Ohio Professor Remains Detained in Israel

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-professor-detained,0,4567410.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

An Ohio college professor remained in an Israeli jail on Thursday, 12 days after he was arrested on unspecified charges, his family said.

Israeli officials confirmed that Ghazi Falah, 53, an Arab Israeli geography professor at the University of Akron, was detained July 8, but declined comment on the specifics of his case. Falah's family in Wadsworth, Ohio, said he was still being detained.

Shahar Shelef, consul for Israel in Philadelphia, said an Israeli judge's gag order prohibited him from commenting on the nature of Falah's arrest. Israeli law allows such orders in cases that affect national security, Shelef said, and people detained for this reason can be denied access to a lawyer for up to 21 days in some cases.

Falah's wife, Jamila, 45, said her husband was arrested after taking photographs on a tourist beach near Nahariya, and was taken to a jail in Haifa. She said he was given a hearing before a magistrate Sunday, but his lawyer, Hussen abu-Hussen, was not allowed to enter the courtroom, to speak with Falah or to learn of the charges against him.

[cali]

1. Troubling-

to say the least. Not being allowed to be represented by a lawyer in a hearing is screwed up.

[CuteNFuzzy]

8. We better bomb Israel

I mean, they've got one of our guys and won't give him back!

Should we take out bridges first? Electricity?

[AnOhioan]

12. Thank you for a good post.

Some on here DU I expect to immediately call for sustained bombing. It would seem only fair. Not that there are any hypocrites here.

[ShortnFiery]

2. Like Bush Co, Israel can hold this poor man forever without charging.

What a grand democracy we BOTH live in, aye?

[MrPrax]

3. Another kidnapping eom

[theanarch]

4. a geography professor?

Gee, i wonder what made him such a security threat. Maybe he was trying to determine where Israel's national borders are...(for those who don't get it, Israel is the only country on the planet that refuses to define its borders; doing so would mean the end of annexation and colonization of what "back in the day" was "Greater Judea and Samarra").

[Lisa]

5. us geographers are notorious troublemakers!

Remember that FBI warning about people wandering around looking at city landmarks, who have atlases or almanacs? I pointed out to my urban geography class that they would fall under this heading!

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning."

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/12/29/fbi.almanacs.ap/

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kolesar]

6. Beacon-Journ:He has written and studied widely about the borders of Israel

Ghazi Falah was in Israel to visit his ailing mother on July 7 when he took a side trip to take photos at a tourist area about two miles from the Lebanese border, according to his family, which lives in Wadsworth.

He was taken into custody by Israeli police and has been detained since then in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. The Falah family has not spoken to him since he was detained.

Falah, 53, is a tenured professor at UA who is known as a specialist in Mideast geography, Bedouin settlements and urban geography, with strong feelings about the Mideast issues.

He has written and studied widely about the borders of Israel and of those of a potential Palestinian state.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15063076.htm

The Akron Beacon Journal has three stories up
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/search/search_results.htm?pubName=ohio&orderBy=date&pageStart=1&sitesToSearch=ohio%2Cbeaconjournal%2Crealcities&pageSize=10&fieldsToSearch=HEADLINE%2CFORSEARCH%2CLEAD%2CBYLINE&queryType=all&searchSelect=article&query=Ghazi+Falah

[iverglas]

7. I got caught taking pictures of a beach in Cuba

Actually, I was snapping the Havana Harbour skyline from a vantage point several miles away, on my bike ride to a beach down the coast. I'd forgotten that taking pictures of the Harbour actually wasn't allowed. (For reasonable reasons: its use for military purposes, strategic info that could be deduced from ship movements, etc.)

Where I went really wrong, though, was that as I wandered off the road to frame my picture, I neglected to notice that between me and the harbour there was a military encampment -- right in front of me. Until a soldier dashed out and requested that I accompany him into one of the tents.

I got taken to see the colonel in charge -- a dashing figure, black eye patch and all. I acted stupid ... which didn't take much effort ... and handed him my letter introducing me as a lefty lawyer from Canada. And snivelled that my camera had all the Christmas photos of the family I was visiting in Havana. He wagged his finger as he explained he had to do ("una medida", the kind of circumlocution that Romance language speakers are fond of but that I couldn't figure out for the life of me at the time: a "measure"), handed the camera back to me, chatted as we filled out some forms (occupation as filled out by him: "abogada socialista", upon seeing which I gathered I was cool), and said "on your bike", basically.

All that is not to say that it is inconceivable that a geography professor was more than he appeared to be, and was taking photos of things he shouldn't have been taking photos of, and that states don't sometimes reasons for those rules and good reasons for not releasing info about people alleged to have broken them.

I just think it's kinda funny that big bad Cuba wagged its finger at me for taking pictures of military facilities and sent me on my way.

[Scurrilous]

9. Canadian-Israeli prof. arrested on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah

<snip>

"A Canadian-Israeli professor has been held by Israeli authorities for 18 days without access to a lawyer, on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence agents.

A gag order on the case was lifted Wednesday after Haaretz appealed to Nazareth Magistrates Court.

Professor Ghazi Falah was arrested while touring the Rosh Hanikra area, on July 8, four days before the outbreak of the current conflict in Lebanon."

<snip>

"Before Wednesday, Falah had not been permitted to speak to his lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein. The police and the Shin Bet security service repeatedly refused to lift the gag order placed on this case, despite wide publicity in media sources in Canada, U.S., and Britain.

According to security officials, Falah is suspected of "spying for hostile sources, with the goal of harming state security," in reference to his alleged connections with Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence.

They said Falah was allegedly sent by Hezbollah and Iran to various locations to photograph and report where rockets have landed in Israel."

more

[Moderator]

11. Kick

story at link has been updated