BY HANK REICHMAN

In a victory for academic freedom, U.S. student Lara Alqasem, who is of Palestinian descent, will be allowed to enter Israel to study at Hebrew University after the country’s Supreme Court today accepted her appeal of the decision to prevent her entry.  Alqasem, whom the government claimed was a BDS activist based largely on her inclusion on the notorious U.S.-based Canary Mission blacklist, was held over two weeks in a detainment center at Ben-Gurion International Airport.  She was held in a closed area with little access to a telephone, no internet and a bed that was infested with bedbugs, her lawyers said.  Alqasem was a former president of the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.  She received a student visa from an Israeli consulate prior to her arrival.  Israeli academics had rallied in support of her appeal.

Lara Alqasem after Israel’s Supreme Court overturned her deportation at Ben-Gurion International Airport

In a reaction, Hebrew University said it is looking forward to “welcoming our newest student, Lara Alqasem, as she begins her M.A. in Human Rights & Transitional Justice at our law school next week.”

The decision was based on Alqasem’s public disavowal of BDS affiliation.  “Since the appellant’s actions do not raise satisfactory cause to bar her to entry to Israel, the inevitable impression is that invalidating the visa given to her was due to the political opinions she holds,” read the verdict.  “If this is truly the case, then we are talking about an extreme and dangerous step, which could lead to the crumbling of the pillars upon which democracy in Israel stands,” the verdict continued.

“Today’s hearing will address the question of whether Ms Alqasem is a BDS activist or simply an intellectually curious student who has found herself the target of politicized thought-policing,” Leora Bechor, one of Alqasem’s lawyers said in a statement ahead of her hearing yesterday.

“The Law of Entry to Israel is intended to protect the state’s sovereignty, and the public’s safety and security.  It does not have a component of penalty, or revenge for previous bad behavior,” Justice Neal Hendel said.  “Despite the obstacles in her way the appellant insists on her right to study at the Hebrew University.  This conduct is not in keeping, in an understatement, with the thesis that the she’s an undercover boycott activist,” he continued.

“The Interior Ministry has openly admitted that it does not have any evidence of the appellant’s engaging in boycott activity since April 2017, except for mysterious ‘indications’ whose essence hasn’t been clarified and regarding which no evidence has been submitted,” Hendel noted.  “The material submitted regarding the appellant’s activity in the SJP organization shows that even at that stage the boycott activity was minor and limited in character,” he added.

Justice Anat Baron added that “there was no place to deny the appellant the entry visa she had been granted, because clearly she doesn’t now and hasn’t for a long time engaged in boycotting Israel, not to mention engaging in ‘active, continuing and substantial’ work in this matter.  The decision to deny the appellant’s entry visa is unreasonable to the extent that it requires intervention.”

“Since the appellant’s deeds do not constitute sufficient cause to ban her entry to Israel, the inevitable impression is that her visa was denied due to her political views.  If this is indeed the case, then this is an extreme, dangerous step, which could lead to the crumbling of the supporting pillars on which Israeli democracy is built,” Baron said.

Justice Uzi Vogelman said that “the law was intended to ban the entry of people expected to spread the boycott doctrine during their stay in Israel…the appellant’s case does not qualify for this clause, since there’s no argument that she has ceased her activity in the SJP,” he continued.  “It appears that in the concrete circumstances of this case the appellant’s studies in the Hebrew University will help to bolster Israeli academia’s struggle against the boycott,” Vogelman concluded.

Alqasem’s attorney, Yotam Ben-Hillel, told the Israeli periodical Haaretz that the “The Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for free speech, academic freedom, and the rule of law.  Israel has the right to control its borders, but that right does not give the [sic] Ministry of Interior unchecked power to turn away anyone it deems unwanted.”  Ben-Hillel said that by taking a stand, “Lara has ensured that no one else should be denied the right to enter Israel based on sloppy Google searches and dossiers by shadowy smear groups.  We argued that the state’s decision is a gross misapplication of the law, and the Court agreed.  Lara’s case proves that thought-policing has no place in a democracy.”

It was unclear, however, whether the court would have supported the entry of an individual who does not explicitly disavow the boycott principle but does not intend to propagate those views in Israel, a description which more closely fits the situation of Columbia law professor Katherine Franke, a BDS advocate who was denied entry last spring.  Franke had stated that her visit did not involve boycott activity.  In August, AAUP’s Committee A released a letter to Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri urging revocation of that decision.  As I wrote in an op-ed piece explaining that action, the Israeli law “threatens nothing less than an academic counterboycott, as inimical or more to academic freedom as anything advocated by the BDS movement itself. . . . [T]he Israeli government’s efforts to bar scholars like Professor Franke are no less a violation of the free academic exchange essential to the growth of international scholarship and understanding than the academic boycott to which they are a misguided response.”

Minister Erdan denounced the ruling, calling it “a great victory for BDS,” adding that it nullified the law forbidding boycott activists from entering Israel.  He said the decision “attests to a lack of understanding of the modus operandi of the BDS organizations, and has harmed the State of Israel’s ability to fight boycott activists who harm all of us.”  Erdan asserted the ruling will “not loosen our grip and we will examine the necessary changes in the law and the criteria to close the aperture opened by the Supreme Court.  The principle that must be maintained is that whoever acted to harm the State of Israel and its citizens should not enter its gates.”

In an unusual move, Hebrew University, where Alqasem will now study, joined her appeal.  A university representative told the court yesterday that the university “chose to join the appeal because of the importance we place on taking in foreign students and researchers,” and raised the possibility that barring Alqasem from Israel “would play into the hands of those who claim that we are an unenlightened country.”

Yesterday the senior faculty at the university, joined by the university senate, met to discuss possible moves to protest if the Supreme Court rejected Alqasem’s appeal.  “Let’s not delude ourselves.  They’ve declared war against us – against us as an institution and what we represent,” said Prof. Tallay Ornan of the university’s archeology and art history departments.  “This is not a personal issue.  This is a declaration of war on what we are working for: to broaden knowledge, freedom of information, recognizing the other, and enlightenment.”

“Red lines have been crossed here that directly undermine the interests of the university,” said Professor David Enoch of the university’s law faculty and philosophy department.  “I myself have started to wonder whether after this affair I can in good faith invite foreign researchers to university conferences.  Now I will have to weigh whether to invite them, and they will have to weigh whether to come.  This is a serious blow to the university.”

Earlier a group of some 300 international scholars, many in Jewish Studies, published a statement in the Guardian decrying Israel’s action as “an attack on academic freedom” and calling for Alqasem to be allowed to pursue her studies at the Hebrew University.