© ISMPalestinian protester stands in front of an Israeli army Jeep at a demonstration in the West Bank town of Ni'lin. Photograph was taken by a volunteer with the ISM, a group whose foreign members could face deportation after Israel's Public Security Minister announced a task force to remove pro-BDS activists from the country.
Israel will soon search for, deport, and prevent the entry of international activists involved in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, based on intelligence provided in part by hotline tips to a task force, said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan Sunday.
The program was announced on the minister's
Facebook page with a see-something-say-something statement."If you have information about someone pretending to be a tourist who is actually staying in Israel as a boycott activist," Erdan said, "tell us about it and we will remove him from the country."
Recommendations for who to deport will be under the purview of "a joint team which will operate to expel and prevent the entry of boycott activists to Israel," Erdan said. The group will comb through intelligence files and solicit tips on foreign visitors to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory who "are working here to incite and inflame, to collect information on Israel and then distort it and use it abroad to promote boycotts against Israel," Erdan said, adding, "Does this sound reasonable to you? Of course not."
While
the program is likely to be far-reaching in data collection on the whereabouts of internationals involved with pro-Palestinian human rights groups, only a fraction will be issued notices to leave, according to an unnamed source close to the ministers
who spoke to Haaretz.
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Russian site Politnavigator reports: