When it comes to racist border policies, Israel has no leg to stand on
http://972mag.com/when-it-comes-to-racist-border-policies-israel-has-no-leg-to-stand-on/89134/
I will spare you the details of the interrogation, as I have written about them here, here and here. Let’s just say that journalist or no journalist, U.S. citizen or no U.S. citizen, I am a few shades too brown for the only democracy in the Middle East.
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Like Michael Wilner, I was most likely denied entry based on my racial and religious background or affiliation with a certain looked-down-upon nation (in my case Palestine, in his case Israel). Both Saudi Arabia and Israel are renown for doing this. Saudi Arabia gives preferential treatment to Muslim foreign visitors, and has denied entry to Americans based on religion and nationality in the past.
Unlike Michael Wilner, I am not a unique case. I am one of many Arab- and Muslim-Americans who are denied entry to Israel, and by effect of Israel controlling the borders of occupied Palestine, to Palestine.
Unlike Michael Wilner, I had no outrage from the State Department or support from the White House. From other people’s experiences, I know that if I had called the United States Embassy or State Department, they would have asked if I was Jewish, and when I replied no, would not have helped me. While a U.S. citizen abusively detained in Syria, Lebanon or Iran would have elicited handwringing sympathy and condemnations of the cruelty of barbaric, western civilization-destroying regimes, my U.S.-born, slightly-too-brown-for-Israel self being interrogated, denied entry and deported with multiple police escorts is merely enforcing national security.