor of Jewish and German Studies, whose Jewish studies seminars were attended by Alqasem, wrote that "it is nothing more than the Kafkaesque. She believes that she is coming to justice, she is finding herself in limbo and is being held in custody by members of the presumed association with the BDS movement. "
In the New York Times, two right-wing columnists, Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss, semi-humorously describing themselves as "Zionist fanatics of unhinged proportions" noted that Israel is "a state that prides itself on being a liberal democracy. … If liberalism is about anything, it's about deep tolerance for opinions we find foolish, dangerous and antithetical to our own. "
"In practice," they wrote in a joint column, "expelling visitors who favor the B.D.S. If you want to make Israel more secure. But Israel is a discriminatory police state. If the Israeli government takes umbrage – and rightly so – when Israeli academics or institutions are boycotted by foreign universities, the least they could do is not replicate their illiberal behavior.
Back in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Southwest Ranches, Karen Alqasem, Lara 's mother, told the AP that "Lara' s dream of studying and getting to know the country. She may have been critical of some of Israel's policies. To her, this is not a contradiction. "
The United States embassy "is following the box," according to embassy spokesperson Valerie O'Brian, who said that American officials "have visited her and are in contact with her.
On Monday, the court ruled that Alqasem's detention will continue until a final ruling is made.
