Lawyer for Lara Alqasem, who is being held at airport, says she just wants to study in Israel

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A 22-year-old American student who has been held for a week at an Israeli airport accused of supporting a pro-Palestinian boycott campaign has become the focus of a debate around the country’s growing intolerance of critics.

Lara Alqasem, a US citizen with Palestinian grandparents, arrived at Ben-Gurion airport last week with a valid student visa, but authorities barred her from entering and ordered her deportation.

An immigration authority spokeswoman, Sabine Haddad, said late on Tuesday that Alqasem would contest the ban in court.

“She can fly back to the United States whenever she likes,” Haddad said. “She decided to appeal and is being held in the facility for those refused entry,” she added. No date was given for the hearing.

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While free speech is broadly protected in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration and its parliamentary allies have waged a campaign against domestic and international critics.

Last year, parliament passed a law banning entry into Israel for those who support the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, echoing measures against South Africa during the apartheid era.

The prime minister has tasked the ministry of strategic affairs and public diplomacy to lead the fight against BDS, which Israel sees as a strategic threat, particularly as it has grown in popularity among university students.

Alqasem is the former president of the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The group is aligned with the BDS movement, which holds among its demands an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

“We work to prevent the entry of those who promote the antisemitic BDS campaign,” said the strategic affairs minister, Gilad Erdan. “We’ll continue to expose the lies of the BDS, including regarding the prevention of entry of those who promote it.”

However, Alqasem has argued that she never actively took part in boycott efforts. “We’re talking about someone who simply wants to study in Israel, who is not boycotting anything,” said her lawyer, Yotam Ben-Hillel. “She’s not even part of the student organisation anymore.”

Her former Hebrew teacher at the University of Florida described Alqasem as an open-minded and curious student who had a “positive attitude toward Judaism, Jews, and the state of Israel”. Alqasem had registered to study a master’s degree in human rights at Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which has said it would support her appeal.

A number of vocal Jewish critics without BDS links have also been detained and interrogated about their political views while entering the country this year. And in July, parliament passed a law that allowed for a ban of groups critical of the armed forces or the state from entering schools and speaking to students.

Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to this report