UPDATE: Israel Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said the country might admit Alqasem if she disavows boycotting Israel, according to The Times of Israel.
Lara Alqasem is the former president of the University of Florida’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and she recently tried to gain entry to Israel, reported Haaretz. Officials apparently spoke to Lara at the airport and then forwarded her name on to the Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Ministry for “continued handling” due to “suspicion of boycott activity.” Israel has a law preventing foreign nationals who boycott the country from entering.
Airport officials received five links back from the ministry: four were from Facebook and one was from Canary Mission. Lara’s profile on Canary Mission only mentions something Lara personally did once, which was promoting the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement and instead mainly focuses on the actions of the University of Florida’s SJP chapter, of which she was a member and one-time leader.
Back in 2015, the chapter shared this article from pro-Palestinian site Electronic Intifada entitled “Video: Death-chanting Israeli mob rejoices as Palestinian teen is executed.” The Palestinian teen was Fadi Alloun, who had posted “either martyrdom or victory” on Facebook and then, hours later, allegedly stabbed an Israeli teenager. The group also shared this article: “Israeli settler shoots, kills teenage Palestinian boy in Hebron” with the caption “Free Palestine.” The 18-year-old was allegedly shot while attempting to stab an Israeli.
The University of Florida’s SJP chapter had a protest and hunger strike back in 2013 in support of Samer Issawi, a member of the communist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine who got 26 years in prison for building and disseminating bombs, as well as firing on Israeli police and civilians.
The group also supported Rasmea Odeh, part of the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the brains behind a 1969 bombing that resulted in the deaths of two college students in Jerusalem.
So back to Lara. The woman has Palestinian grandparents and got denied entry to Israel, but countries do have ultimate control over whomever they wish to admit and Israel isn’t the only country that does it. Heck, Katie Hopkins is banned from South Africa! Let me know what you guys think in the comments below.
Thieves at the University of Florida took issue with a banner that said “build the wall!” according to Campus Reform. Of course, the reasonable response to seeing a sign with which you disagree isn’t to stop and have a calm conversation with its makers — no, no — it’s to steal someone’s property.
You heard it here first, folks. Ripping down someone’s property — which they got a permit from the university to display, by the way — and then stealing it is just another type of free speech. And these conservative students didn’t just have their “build the wall!” banner stolen once. Just hours beforehand, on the same day, it happened again.
The University of Florida conservatives followed one thief and her friend onto a bus when the friend tried physically to block one of the conservatives from getting on to the bus.
I’m not sure you get to do that and then complain when someone tries to access that utility. Honestly, the petulance here is just astounding. You can probably go around playgrounds and see kids blocking the slides. People comfort boomers by saying stuff like 60 is the new 45 but this also apparently means that 20-year-olds are the new five-year-olds.
