Just before 2pm on Sunday (which is the first day of the Israeli work week), colleagues at Ma'an News Agency in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, said that the Israeli prosecutor still had not filed charges to authorize the deportation of Jared Malsin, an American graduate of Yale University who was working as editor of Ma'an's English-language website.
Jared was detained at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport last Tuesday afternoon, and denied immediate re-entry, when he returned from a short trip to the Czech Republic that he took to renew the normal tourist visa that he had previously been given, and under which he had been functioning. Because the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO), which is part of the Prime Minister's office, does not recognize Ma'an as a news organization (a privately-owned and -operated Palestinian company), no Ma'an employee was granted an Israeli press card.
The Israeli GPO press card is required to get a journalist visa from Israel (which is, effectively, a variety of tourist visa (the Israeli journalist visa has two parts: a residency permit and a work permit) as a news organization).
A valid Israeli visa is required to enter the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Therefore, Jared and others like him have been obliged to come and go on an ordinary tourist visa.
He remains in detention for a fifth day.
Israeli interrogators at Ben Gurion Airport said in a document submitted on Thursday, when a first deportation was to have been held (but it was postponed until Sunday), that Jared should be deported for "lying".
......the Israeli security agents who interrogated Jared said that they had googled Ma'an reporting and found that it was anti-Israel, according to a report by Ma'an News Agency, which said that the lawyer it had retained to defend Jared had been given Hebrew-language transcripts of his interrogation, in which Israeli security agents stated they had "gathered online research into the journalist´s writing history, which the transcripts indicate included news stories ´criticizing the State of Israel'. Other charges initially presented by the security interrogators were that Jared had "authored articles inside the territories".
......Journalists are not the only ones facing the conundrum.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans and Europeans who are in Israel and the Palestinian territory now, working for Non-governmental or Church-affiliated organizations who have pumped millions and millions of dollars into their work here -- and who are not participating in actions that Israel deems a security threat, such as demonstrations against The Wall -- but who have had to be coached by their organizations on what to say and what not to say (in effect, to "lie"), so that they will be able to satisfy Israeli questioners at Ben Gurion airport, said one American who is well acquainted with the situation here -- because, she said, they face an unpleasant and difficult and costly deportation if they say they have anything to do with the Palestinians.
Jared's long-time girlfriend, Faith Rowold, an American volunteer for the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem who has held a valid Israeli-issued Church volunteer visa (another variety of tourist visa) for two years, according to a colleague at Ma'an, was travelling with Jared. Though her volunteer visa was normally expected to be valid for another three months, the colleague said, Faith was deported from Israel back to the Czech Republic on Thursday morning... .Full story
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