Israel deports Palestinian-American writer in travel row
A Palestinian-American writer was forced to miss a highprofile West Bank literature festival after being denied entry to Israel.
Novelist Susan Abulhawa was to have been an important speaker at the event in Ramallah but was stopped at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv on Thursday, Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority said.
The Israeli authorities claimed Abulhawa was told she needed to arrange permission in advance to travel to Israel after being barred from the country in 2015.
Abulhawa is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which promotes non-violent punitive measures against Israel for its breaches of international law.
Last year Israel brought in a law prohibiting entry to foreign supporters of the movement.
Abulhawa had been travelling to the Kalimat Palestinian Literature Festival, which is sponsored in part by the British Council and the Kenyon Institute research group.
Both offered support to Abulhawa during her detention. She initially challenged the deportation order and was scheduled to see a judge on Friday evening.
The judge asked her lawyer whether her participation was essential to the festival, Mondoweiss
reported. He was told that the festival was “dependent in great part on her being there”.
But Abulhawa was deported on a return flight to the US.
“For a conference on Palestinian literature to take place without the participation of a foremost, internationally recognised Palestinian author is a travesty and a suppression of Palestinian culture,” her friend Linda Hanna wrote on Abulhawa’s Facebook account.
Abulhawa’s critically acclaimed 2010 debut novel
Mornings in Jenin, a sweeping multi-generational family saga, was the first major work in English to explore life in Palestine after 1948.
It became an international best-seller and was translated into 28 languages.
Abulhawa is also the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a non-government organisation that lobbies on behalf of Palestinian children.