In the Northern Star of Northern Illinois U., Alex Ketay offers the most cogent defense of Israeli restrictions on travel visas for Arab-Americans:
CNN.com’s recent headline, “U.S. to Israel: Ease up on Arab-Americans,” caught my eye. According to the report published on Oct. 19, the U.S. Department of State made a complaint to the Israeli government in regard to its treatment of Arab-Americans that were traveling to Palestine. While fair treatment of American citizens is a concern, how can we be sure that these people are not a security threat? The fact is we don’t know, and neither does Israel.
Take, for example, the tragic case of Rachel Corrie. According to an initial report from honestreporting.com, she was an American college student and peace activist recruited by the International Solidarity Movement to actively stand against Israel’s demolition of the Rafah area. Before her trip to Israel, she was already passionately anti-American and anti-Israel. In fact, one of her most notorious pictures is one of her burning an American flag.
Her trip to the Gaza Strip in March 2003 proved to be fatal. According to information found on honestreporting.com, she was crushed by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer.
While Corrie was not an Arab, she was an American who went to Israel to actively disrupt Israeli anti-terrorist operations. Perhaps if rules were stricter, she wouldn’t have met an untimely death.
UPDATE Oct. 29: The Daily Telegraph reports Israel is backing down in the face of US pressure.
