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JERUSALEM (JTA) – An American-Palestinian writer, Susan Abulhawa, was arrested at the Israeli airport Ben Gurion and was deported.
Abulhawa, author of the novel "Mornings in Jenin", arrived in Israel Thursday to participate in the Palestinian literature festival in Kalimat, which is being held this week in Jerusalem, Haifa and around the West Bank.
She was sent back to the United States Friday after appealing the order with the help of a British lawyer. The festival is co-sponsored by the British Council.
The Israeli Immigration Administration told the local press that Bulhawa had not been prevented from returning because of his involvement in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement against Israel, as was the case high-profile business.
Instead, she was denied entry following a 2015 incident in which she had refused to answer questions from security personnel when she had attempted to do anything. enter Israel through Jordan. According to the immigration authorities, she had then been told that the next time she planned to visit Israel, she should coordinate her entry in advance, which she did not know. Did not do it.
Abulhawa disagreed with this description in an article on Facebook, which she read remotely for the Palestinian Literature Festival in Kalimat.
She said in her message that she responded civilly to all the questions she was asked at the border in 2015. She became uncivilized only when she was denied entry.
"What I said in 2015 to my interrogators, and which was also reported to Haaretz at the time, is that they should be the ones who will leave, not me. that I am a daughter of this country and that nothing will change that; that my own direct story is rooted in the country and that there is no way out; that although they invoke Zionist mythological tales, they can never claim such a personal family line, as much as they would like it. "
She also wrote in her statement: "It pains me that we can meet anywhere in the world, except in Palestine, the place we belong to, from where our stories emerge and where all our turns succeed. We can not meet on a soil fertilized for millennia by the bodies of our ancestors and watered by the tears and blood of the sons and daughters of Palestine who fight every day for her, "she also said. written.
The detention concerns an American student, Lara Alqasem, of Palestinian origin, who was held at Ben Gurion airport for two weeks. She appealed the decision to let her enter and study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, while she was provided with a valid visa. group that supports BDS.
