71 Days to Go

The Slippery Slope to a Big Brother Country

By Sherwin Pomerantz

With 71 days to go before the scheduled opening of the UN General Assembly in New York and the possible vote on Palestinian statehood Israel continues to make public relations blunders giving our enemies plenty of fodder on which to feed.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote how I thought Israel was making a potentially incredibly huge blunder by opposing the flotilla to Gaza. At the time I suggested boarding the ships, checking their cargo and, if it was full of humanitarian aid as the organizers claimed, that we then escort the ships into the harbor in Gaza, with our flags flying proudly. After all, if the ships were carrying such cargo we really don’t have any objection to it getting into Gaza so why not ensure its arrival?

Well, the naval flotilla has all but disintegrated for the moment, thanks to some Mediterranean area friends. Interestingly enough, a UN report due to be issued today on the May 2010 debacle actually faults Turkey for their role in supporting last year’s flotilla as well as Israel for using excessive force. As a matter of fact the report supports Israel’s right to blockade Gaza. Will wonders ever cease?

Nevertheless, over the next 24 hours we are about to cause yet another international flap. According to press reports approximately 500 (or more) peace activists from around the world, holding valid travel documents permitting their entry into Israel (i.e. either a visa or a passport from a country where a prior-issued entry visa to Israel is not required such as the U.S.) are due to arrive at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. Their purpose in coming here will be to demonstrate in support of the Palestinian cause and the end of Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. Seems like the kind of thing that any country claiming to be the only democracy in the region would certainly permit, although not necessarily encourage.

But this is Israel 2011, a country whose democratic base is being questioned at every turn. So our government has decided that these activities should not be permitted to enter the country and as a result has taken the following actions:

• Requested airlines coming to Israel to forward their passenger manifests to Israel 48 hours before arrival so that the authorities here can scan the lists for activists.
• Those people so identified will be questioned when they arrive at the airport and, according to the papers here, will not be permitted to enter Israel and then placed on the next plane back to their point of origin.
• If the authorities here find that there is a plane with an inordinate number of such people on board, that plane will not be allowed to taxi to the terminal but will land on a distant runway and be boarded by security personnel who will then decide who stays and who is turned back. Those permitted to stay will then be bused to the terminal for processing while the others will be summarily deported.
• There will be representatives of the High Court of Justice at the airport to handle any cases where people demand to invoke the processes of the judicial system.
• Between 600-1000 extra security personal have been dispatched to the airport to assist the regular staff there to handle this operation turning the terminal into an armed fortress.
• Additional security staff will be stationed outside the terminal building itself so that if those who do get through the screen then choose to demonstrate, self-immolate or whatever, there will be staff in place to handle that.

In case any of my readers are unaware of the laws of entry into foreign countries, all countries, including the U.S., have a two tier entry system in place. Granting someone a visa to travel simply permits the person to board the plane and travel to the destination country. In the U.S., for example, the visa is issued by the Department of State. Once at passport control at the port of entry the visitor can be denied entry for any number of reasons and, in the U.S. once again, that is the purview of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Similar procedures are in place here as well.

I have no doubt that many of the arrivals here over the next few days will be turned back and I also have no doubt that the foreign press will be present at the airport in significant numbers to interview, film and distribute the footage to their respective news agencies. And then the fun will begin….wait until you see Sunday and Monday’s headlines worldwide!

And what should we have done instead? Simply apply the standard procedures this country always does with people entering the country. For sure we have security processes in place and if there are known terrorists, people who have been previously deported for illegal activity or security threats we send the people back. And those actions, similar to what most democratic countries do around the world, generally do not make headlines. But to give our enemies a public relations field day is, in my opinion, simply bad management on the part of our government. Not the first time to be sure, and, sadly, not the last either.

Martin Luther King Jr is reported to have said “Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives.” The people who are travelling here this week seem to be able to do that much better than those who make decisions for us here. How I wish that were not the case.