Thursday, October 16, 2014

I was deported for writing something truthful about Israel...

Turning a corner in the back of an Israeli police van, Michael Bublè’s “Home” began to blare out of the speakers. “Let me go home / I’ve had my run / Baby, I’m done / I gotta go home,” he crooned.

We both wanted to go home, Michael and I, but I’m guessing he was in a slightly better place to do so than me. I was being driven against my will – along with a bunch of illegal workers from eastern Europe – to the removal centre at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, all for the abominable error of writing about Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

It was a few hours earlier that I’d been told I was persona non grata in Israel. A stern, hard-boiled female officer had tapped her polished red nails on a keyboard in search of incriminating cyber-evidence against me. “What is this?” she barked, turning the screen in my direction. I was sure she could see a manga sweat drop falling from my forehead as I read the title of the article she was pointing at.

 “The dangers of stone throwing”, it read, my name clearly and undeniably pixellated right there, at the top of a story I’d written about Israel charging some Palestinian teenagers with attempted murder for throwing stones at a settler. My mind raced to make up a credible cover story. A namesake? A childhood mistake? A false step on my way to embracing Judaism? My cover story of spending a third holiday at my (fake) Italian cousin’s place in Haifa was beginning to unravel like the bullshit it was. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon says destruction in Gaza is 'beyond description'
  2. The crass and brutal approach used to keep Gaza mired in misery...
  3. Gaza and the 'crime of crimes'
  4. Obama blasts brutality and bullying, but not by Israel...
  5. Israel committed genocide in Gaza: EU delegation...
  6. Almost 430 kids killed in Israeli raids on Gaza...
  7. A nation of cowards...

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